County Council - Regular Meeting

I'm gonna call the June 10, 2026 meeting in order. We're gonna start with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence. All right, we'll begin with the CF1 approvals. Nicole, if you could please come forward.

Good morning, Council.

Good morning. Good morning, Nicole.

In front of you, I have all of the CF1s that have been submitted to date. And I highlighted all the ones that I kind of felt like we needed to talk about. So I don't know how you just may go... each one okay so number one foam craft the reason why i highlighted that one is they turned in their cf1 late it was postmarked the 21st all cf1s are due may 15th also they did not turn in their personal property cf1 as well so i really feel like that we should not grant them compliancy on that one but that's your call of what you would like to do the next one or you guys want to discuss nicole are they paying all their taxes yes every single one of these that i've highlighted they have paid their spring installment there's no back taxes on any of these

Okay, still getting the abatement to reduce that tax amount. Correct. So it's an adjusted amount based on filings that we do not have.

Correct. Well, well, they're filing for next year. So this filing is for 26 page 27. But yeah, referencing that personal property. Yes. Yeah.

They get foam craft has a personal property abatement.

They do. Yes.

uh do we want her to go through the whole list before we review and discuss the ordered yeah i think i think it's been smoother last time if we just have to go through the list real quick and then

I don't think any of us can really say anything about the ones not highlighted, so I believe those are going to be approved. We'll just go through the ones that are highlighted.

Okay. All right. Number three. Also, I kind of want to reference, I did pass out a map that kind of shows the empty warehouses. So I highlighted all those warehouses are in red. I worked with John Milburn in the surveyor's office, and he was able to make this nice map. He's really good at his maps. So referencing number three, the CIA. Park 70 Partners, which is on your map. They said that they were going to have 30 employees. They reported no employees. Last year they had 35. I kind of went through history on that one. I didn't type it out on here. It was kind of all over the place, but majority of the time they have always been above their SB1, so we've never had any issues with them except for this year. There's no employees, so I wanted that one noted.

Are they closed?

I have no idea. I don't know.

Nicole, generally speaking, can you refresh my memory? If we do send a letter of noncompliance, was there like a 30-day window? Is that... If we didn't hear people till August because of the budget, is that allowable, the timeline?

From what I understand, that is fine because we have to make some sort of ruling on the CF1 that they sent in. We have 45 days from the submission of the CF1 to make some sort of ruling on it. If you don't, then it's automatically granted compliancy. So if I can send those letters out, and we did this last year and years before where I've sent letters out in June for an August meeting. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

so is that is that a tenant building is that not owner occupied correct i i don't know i don't know any of that i don't know so we don't know if anybody's even in there i don't and the company is paying the taxes but they're all receiving the abatement yes okay and they are in year seven of ten okay

All right, number six, Chill Pharma, Ambrose number two. They said they were gonna have 125 employees. They reported no employees. Last year's filing, they had 42. So, I mean, it looks like they've had them, but I don't know. have spoken to you know a lot of these CF1s I get from financial advisors and sometimes they don't get the information from the people that are in these buildings that I've talked I've been talking to a guy they're actually going to be presenting today that they just weren't getting the information that they were requesting but they have a deadline to turn in the CF1 so they just turn in the CF1 so that's kind of what I'm getting If we want to go to page two, Mount Comfort Zone True Fabrications, really the only reason why I highlighted that one is just the mere fact that they said they were going to have 93 employees. They reported 73. Last year's filing, they had 114. So I just kind of want to, I mean, there are pretty much two reasons or three reasons why I would highlight anything. They didn't report employees. The employees were less than SB1. Or they filed late. That would be my kind of primary reasons. Or if they're not paying their taxes, I would highlight that as well. But this one, I just wanted to note it, that they were less than their SB1.

They are. I mean, I do believe they are.

Yeah, I think they are. Yes. Yeah.

Which makes a difference to me. Yeah.

Number nine, Greenfield Distribution Holding. Again, that one they said they were going to have 24 employees. They reported 20. Their salaries are higher than, you know, what their SP1 was, but again, I always look at employee count. Last year they said they only had 10. Number 12, 70 Connect 3. This is the one that I've been dealing with a financial advisor, and he stated that know having issues and trying to get information i think that's them but uh sb1 270 employees they have filed no employees and they have been consistently not they've had no employees since they've built the building back in 23 paid 24 is when it went on our tax rolls for the building they have had no employees and they have been coming in front of council since 23 paid 24 to let you know what's been going on Page number 3, number 18, Exeter, Mount Comfort Land, also known as Mount Comfort Buyback. Again, no employees. They said that they were going to have 56, and there was no employees reported. And every year they have had no employees, Council hasn't requested their presence. So I you know, I just let you know that they haven't had any and they're in year four of ten Also, I didn't explain earlier but I did know their abated amounts over the years and how much taxes they have been paying so you guys have an idea of You know how much that has been abated and what they've been paying So now number 21 This one is just less employees. So they said they're gonna have 40 and this year they reported 33. Last year's filing, they had 49. I've never had any issues with them, but just wanted, I think it's owner occupied as well, but I'm just letting you know about that, the low employee count. Page number four, number 23, 5935 Enterprise LLC. Their SB1 stated that they would have 26 employees. They said they have 19. Last year's filing was 35. And I think in previous years, I've never had any issues with them as well, but just notating that it's less than their SB1. Number 25, 6817 Greenfield, LLC. I don't feel like this is a big one, but it is less than the SB1. They said they would have 500 employees. This year they reported 462. Last year they reported 450, but again, it's less than the SB1. uh number 26 amazon.com services which is also known as redrock i do know that amazon has recent did purchase redrock back in september of last year i did speak with kayla yesterday regarding this she said that they have permits pulled of them adding a bunch of different stuff to their building so i think they're work in progress to get employees but again they don't have any employees and also the other part to this too is i had four businesses that were on for the eda payments gdi let's see here so i had gdi redrock vtre and 70 connect 3. redrock which is who we're speaking about right now they did not make their eda spring installment payment so i do want that noted that it wasn't paid

Nicole, wait just a second. You said that Red Rock did not make their payment?

Correct.

Let me make a note here. Okay. It's 26D. How much was it?

For the whole year, it was $52,077.16. And just divide that in half because they'll do half spring, half fall.

And they've not made the last two payments or?

Well, it would just be the spring installment they have not made. Because with any EDAs, I mail them out a letter one time a year and it's usually around like April 1st of April and I let them know that half is due at their spring installment when normal taxes are due and the other half is due in November.

And did they respond at all?

No, I've had no response from them. The only response was just submission of the CF1.

Do you typically send them a letter then reminding them again or just telling them it's delinquent?

I do not. No, I've not sent out anything. I wanted to present their CF1 first and get guidance from council to let me know how to proceed. Thanks.

Okay, so that's the CF1s. Let's get the ones that look like they're all good. Get a motion on them. Numbers 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, and 27. I'll make a motion to approve the line items listed by President Wildridge. Second. All right, I have a motion and a second on the table. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. All right, the other one I wanted to point out is, and I'm figuring these can go together, is 7, 9, 21, and 23. These all have less employees but more salary. So I will lean on the guidance of those that probably did these abatements before, what they think.

Well, you know, my thought was, I looked up the laws again about all this, and it says if they're violating, it's a substantial violation. So I thought about those. Is that a substantial violation or not? Since they have higher salaries, but...

I would say they're being part of what you agreed to, yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I am... I still believe I've been consistent on this, that if you are paying higher salaries on a somewhat smaller headcount, I am OK with that. You know, there's been a ton of inflation since these abatements were approved and more technologies. And so as long as they they have salaries in excess of what they said, I'm agreeable with that.

Well, as somebody that runs the business, I don't think we understand how hard it is to guess.

Yeah, yes.

How many employees your company actually is going to have to have as years go on to be profitable and what the market does to your company. It's not anywhere near an exact science and it's amazing that some of them are even as close as they are. The one that was 500 and they have 462. I can't imagine

know how hard it is to to manage that they might have 30 open positions they can't fill right now absolutely there's something happening all the time that would that would be number 25. and as long as they're paying their taxes that's what we really are interested in yeah is not that

Abstract from what they originally estimated. And again, you got to remember when they do that, that's an estimate when it says 500, it doesn't mean in stone 500. that's their estimate. So, if we're in a range on what we consider a close number. Yeah, I think it's good.

All right, can I get a, is there a motion on the table then for, it sounds like 7, 9, 21, 23, and then Kent, you said 25 also because that's... Yes. Okay. Yes.

Did you make a motion?

Yeah, I'll second it. No, you go ahead.

All right, I have a motion by Mr. Fisk, a second by Ms. Lowder to approve 7, 9, 21, 23, and 25 as presented. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. All right, let's go to number one because that one's unique. uh because they didn't turn in the the document and they post they came late um how does the council feel on that so this is their last year correct okay so even if you tried to the year's going to be gone

Yeah. So what you would be approving would be the real property CF1, not the personal property.

Right. And on the 10th year, it's the lowest of all the options. So, I mean, I think it's a, at this point, it's probably not conducive for us to. Spend 3 or 4 months chasing him.

Yeah, they're only highlighted because they're filing showed up 6 days late right there. Otherwise they're not.

And then I'm going to personal property.

Yes, that was kind of my 2. yeah.

Yeah, but it's 10 of 10. I would if they would like to be emotional. I move we go ahead and approve foam crap just for the logistics of the thing.

Is that a little discussion before? Is that personal property also your 10 of 10?

Yes.

Okay. All right. So that's exactly what you're saying.

Okay. And we'll be addressing that separately.

Yes. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed same sign. All right. Motion carries.

I opposed.

One opposed.

Only because They're required to policy F1. I don't care if it is the 10th year or the first year. Just do the paperwork. You know, just do the paperwork work. We've been very generous with these and granting these and they are very good about coming in and selling it to us as to what they want. Do the paperwork.

All right. Motion carries 61. I think we would care if we're done number one, then we have. The no employees ones are 336, 12, 18, and 26, which has a separate problem with the EDA payment. Do we just want to do what we did last month and bring them in?

Yeah, we would send them a letter of noncompliance for that, right? So I'll make a motion on the line items that President Wildridge just mentioned to send a letter of noncompliance.

Let's try it again. 3, 6, 12, 18, and 26. All right, I have a motion. Do I have a second?

What's the motion?

The motion is to send all of them a letter noncompliance. They have no employees noncompliance.

They'll have to attend next.

Well, August 1st, you have sent them a letter already. No, no, no. This will be their 1st contact.

Yes, of course.

A point are we saying to them to come in and explain why they are not in compliance? We're not saying they are out of compliance.

We're not taking away their abatement, but we're telling them they have to come in in August and explain the situation. I think she usually asks them.

So I have a motion by Ms. Butcher and a second by Mr. Shelby. that the numbers I mentioned earlier will be non-compliant. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

Okay.

Is there anything on the personal property CF1s, I think on page five?

Yeah, so that's what my next step was. I did receive three personal property filings for county CMC, Walmart, and Suda. I spoke with Michelle in the assessor's office. She said that these three were all in compliance. So I just need a motion to mark that they are in compliance.

Make a motion that these three, one, two, and three under personal property are compliant. Second.

All right, I have a motion and a second to approve the ones listed one, two, and three under personal property CF1s being compliant. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

Aye.

All those against, same sign. Motion carries.

Okay, the next one is my non-compliant. I have 10 CF1s varying from personal and real. I'm just going to send them a letter. I just wanted you guys to know that there were 10 that were non-compliant, so I'll be sending them a letter. One of them is the GDI building number four, which was purchased by Walmart, I think, last year. They did not turn in a CF1. They did pay their EDA payment, but they were sending emails to Scott because the problem with GDI number four was they approved an abatement schedule on their EDA, but it did not, it was not the same schedule that was on their confirming resolution. And so they had an issue with that because they said that then per Scott, we had to go off the confirming resolution to base our EDA payments. Well, if we do that, they're not gonna pay more in taxes if, if they if they still had the abatement so i don't know i'm just giving you kind of heads up of what could conspire i don't know if they're going to come in and talk to you about that but the last i heard we just told them that they needed to contact either council or commissioners and scott to see what needs to be done to get that taken care of i remember when that all kind of came about and uh yes the eda was negotiated

And it was decided that the confirming resolution prompt verbiage just written in the EDA. So yes, I would assume that they.

need to follow up on that or they're going to need to pay based on the resolution correct yeah i i don't know for sure that it's this property because gdi does have more than one but gdi was the very first eda negotiated so it would not surprise me if this was part of that this is guinea pig transaction yeah yeah as

When all this transpired and then we have people purchasing other buildings and we have everything, we're going to have to be a little flexible on the paperwork and how it goes and everything. It's not the end of the world that there's going to be situations come up we didn't foresee. Right. It's not a perfect world.

So, Nicole, these 10 are a mix, you say, of real property and personal property.

Mm-hmm. these are ones that we voted on already to send a letter of non-compliance or no i'm i mean i don't think it did i mean i don't think they just didn't file and they didn't file anything at all so yeah so i was just pretty much going to be sending them a letter after this meeting to let them know that they did not file their cf1 and then Try to schedule a time for them in August.

Do you need a motion for that?

I don't know. I don't think so. And then the last thing was just the empty buildings. I just want it noted in the map that John created. And then if we go to page six, we're going to then go into people that are here that I presented their CF1's last meeting, and then you guys wanted them to come back. And so the first person that I have coming up would be a representative from 70 Connect 2. Just kind of a back history on this. Their SV1 said they would have 270 employees. They submitted 18. It was also low at last year's submission as well. They did tell me that they were having issues with the representative from the tenant telling them how much their account was. They're in year 510. They have the abatement fee. I noted the years of the abated amounts, the taxes they paid, and then just noted that they were part of the EDAs, but they don't have payments. We actually gave them a forgivable loan. and how much that loan was. So if there's a representative from 70 Connect 2 here.

Morning. Morning, everyone. This is my first time doing this, so I apologize. So I'm not with 70 Connect 2, I'm with USEN. So I don't know all the information. What I was informed of was the location with the address of 7383 West County Road, 350 North. I don't know if there's multiple locations. Yeah, so that's the thing. So 70 Connect 2 newly purchased this facility. So that's the only one I can speak to. And so that's the CF1 data we provided to them for our facility. Our facility, I think we reported to them because we weren't sure if it was to include full-time USIN and temp associates as far as total people in our building. And I'm open to that. What is the answer for that that you guys are looking for? Total employees in the building or is it supposed to be USIN specific?

Let me pause there so you're in 70 connect to your antenna or your representative tenant you are Show up okay in this building Nicole is 70 connect 3.

It's not the same building he occupies or it is Okay When 70 connect to came in they said they're gonna build spec warehouse, I don't know who the tenants are I mean, we, for the CF1, we, the whole entire account, all the employees are inside that.

Yeah, including temp. Do you have with you how many people are employed in your building?

In our building, currently 37. Last year, the information we gave back to 70 Connect was 18 at the end of the year because we only gave them total use and associates. And our headcount can fluctuate like you guys were talking about. But typically we're in the 25 to 30 range, but we're currently at 35. Use in logistics, Y-U-S-E-N. I believe we've been a tenant at that site for four years now. I've only been in the company a year myself.

Are you the only tenant in the building? In that building, yes. Is there any other empty space in that building that you're aware of? No. So the entire building? Yes. Okay.

Do you have a lot of machinery? Do you know if you have a personal property abatement on equipment?

Um, like forklifts mainly.

Okay.

Yeah.

Do you guys ever foresee hitting 270 employees? No, no.

So we actually have another building, but 70 connect to only purchase this building. And that one's only got like 12 to 15. So our business isn't that labor intensive.

And then how much, I know we added to 37 employees. How much is the total size? Do you know what the total salaries you pay out in a year to everyone?

I have enough information. So last year, total indirect and direct labor was 1.78 million. And this year we see us trending at 1.9. Okay. That's sufficient.

Do you have a lot of semis coming and going from your business?

Yeah, 30 or so a day. Okay.

What I see is a 70 connect came in, asked for building estimated. If we lease it, this is how many people were expecting to be employed by the company that's going to lease our building. And then time passes. And then, uh, this gentleman comes in and says, I'm going to leave your building, but I only employ X number of people. I don't employ the number that you estimated on your SB one to qualify for your abatement. So this gentleman is doing his part. They are not receiving an abatement. He is paying his taxes on his personal property as other companies do. So the question to me is whether or not. 70 connect to over sold their. Employee count and salaries at the time of the abatement, or it was just a. dart on a dartboard that this is what we'd love to see but until it's actually leased nobody knows the answer to those questions on spec buildings they could employ a hundred more than what they estimated on their application you just don't know and that's the the problem with spec is it's it's spec it's just speculative and you cannot foresee what the exact numbers are, even if maybe sometimes the range is going to be. So it's whether or not the council can continue to feel comfortable inspecting all these, not meeting what their SB1 says. How long is your lease through?

I don't have that information. I apologize. I want to say we're maybe halfway through the lease, but I'm not sure.

Okay. And is your rental rate locked in for the duration of your lease or is there a cap on how much your rent can inflate year over year?

I believe it increases every year, but I don't know if it caps. Okay.

Just out of curiosity, because we often ask this, how many employees or even yourself live in Hancock County?

For Houston? Yeah. Live in Hancock? I don't know that. I would assume a good chunk of ours probably come in from the east side of Indianapolis, Marion County.

This guy is like 70.

Of course, we really haven't had this happen much, but I think if you look back at the other 70 connect, I think it's, it's isolated to 70 connect. Because if you look at their estimate for the other spec building, they build, it's exactly the same 279 and 9 and a half. Million dollars, so when they filled out the paperwork back then, they just assumed every building they have would have the same employees in the same. It was just a. it was just a wag i know and and when you look at it the um you know you look at this building how much they're paying the taxes you compare it to ones we've already approved he's very similar in terms of employees um it's not like he's way low way higher but i mean if you look at the other 26 i mean everybody's not too far off except the ones that that for some reason aren't telling us to have any employees or whatever but i mean everybody's so every it just seems like to me whoever 70 connect was using at the time.

And in a way the fewer employees are good for us today because we have such a low unemployment rate as long as they're paying their taxes and

pay well why aren't we i really appreciate that they they sent you the tent just so you can explain more to us um very appreciative of that um i hope everyone does that in the future um that we can because because it's nice to hear what's going on in there we don't sometimes we get tours of some of the buildings sometimes we don't so i'm sure it's good to know what's going on and and to hear about it so yeah it's not your fault but yeah i can only speak to that building so and i'll let them know they're looking for a total account thank you all right we have to uh vote whether to um to uh that he's in compliance or non-compliance

uh yeah i mean i think there's two schools of thought here and i mean i'd be interested in what the will of the rest of the council is if uh one thing i was going to consider is if a developer had two buildings and one of them looked non-compliant but they had overcompensated in their other building and that was just the way the they ended up but this is the same developer who we're going to have in for no employees

in their other building so you know that wasn't the answer clark you have any thoughts i mean i have a lot of questions just i'd like to know more about just the business structure the what the just how it all looks under the surface and how this plays in and then you know, would use to never be interested in purchasing the building becoming, you know, more of a partner in Hancock County versus the speculative developers. But that's most of it's outside the scope of this conversation.

We've only done we've only had this happen once. I feel like I got duped. We only happened really once. It was much more violent than this. The battery people said they would have 1000 people and they had 30 and we pulled their We pulled their tax abatement.

But waited a long time before it got pulled.

But this is the first time. That's why I said none of these other vendors have been this far off or had just give us false information. I don't know.

at the time how they derived the 270 number was it an industry scenario or something well and if you can't if you remember we insisted even if suspect building that we wanted this information and then like i said last time was then one of the companies said you have to realize that somebody else is guessing they don't even know who's coming and you know they're just guessing what it's going to be so um you know that that's on us a little bit because we insisted that they'd fill that in and they told us that it's just a guess we don't really know well i say thank god we did because otherwise the benchmark was zero

You know, here's your abatement and you don't have to do a thing. We're not asking a thing of you. So I'm glad we made people give an estimate.

Yeah, but everybody else guessed pretty well. I mean, you can go down the thing, 40 and they have 33 or, you know, and then 40 and some have 83. It wasn't somebody said, oh, we're going to have 500 employees and they have...

Did one of you say that two of their abatement, or two of their CF1s for two different locations had exact same numbers?

Yes, 70 Connect 3, 70 Connect. Number 12 on your list is 70 Connect 3. Yeah.

I guess the pressing question I would like answered for this conversation is, other than the taxes that 70 Connect 2 pay, i would like to know what the economic impact hancock county that use and provides above and beyond now i doubt anyone has that answer if you haven't spit it out but i'm guessing you don't uh so i just look to the you know a lot of times decisions are made and then people later on have to clean up those decisions and it's no one's fault there's climate changes i just look at the future and i know we have the asset of the airport And it looks like I just looked real quickly about use and and it looks like airports are pretty strategic and I I would hate to make a decision here that then forces use and out and then we go from that's my five empty buildings to six empty buildings.

and so why would a person out though well because by the property taxes increasing they the developer lease right they'll probably put it that's why i asked if his rent was locked in for a number of years i'm guessing euston could go somewhere else pretty quickly if they did not like the terms of their next year's lease

then we would have another empty building right and and we're basing our bond payments on these people they're in the factor well we've already said that 70 connect three the other one is non-compliant well they'll come in next month and they'll come in next month in august or they'll come in in august um and then we can you know i i don't know if there's anything at this point we can do with 70 Connect 2. But we can beat them up over 70 Connect 3 maybe and see what the future holds for that. But I'm not for...

Right now I'm not I I think we've got a tenant in a building and I think you've got to be aware too again if the terms of lease changes use and leaves 30 semis is 30 semis but then another tenant comes in that has 300 semis so I think it's those 270 employees yeah so I mean I do hear a lot for jokes about the roads and the traffic I think you know 30 semis is more than zero, but it could easily be 300 semis. So I think we need to factor that in of listening to folks that let's, we know that that's a number we know. Let's not change something that we know for someone that we don't know.

If I could interject, Randy just told me that Houston apparently has three buildings in Mount Comfort area and they're looking to expand to at least five more.

Or total of five. Total of five, sorry, total of five.

Don't we want to make it easier for them to lease these buildings We don't go away the abatement what makes it harder.

Yeah, we don't even if I if we took back the abatement the you know they're paying what they would pay in property tax on 30 employees or 270 and one thing we found is that many of these jobs created in that area do not end up being worked by hancock county residents which is where we would collect income tax and so you know i don't know that we net better off to have more employees in their tax lies for the most part

What bothers me a little bit is that you have your tax paying buildings down there that are not under abatement either. They had it and it's ran its course or they never asked for it to begin with and they have to compete. with a lease per square foot lease rate. The same as these buildings that we have under abatement, which will, I assume, charge a lesser lease rate because they are baiting part of their tax. So it almost becomes an unlevel playing field between the abated properties and not abated. And I just want to keep in mind that those companies that are paying their taxes that have not asked or have fulfilled their commitments Are are competing against these companies that have the abatements, but not fulfilling their commitments to us and.

We're okay with it, so that's how I feel about that competition with I'm with Boone County and the Johnson County.

I think we, we take a hard look at 70 connect 3. yeah, they'll be in in August. So do we have a motion and we can see how everybody votes. Well, I'll move that we go ahead and approve the CF 147 to connect to.

Second, I have a motion by Mr. Fisk, second by Mr. Shelby. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed, same sign.

No.

All right, motion will carry six to one. All right, number two on the list.

so number two we have inland llc gdi number two i presented the cf1 last month's meeting sb1 said they would have 25 employees there were no employees submitted last year we had terry mccardwell speak on behalf saying that they were having a problem leasing the building they will be in year four of ten they have an abatement fee also that this was part of a resolution where they would build three buildings so far there's just one um and then i just noted down how much abated amount has occurred over the years and how much taxes they paid if we could have a representative from inland is inland also number three yeah well it's two different ones oh it's two different ones okay yes okay so speaking on both two and three okay

yes i'm peyton mccardwell um indy land which is also gdi it's the same similar entity um so can speak about both of those buildings was that which one was first the vacant one the first one yes okay that has been vacant since um it was finished in 20 three or four i believe 2020 taxes were on the world for time Okay. It has remained vacant, but earlier this year actually it connects with a prior conversation. usin is in our other building what we call building five it's the 300 square foot building they've been in that for a few years and they're actually using our vacant building they have some overflow space they're up to about 150 square feet that they moved in earlier this year that they're using as overflow from They have their 70 Connect 2, which is not ours, their building, our building five, and then this is their sort of third building in the park. And so although the building has been vacant, USEN's been using a quarter of it, plus or minus, but we're still looking to market the building for other tenants. We currently have a, A tenant that we're trading paper with and hope to have a lease signed with them in the next 30 to 60 days. But that's where we stand with that building right now.

And I'm sorry, you said that is to occupy part of the building or the whole building?

USEN is occupying part, but the tenant that we're negotiating with is the whole, the full building.

Okay. and they would be expected to occupy assuming your negotiation works out this calendar year correct later this year do you know anything about how many employees they would intend to put in that building we don't they're apparel and sort of home goods is what they sell but we don't know we can try to get that information Well, the SB1 set the bar, you know, fairly low with 25 employees. That's not a terribly hard number to hit. So hopefully they intend to have 25 with $780,000 of salary.

And I will make one more note to echo what Randy said. Our understanding is USEN is sort of doubling down and making a commitment to this area. We've heard that they're a 3PL for Amazon and they've apparently done very well in meeting Amazon's high standards. And so they're planning, they've increased their overflow space in our building. And so we would love for them to keep doing so.

Is it okay to go ahead and talk about, since he does both these buildings, is it okay to talk about both of them? Can you go ahead and tell us about the next one that has 22 employees?

Yes. I don't know if you want to make any comments on that.

I think we wanted to confirm because I think to the dollar you're filing in back-to-back years to the dollar was the same, which just struck us as potentially inaccurate. Can you speak to that?

yeah so that we um our understanding is and the use and you know one may be able to comment but they don't have employees by each building but they gave us numbers for their whole campus and those numbers were 60 employees with salaries just over 3.3 million And so because we didn't have specific to our building, we sort of use the same. What I heard that gentleman say was in their 70 Connect 2, they have 35 employees with 1.8 million. So if you do the math, that comes out to about 25 employees for one and a half million plus or minus for our building. But we can keep pushing to try and get exact numbers if you would like.

So on 3.3 million across 60 employees, it's a $55,000 average annual salary. I think that this last one, they did clear the hurdle with the employee count and the salary count it was really just a question of validating that data right does anyone have a problem with considering this full campus number even though they don't all necessarily full-time function out of that particular building you can make a motion on number three if you want yes Nobody nobody has a problem with that. OK, I I will go ahead and make the motion on inland line item three on the CF ones presenting today. Given clarification of employee head count and salary.

Second.

OK, to be in compliance, I'm sorry to be in compliance.

OK, alright, so motion by Miss Bucktrum, second by Mr Shelby that. Number three is in compliance. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. All right, motion carries.

And on the... On number two. On number two, I guess it's a question of do we want to... It sounds like they have a tenant that they're fostering that by this time next year would be in place, and it's really a matter of whether this... Council wants to give them that time to fill it for me for me.

This is more concerning because you brought him in last year. Yeah, and you gave him a 2nd chance last year. Yeah, now you give him a 3rd chance and he, I mean, you know, as a business owner as a as a building owner, you know, okay, I'm in trouble with the county. If I don't get this filled and do a great job fast, I need to get on. economic development, Indiana economic development, everybody, and try to get it to push it. And I have not heard how hard he's worked to out, you know, so for me, I'm, you know, a statement needs to be sent that this isn't acceptable in our county. You make a promise for an abatement, you need to live up to that promise. And we'll give you a couple of chances, especially on the speculative, but yeah, that's my stance. I mean, everybody else has their own, so go ahead.

To me, in the meantime, we had a world event that kind of changed business um all over the world and including here that stopped the the flow of business that was coming in here and we're still recovering from that i think we ought to give them a chance to i agree with recovery at a point we have to just be able to say we've worked with you and we've reached out and we are continuing to try to work with you but if we're not getting anything back then we'll need to act on that

You know, one thing I recollect from the time that a lot of these developers were meeting with us was I felt there was a very good chance that we had too many requests and that there would not be enough demand for this amount of supply. And I won't say it was their entity specifically. I don't remember who said it, but multiple developers told me that the reason that would not happen is because developers were not going to keep building as long as there were empty buildings to fill. i do think it's interesting when we look at empty buildings it is one per developer you know they didn't they did what they said but the problem is we had too many developers you know not collaborating with one another in that regard so now we have six empty buildings you know i i see both sides of the the coin on this so i'm not going to make a motion but It's year four of 10. I think last year we agreed that in year three, that it could definitely take time to find a tenant for large buildings, but it is year four, so.

If I may add one couple more items. Talking about the market, that it was overbuilt, you're right on that. I think at its peak a couple years ago, Indianapolis had eight vacant buildings that were a million square feet or higher, and five of those were in Mount Comfort. Today, there are only two vacant buildings of that size, again, both in Mount Comfort. the vacancy rate at its highest was 13 percent today six percent um a year ago at this time it was about nine and a half percent so we're seeing the market recover but it just takes time and we want it it's hurting us to have it be vacant um i know you don't want it vacant either but we're working with brokers and marketing it as best we can um And unfortunately, I think losing the abatement would make it sit vacant. And I know you heard this last year. We think we're close both with USEN and with this other tenant. And we have others too that we're talking with. So yeah.

What are the reasons folks have given for not wanting to ultimately sign on the dotted line on this building?

I think a lot of some people have heard of mount comfort and know that there's vacancy and they can go to other markets and sort of have their choice in other places some want to be in the northwest side in lebanon it's popular place with the leap district or in plainfield by the airport but here they just have their choice so we're

our supply is going down but there's still supply and so it's just harder they're getting taken off the board but it's just taking time i think scott you may know um i believe you can pull an abatement and then reinstate an abatement after they have become compliant to what they originally stated, they would lose the year that it was pulled, but they would, let's say if they're in year four, we pull it for year five, they meet their terms, we can reinstate it in year six and finish out to 10. We can do that.

I think you do have that latitude as a practical matter.

I don't know that we've ever done that, but I do believe that's part of the code that Guidelines the ability to stay. Yeah, I agree that that is true.

Is it is it possible that you could give us a more definite answer on if you're going to have a tenant or not this year in like three months?

I think so, yes.

And then we could at that time if you say no, we don't have a tenant then. Then we could take action. I know we deal in these things once a year. You have to do the CF1s once a year and all this year, but I think it's a 12-month scenario for us.

So the problem I see with something like that is I certify NetAssess values every August 1st. So I try to have all the abatements entered in because if we have one here, one there, that can affect the taxing unit with the abated amount. So with your three months from today, that would be passed when I have to certify. of and then and then that could change you know that i don't know how much it would change that would be a great gear toss question but how much that would change you know certifying that none assessed value for buck creek township and dlgf is very it's august 1st

Yes, we cut it and there's only sorry 1 other thing that I mentioned that didn't help our last presenter was I would take into account when somebody has more than 1 building and they end up putting all the employees in 1 building and using the other 1 more for. uh storing i would take that into consideration on gdi's two buildings that we've marked compliant they did have an excess above their sb1 salary when you combine the two of a million forty seven thousand dollars uh it does only amount to 14 excess employees but you know just something else that I think it's worth considering it's not 25 employees, but it is over the 780,000 dollars a salary that they stated for that building.

I don't know on on this 1, I'll make a motion that we approve the CF 1 for this building for 1 more year. That's compliant. Okay.

As compliant emotion you have a 2nd. A 2nd, I have a motion in a 2nd, Madam auditor, please do a roll call.

Council member Shelby. Yes, council member.

Yes.

Council member louder I have a quick question.

Jim mentioned that it would be for 1 year. I wanted to make sure everybody heard that because he's clear down there.

It's always for 1. it's always well, that's true.

But, you know, we're. vocally making a commitment for one year, and then we'll look at it again next year. But I just wanted to be sure everybody heard that.

Yes. Council Member No. No. Council Member Fisk. Yes. Council Member Woolrich.

No.

Council Member Smith.

No. motion carries motion carries four to three for it to be compliant all right so that will include I want to see you maybe this afternoon late this afternoon okay because i got i'm supposed to be at a meeting at lunch and then i don't even know if i'll make it because how long this is gonna go another life yeah i got another life um all right nine o'clock we have additional appropriation fund 2501 with beth ingle uh sprint to the front please Everybody, we're going to be moving as quick as I can.

This will be a really, really easy one. All right. In 2501, that's our user fee fund. We do have an excess of $25,000 in there, and there's only $6,800 that is appropriated for this year as a budget. I would like to move...

move some money over to our drug strain line for um of thirty five hundred dollars did you give us something on this to follow there's nothing in your packet no okay so so you want to additionally appropriate thirty five hundred dollars yes i'll make that motion that we do that

just need to advertise it's advertised thumbs up everyone thumbs up yeah all right we will advertise that okay one little small thing okay do it you know misunderstanding on my part um we had a leftover amount of 288.91 in fund 4040 last year which was a donation from the borough association for incentives for our participants i forgot to appropriate that could i do that she's on the agenda

thumbs up again yeah we need a thumbs up there even though kent does not like the small amounts sorry do i have four thumbs up okay that it's fine it's your donation fund it's our donation yeah anything else all right thank you see wasn't that short and sweet well we need some of those all right 9 15 unsafe building funds scott williams come on up i don't believe there's anything in our packing on this one either no there's not all right

Alright, good morning. I'm here to ask for money for the unsafe building fund. We went through our unsafe building process with the Commissioners and everything and. They agreed to demolish this house. I let it for public bid. The bid has been awarded. Now I'm asking for funding for the unsafe building fund. The bid price is 21,826. And if there is asbestos on the site, there'll be an additional 9,000 for that. And the contractor's fairly positive that there is asbestos on there. However, we won't know until it gets tested. So I would like to ask for the 29,826. the unsafe building fund how much is that fund you you've got a balance in that fund i do oh yeah 13 13 700 something so you're asking for the balance then well i don't want to 29 000 versus 13

I don't think he wants to leave that fund completely empty.

Correct?

Right?

Yeah, I don't want to deplete that.

This is an additional this isn't an appropriation. Correct? Right asking for an additional. Yes. Okay.

Where we have to find it from somewhere else.

Well, I'm going to make a motion. We go ahead and approve the 29,826 and take it out of food and beverage.

Well, why can't we take an economic development? I think we can because it fits it fits that I think better. I think so, because that's. When you're demolishing structures for the betterment of the community, you know what I mean? We're very seldom use economic development.

We have funds appropriated to be economic development.

um oh so so your first motion dies okay you have another i amended it oh you want to say economic development if that's instead of food if that's the better place to take it yes okay i think it is does that mean they have to then go before you um no oh no okay mary are there appropriated funds that's what i'm looking at right now give me just a minute

Hello. But. I'm just thinking about in the future when more things happen when it's.

Related economic development. We only have $11,250 appropriated in economic development.

Need to do an appropriation to our first.

Well, we're we technically need to move cash into the unsafe building fund to pay it out of the unsafe building fund, because then he will turn around and we will lean that property. And they will have to pay it when they pay property taxes, which would then go back into that fund, which would then go back to special laws.

Yes. Yeah.

So can we take the formal vote today that that's where we intend to pay it, give the thumbs up on advertising, and then you're clear after, or do we have to wait for Mary's- Yes, I need a motion to move the money.

If you wanna move cash, we can move cash from economic development into the unsafe building fund, and then I will need to advertise it for appropriation. Okay.

Mary's that. I'm going to make sure everybody's got it clear before I do it again.

Yes. So there's how much is currently in there? How much is currently in there?

$11,000? There's $11,250 in the miscellaneous expense line, but we're going to move cash, not appropriation.

Okay. Right.

Because we're not going to pay it out of economic development.

So do we need to appropriate cash to miscellaneous for you to be able to move?

No, I can move that by motion and use a non-appropriated line to move the money to another fund.

Well, then we need that motion first. Yes. Well, so moved that we move the cash. Second.

Confusing do you understand madam auditor with the motion? Yes Does everybody council understand the motion to say so this motions whatever seeds Mary's motion?

Okay, so this will move cash. Okay into the unsafe building fund.

All right. All right all those in favor say aye Any opposed same sign motion carries. All right next then next i will yes we'll do a thumbs up and i will we will advertise the money in the unsafe building fund for appropriation everybody good down there for the thumbs up yes okay okay let's make sure i got at least four thumbs before i that's all thank you scott okay so so mary to be scott's here i'm like looking around what is he talking to now um

So it'll be clear that the money won't be in until next month.

No, this is going to take a little longer.

Okay. So it will be next month?

Yeah, I'll get with you after the meeting.

Okay, yeah, because I need to let the contractor know. Okay. so I can pay. Probably August. Government's not simple.

We're fast. We're fast. We probably could do it at our July meeting.

We do have a half an hour at the beginning of the July meeting.

8 o'clock. 8 o'clock, Kent. I mean, Clark. 8 o'clock, not 8.30. I told you we'd get there. Kent's always here.

eight o'clock and then we could do it at the front we could because i believe lisa lee has set the timeline for the go bond for the public hearing to be in july so if we're going to hold a public hearing for that we may as well as well for this add scott's in there as well for july okay that's good i'll be i'll be here okay okay thank you all right

all right next up is uh 9 30 a.m parks and rec re board reappointment miriam rollis i have i have had i had a fellow friend that's a democrat speak to the chair and they um are in good state uh kelly mclaren's a good stand as a democrat uh they they're happy with them so i am i i did my thorough background check to make sure because it's actually a democrat appointment and so if everybody else is in favor i'll entertain a motion to reappoint kelly mclaren

I'd like to hear a speech by Kelly.

Speech, speech, speech.

He's always quiet.

The reason we're requesting to reappoint him is because he serves on our board and he's our elected treasurer. So, and this would be for a four-year term if that helps your.

Oh, yeah, we're good.

Thank you for your willingness to step up on a new board like this. I know there's plenty of room for visioning and I think it's important to have really quality people at this particular juncture on the board so i'd like to make a motion to reappoint mr mclaren for four years

All right. We have a motion by Ms. Buttram and a second by Mr. Smith. I'll give it to him. To reappoint Kelly McLaren for four years. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thanks, Kelly.

Thank you so much for supporting the Parks and Rec Board. It's super important and we've got momentum and it's really exciting right now. So thank you so much.

Yeah, no problem. Let's go to action item number two real quick. Approve the minutes for May 13, 2026.

I make a motion that we approve the minutes for May 13, 2026. I'll second. All right.

I have a motion and a second to approve the meeting minutes as presented for May 13, 2026. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. All right. We have about 12 minutes. Is that enough for the budget meeting update? Oh, yeah. Okay. We'll let the budget meeting update begin. Okay. We're good.

First of all, we reviewed all of the county funds and found them to be okay. Garitas discussed the recent supplemental distribution, and we decided to put $400,000 from the general fund into the 4700 self-insurance liability reserve fund. and we passed that and do we need to do something today on that mary we have a resolution for you distribute that for your consideration so we have a resolution we need to pass there's a copy in our mood it is hot off the press thanks on the side why

Oh, it's sunny too.

This is a resolution to transfer the funds, so I move that we approve the resolution number.

The number will be 2026 dash 5 dash 5. Second.

All right. I have a motion by Mr. Shelby and a second by Ms. Buttram to approve the resolution for transfer funds, which have been presented to each of you. Resolution number 2026-5-5 for the transfer of $400,000 from the Hancock County General Fund to the Hancock County Self-Insurance Fund. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries 7-0.

Also, Garitas recommended that we give notice that we may want to reduce the library lit for the reasons that we discussed. So in order to do that, we need to pass a notice of possible changes. the appropriate taxing units. And we do have that. It's not a resolution. It's just a notice that we need to send out in case we decide to do it. This is not doing it. But due to the state law, we have to give notice before I think it's July 1st. So we would need to do that today. Give notice.

I don't know that it's required but just for clarity I'll make a motion that the County Council proceed with Cindy notice of a possible change to income tax income tax rate the special purpose rate okay special purpose tax rate second all right we have a motion and a second to to give a notice for a special tax rate change any discussion

All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

And the last thing I had was Scott Woolridge, myself and Keely were appointed to the must group. And I left and Keely picked up after that.

Yes, from there we had a presentation and update from Debbie with the Ag Association. The council approved funding, I believe from food and beverage, some renderings and other planning documents we would need. And we will further consider whether we are funding those improvements at a future meeting with some of that, some of those documents. We did hear about a new SRO deputy for Amplify from Sheriff Burkhart. I think we all agreed that utilizing Hancock County Sheriff's Department was the method that made the most sense over private security. Sheriff Burkhart said Amplify does have it in their budget to cover the cost of that personnel and that no matter where we pay it from, the county would be reimbursed. And I believe we left it that we were going to look first at having that transaction occur through the RDC along with other deputies who are already paid from the RDC. Is there anything else to say about that or that's all in good order?

You did a very good job explaining all that.

Okay, wonderful. Um, so moving on from there, uh, the sheriff did also touch on a job description change for an employee. Um, the new public safety systems program manager, uh, which we did not, not necessarily take action on at this time. Um, he deferred the walkway canopy discussion to a future meeting with clarification on his bids received. And we discussed in detail merit deputy pension changes. And we did task the financial advisor, Greg Garitas, with segmenting out the cost of the three different changes the sheriff and merit board proposed so that we could segment the cost of each of those and make individual decisions. And so we will hopefully hear more from Greg about the cost breakdown of accepting any of those changes. We did also touch on planning and building fees, a new fund, and we spent a good amount of time talking about an owner-occupied request for abatement on a small building that I think we will discuss again today, I believe.

Yes.

And that was all I had on the budget meeting update. Thank you.

All right, that concludes the budget meeting update.

of six minutes uh auditor business do you have a lot or just a little bit i actually do not have anything other than just a reminder that the july meeting does start at 8 a.m and there is no budget meeting on july 1st

That's it. Mary, could I ask you, wasn't there something else that we discussed that we needed to do today?

We're still waiting, I believe, on Dan Strahl to review the sewer resolution for the deposit of the $75,000 check from Nine Star.

Does he have it, or do I need to send it to him then?

I've not had any conversations with him.

All right. I'll take care of that.

Okay. Thank you, Scott.

The date they said? The date that, yeah.

Well, go ahead. You have a date. You have time.

No, I have a, yesterday it was decided that July 28th at 11 o'clock, probably 10, but 11 is when the ribbon cutting is for the Amplify building. July 28th.

Yeah, they're sending out invitations. I mean, it's by invite only.

They're going to send out invitations, all the elected officials, of course, everything. Then they're going to be an afternoon open house for the public to tour the building and everything. So that's the 28th of July. So if you're in town, please, please come.

Oh, Mr. President, could we go ahead and introduce that 2026 bond? I think it might take more than four minutes.

We got we got four minutes till. I don't know. Well, we could always start afterwards, but so. All right, go ahead. You go. You go ahead. Introduction of the 2026 GO bond with finish action items.

Have you got the numbers for that?

i do and everybody should have a copy in their packet there's two ordinances the first one is the actual bond ordinance and then the second ordinance is to appropriate the proceeds of the bond so the first one which is the thicker ordinance regarding the bond that number will be 2026-6a And then the second one will be 2026-6B. Is that the ordinance to appropriate?

Yes, that is the ordinance to appropriate. 6B, you said? Yes. In terms of the, I don't know if everybody reviewed the bond, but the only thing I noticed that I've talked about before is, I don't know if you noticed, Kent, is how high the rate is. It's 7%. I think it's because somebody that wrote this doesn't know what our Federal Reserve Chair is going to do. We may have to turn to Fisk for his expertise here.

Just to get flexibility.

That's tremendous flexibility.

The only thing different between the bond, uh is uh appendix a and the the bond wording that we have seen before is we've taken out the ag association uh because if we leave it in there that could make this a taxable bond and we don't want that right okay so that's the only difference i think you had different anything else in everybody's review that they noticed they wanted to point out to the whole board

I just noticed the rate, and I was like, man. They really don't have an idea what the Federal Reserve is going to do.

Yeah, and that is not an average rate, right? That's a cap. That is the longest dated bond. The furthest out in the future, that's the highest it could be. So, you know, for the public.

Yeah, because most of them are around, what, still 4%? Yeah.

In the short term, yeah. So that would not be an average or a rate on a near-term redemption. That would be decades out. And again, like you pointed out, if the long-term rate has been moving without the Fed acting. And so we do have to leave some leeway there, I believe.

Yeah. And like Lisa pointed out to us last time, if something crazy would happen, and it would go over that, then we'd have to start the whole bond process all over again.

Yeah, it would fail, essentially. Yeah. All right, so this is the introduction, I believe, of the bond.

So I'll move that we introduce Bond Ordinance 2026-6-A.

Is it 6-A or just 6-A?

6-A. Just 2026-6-A.

Yeah. I'm sorry.

Okay.

I will second Jim's motion.

All right. I have a motion and a second on the table. Ordinance number 2026-6-A, an introduction. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. I believe now there's 6B to introduce, correct? So moved. Second. I have an introduction of an ordinance appropriated the proceeds of general obligation bonds 2026, ordinance number 2026-6B. Motion by Mr. Shelby, second by Mr. Smith. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Anything else on the GO bonds? I guess I can move this meeting quickly, I guess. All right, let's see. It's now 9.45. We can now do our public hearing at what was set for 9.45 a.m. for the additional appropriation of Fund 1138 in the amount of $63,351.54 for the facility maintenance miscellaneous building expense. I open up the public meeting. Is there anyone that wants to speak on this appropriation? Hearing any, is anybody on the council need to say anything about this appropriation?

Can we just restate for the record the expenditure funded? It's the maintenance of something in particular.

This was something that happened and I think we got a settlement on it because they did a poor job.

Yes, they did some work in the basement and there was silica dust all over everything so it all had to be remediated. But the company would not pay the other company that did the remediation. They only would pay us. So we, in turn, had to pay the other company. And now we received the check from the original company. And so he just, Corey just wants to put it back into his budget because he's at a loss for this amount.

Got it.

All right, not hearing any more discussion, I will close the public hearing and then entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion on Fund 1138, the additional appropriation $63,351.54. Second.

All right, I have a motion and a second for the CCD Facility Maintenance Misaligned Building Expense, appropriation of $63,351.54. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. And that will conclude our public hearing items for the 9.45 a.m. set. We will now begin, since he's arrived, Judge Sirk, if you may come forward. We will now discuss the full-time court manager set for 10 a.m. Oh, you're welcome, Judge. Come forward.

Judge Coombs may be coming over as well. He's working very hard in court session, and Judge Davis will not be able to make it. But first of all, I want to thank you, the council, for your great work and your concern to ensure the taxpayers are treated fairly and no additional costs or expenses. But we are requesting, if possible, and understand those concerns that you have, court manager primarily because Court administrator was something that we'll be having very soon probably by the 2030 census Johnson County and Hamilton counties have court administrators already and this will be a prep for that position the court managers needed Primarily to assist our court staffs. They are much busier than they have been before and do the amount of cases going through. The court manager will assist with all courtroom equipment issues, be a liaison between the courts and IT, handle budget prep, handle claims, and this will allow the court staff and hopefully the courts to be more efficient. and serve the citizens more efficiently, and that's our goal and our hope. But I understand the concerns that you have, but that's our request, and each of the courts has allotted $25,000, if possible, to address that position.

Good, sir. Who would this administrator report to? She'd report to you folks and to us. To the judges. To the four judges?

Yeah, to the four judges, yeah. The four judges would be her boss, her, his boss.

Technically her boss, but yeah, of course, we won't. Day to day, we don't.

Day to day, you won't have to be involved in that, but you will override it.

OK, so I know this is very legal, and this could become very legal. Judge requests. So obviously I understand the statutes and the case laws. There's been several new cases as court judges can also do a mandate. It's also a possibility. So so first off, my question is, it's $75,000 is the request for this position. It's a court manager. The average in state of Indiana is around 60,000, while the ministry is closer to 75.

um what kind of duties are going to do differently as a manager versus administrator why the extra salary um actually maybe i should have done better research we could adjust that to go to the sixty thousand dollar figure very easily

Okay, and then at the, I don't know if everybody knows this, but the reason he mentioned 2030 is that the census, once it hits 100,000, we are required to have a court administrator, and that is paid by the state, I believe. Is that correct, Mr. Shelby? I think, do they pay the state?

I'm not sure that's the case, but I will follow up with it.

Okay, I don't know who pays.

I believe it would still be us.

Okay, but we'd be required to have a court administrator at that point. At what point? When we had a census of 100,000. Oh, okay. Population. Okay. Any of this paid by the state? No, definitely not until you require it.

I'll try and follow up with that. Benefits?

Yeah, they'd have benefits if they request. On top of the salary.

Correct.

So what is the absolute need? I mean, you understand the statute just like I do probably. What's the real need? Why do we need to do this? Because to me, there has to be this special need. And if we've said we're not hiring any new employees and we hold that across the board, because I mean, you would be priority one if we do hire.

Well, I appreciate that concern. The need is just the amount of work that we have at this time. And we are looking to have additional judges as well. And it's just. It's just overwhelming compared to what it was before.

Is it still expected that you'll have a juvenile magistrate in the summer of 27?

Possibly in 2027. Yes. would be an additional court staff and so that would help with the court manager slash future court

Do you recall if in the past did we have a court manager or administrator in each courtroom in the past or I do not believe so? OK, and is any are the staffs going to stay pretty much the same? Each is asked would stay the same about three court that and that would help.

I was my staff was gently telling me they needed more help. So before this so that would take care of that. I know superior two has four. We have three as this superior one and.

Did you did you put that in your 27 budget?

Yes, is it in the budget? It's in there for 25, but we could not go down to 12.

Oh wait, well, I'm sorry. Can you clarify that? So when you submitted your budget a couple weeks ago, this position is isn't it proposed it?

Yeah.

Oh, it is proposed in the budget.

You submitted 25 for all three courts.

Mary, what's that look on your face?

I think you put it on the 144, but you did not insert it in your actual budget unless you put it in with your court reporters.

I thought I'll try and correct that, maybe amend that if we need to do that. We did account for it, or that was my understanding.

You did account for it in the budget itself then?

I believe so.

Okay.

I believe so.

Okay. Okay. Perfect. I didn't think it was.

Okay. I talked to Judge Sirk about this yesterday, and while I'm open to entertaining all these requests, For me personally, and I don't know if Jim would agree. The last time we looked at our 5 year sustainability with Greg Garrett toss, it showed the budget or the general fund basically. Being cut by about half in the next 5 years, just to sustain with inflation what we're already doing. And I think since that meeting, we've probably heard another 1Million dollars worth of requests that wouldn't have been in that last sustainability. And so. I won't be willing to add anything, vote formally on adding anything to the budget until I see a new sustainability report.

You're not deciding today. It's just listening to the judges. So it shortens our time next month. Yeah. because they'll come forward. Also, since you're here, Magistrate Coombs, obviously you know the statute, like I do, where you guys, the judges, can mandate this. And there's certain case laws changed how it works recently. What's the special reasons you think, as a magistrate and then as a future Superior Court II judge, assuming no one runs against you? Maybe. What do you think about why you really need it now versus when the census hits 100,000 when it's required?

Yeah. So we have a couple, either last year or the year before, we came forward and asked for a magistrate assistant. And we split that position between the clerk's office and the courts. And the idea was that that assistant would do 50% of the work for the magistrate assistant and the other 50% for the clerk. What we've learned since that time is that is a terrible job for whoever holds the job. There's just so much work that goes through the magistrate assistant position right now that that that assistant is working nights, weekends, just cannot keep up with workload because there's too much work that goes through it. We actually have the position open right now as the assistant is moving into a different position in the clerk's office and we can't get applicants because the job is so difficult. Part of this manager position is the hopes that we can use that manager as a as a magistrate assistant as well so that we can use a magistrate assistant the way we've been doing. But we can also use that manager to cover additional work for the magistrate assistant to keep up with that workload because they cannot keep up with the workload. the if the magistrate assistant can't keep up with that workload we either need to have another magistrate assistant or we need to have a court commissioner or something like that that can keep up with that work that's flowing through that office now next year i think that we may change how the magistrate works a little bit in order to cut back on some of that work make it a little bit more efficient and that might help but that is really the goal with that manager is to start working on all the managing things that we've got going on through the courthouse the claims all of those things and then to add in a significant amount of help on that magistrate assistant piece in order to keep that position viable. That's why I think it's necessary.

Would it be possible that since that position is empty and it hasn't been able to accommodate the need quite as well as anticipated, Is eliminating the assistant position for the sake of having the person we're talking about today a possibility?

It wouldn't work. They wouldn't be able to keep, there's too much that goes through there. A full-time position might be able, it would be able to cover the workload that comes through there, but it'd have to be designated solely for the courts and they would have to only do that magistrate assistant position. And that leaves us still with all those claims. The other things the manager would do without help with that. If we can keep the magistrate assistant with the 50-50, they can continue to work with the clerk's office in order to, I mean that helps with efficiency on getting things uploaded into the file and things like that with the clerk's office rather than sending it back and forth extending that process, the manager can throw in that additional overflow help and really cover probably about a third of the work that goes through the assistant position.

And what about part time? You know, I realize at some point the data will justify based on census, but would PART TIME AS A SOLUTION IN PART TIME AS A SOLUTION IN THE SHORT TERM STILL BE THE SHORT TERM STILL BE ATTRACTIVE TO YOU? ATTRACTIVE TO YOU?

I DON'T KNOW THAT WE WOULD I DON'T KNOW THAT WE WOULD BE ABLE TO GET ANYONE WHO BE ABLE TO GET ANYONE WHO COULD TAKE THE POSITION. COULD TAKE THE POSITION. AND THAT'S PART OF THE PROBLEM AND THAT'S PART OF THE PROBLEM THAT WE HAVE WITH THE ASSISTANT THAT WE HAVE WITH THE ASSISTANT POSITION RIGHT NOW. POSITION RIGHT NOW. IT IS A HIGH LEVEL POSITION IT IS A HIGH LEVEL POSITION THAT REQUIRES A LOT OF DETAIL It's not fun work to do. When you go to the part time position, I worry that we may not be able to pay enough in order to actually attract candidates who could do that job. We rely heavily. I mean, I trust the assistant heavily because I send work to the assistant and say this is the checklist of these are the types of things you're getting. If you see this, this, this and this on these types of matters, this is what you need to do. And that helps facilitate things. But I've got to have a lot of trust in that assistant that they can actually go through that checklist and make sure that everything is being done the exact way it needs to be done. Otherwise, people's cases don't get heard the way they need to be heard.

And I was going to say this and give some perspective. I know you mentioned artificial intelligence, but I talked to other attorneys, too, at my firm, is that the courts have gotten ... It used to be you could ask for a hearing and you'd get it really fast. The time's getting out a little farther now for us. Also, when we file something, it used to be you could almost have it the same day. Now, you wait two, three days. I've heard attorneys saying, man, I need this ordered. They'll sometimes call the court and put a little pressure, which you don't really want to do as an attorney on judges because they're the ... They're the deciders. But, you know, it's been taking more time. And so, I mean, I see it.

I can tell you the workload, a lot of that is stuff that comes through the magistrate's queue. And I probably average 100 to 300 tasks per day that come through that queue. And a lot of those get forwarded on to the assistant to finish out. When I first started here as court commissioner eight years ago, I was getting 60 to 70 tasks per day. I mean, it has increased significantly. I think we can make some changes in order to reduce that, but it's a ways out in order to make those changes.

Is that based on cases filed more than anything? There are reasons.

I don't know that I really want to get into the specifics.

Okay.

I mean, it kind of, it depends on how the cases are divided.

It seems like it should be proportionate to the population increase over that time. And I'd be interested to see if.

Some of the things that I've, I've done some research on other courts. I mean, there are, of course, Howard County, for instance, has a much smaller population than Hancock County. And it's been a few years since I've looked at it, but I believe they had five courts compared to our three. And it may just be four courts, but they for sure had more than us, but their population was around 60,000 people. THE POPULATION DOESN'T ALWAYS CORRELATE WITH THE NUMBER OF CASES THAT COME THROUGH THE COUNTY. AND THAT'S KIND OF BORN OUT ACROSS THE STATE, IF YOU LOOK AT THE NUMBER OF COURTS AND THE POPULATION SIZE OF THE COUNTY. WE ARE FOR SURE GROWING, THOUGH.

AND DON'T THEY HAVE MORE COURTS PROBABLY BECAUSE AT ONE TIME THEY HAD A HIGHER POPULATION?

I DON'T KNOW THAT HOWARD EVER DID. THERE ARE REASONS FOR HOWARD. PART OF IT IS I THINK FROM RIGHT 31 RUNS THROUGH IT. There's 1 of those major highways that runs through it. So there's a lot of traffic stuff, a lot of stops that go through there. And I think that's part of why they have a higher number. Also, how we report our cases, um. Has has a tendency to that results in how many courts we get our judges have always traditionally been very careful to make sure reports are done correctly so that we don't. Use more judicial resources than what we are actually entitled to.

Who said I just add 2005 we added. Think about the comparison of judges and courts as there are prosecutors. In 2005, I was in the prosecutor's office. I don't know if this was on you, but we had four prosecutors. We have today. Police and other things, so that's another aspect.

Proximity to Indianapolis. You know, I'll spill over, I think. Legal matters.

Our judges are just more productive than other places. I serve several people. You are.

And Scott, you were suggesting that prior to the $100,000, the judges can mandate under special circumstances?

Well, it's our choice first. If we say no and they meet the qualifications, they could then order a mandate. If they order the mandate, then it goes to a special judge, and then it would go to the Supreme Court. So it gets argued, which becomes very litigious and costly both for the judges and the judges. I mean, it'd be better for us to have these conversations now to keep a good relationship so that doesn't happen. If we say, hey, we'll do it next year versus this year, maybe they can say, OK, we can make it go one more year. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of changes. Judge Cody's going to go to step two. We've got Janet Manchin possibly, maybe. Everything's maybe because they're not liked it all the way. They could still have a challenger. We've got to change step one. You're going to add a juvenile magistrate, which will be another judge. It'll be more work. And so you're going to have more work for the magistrate person.

If we could get a juvenile magistrate, if we knew we were having a juvenile magistrate, I don't think this would be as urgent as it is right now. But I don't know. We don't have any response back on the juvenile magistrate.

That was my several months prior. We need to prioritize. We're getting requests for the juvenile stuff and for additional juvenile stuff. And this is there. Is there a timing on when one should happen or is there a correlation or what's more important?

The last we heard was that you were on the line for the juvenile magistrate, but unlikely to have it granted because our numbers aren't quite where they want it. And part of the reasoning behind that is they believe we can get a magistrate and maybe a new court if we move forward with the legislature in 27 or 28. But that's still a few years away that we have to be able to cover for. Well, 27 would be next year. We could ask. And I don't recall if it's 27 or 28. That's why I just throw those two years out. I don't remember which one. There are specific years we're allowed to move forward on under the statute. Yeah. So I can go back.

Yeah, we can't ask for another court unless we have a courtroom to use. Yeah, we'd have to change the clerk's office. I mean, that is probably the only possibility right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's pretty small. Well, thank you for the information.

Thank you all. Thanks for coming. All right, I've been asked to have a short recess. Let's have a recess and return at 10. Yes, I agree with you. So six-minute recess if we can. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, I will call the June 10th meeting back to order. Next up on the agenda for 1015 is the case manager salary correction, IDOC juvenile grant Morgan Walker.

Good morning.

I don't believe there's anything in our packet, is there?

There is. There is? Is there? or it's not here oh no i'm sorry that's that's behavioral health yeah no there's there's nothing in their packet i just have a correction here okay um i will start with the community corrections grant so we received a juvenile community corrections grant it's new so hancock county's never received this grant before the total amount is eighty thousand eight hundred and ten dollars So I'm just asking that that total amount be appropriated. The categories within that grant are prevention, diversion, and reentry. So we'll be partnering with schools, juvenile probation, and other community partners to just support our juveniles. um to be successful and not have future involvement in the justice system and then of course the prevention piece that's just to support juveniles to not enter the justice system we've seen our juvenile numbers increase um significantly so on this on this grant um is this something that you're likely to get every year i know you don't know for sure but yeah it is yeah it's the same as our adult grant that we do get every year for whatever reason previous directors just never they never wrote for this grant so it was one that i wrote for in my previous role with my previous county and i received it there so as our juvenile numbers have increased and we're doing more juvenile work here it was something that i wanted to explore and so i wrote it and we did receive it so it's something that i plan to plan to write every year

So on the agenda, it just says case manager salary correction.

She's just doing the juvenile grant part.

It's a two-part thing that you're here for? Yeah, it's written on the agenda.

Well, thanks for getting a grant. Good work on that, $80,000. Since it needs to be appropriate, I need to have a thumbs up.

Yeah.

All right. That's good to advertise. All right, you had a second part, which is the case manager salary correction.

Yeah, so when I was here, you guys approved the case manager position. At the time, I had told you I wasn't sure the candidate that would apply for that, and so it was listed as a base of $50,000. We ended up getting an applicant that had significant experience who was an internal candidate and so with that i'm just asking that it be paid mary has the the corrected ordinance but 30.26 hourly which is in line with our most recent hires who had similar experience We wouldn't need any more appropriated this year. And it would be paid out of the grant and project income. So it wouldn't add anything else. We also pay FICA and perf. So you guys just pay the insurance. So it wouldn't add anything extra for you guys.

It would just, I just need, so is this an internal person that applied for the position it is, and then you are going to need to hire someone to replace her position.

no internal within the county it's a different department she's saying correct correct yeah different department that they hired from they stole from like a different i don't want to say this is what happens we have this a lot where someone oh you you don't want to work at the court the courts anymore oh come work with us we'll pay you a little more i'm not real clear what is the correction what exactly are

it's basically 55 000 instead of 50 000 a year because when i came before and that that's my that's my fault because that was when i was here last time i said i wasn't sure what i would end up needing to offer because i didn't know what what candidate i would receive and so the base was 50 000 and that's what we appropriated which is enough because it's mid-year um but i'm just asking that the overall salary be higher than fifty thousand fifty five it ends up being like uh 55078 is the the overall total and this is for currently this year and plus next year it would go up even more it's for this year um it yeah it's for this year so it's pro-rated then it's not yeah yeah yeah it's effective may 11th correct

would yes yes yes yes so the exact correction the hourly rate instead of being 27.47 which is what we approved last month it would now be 30.26 because of all of her experience they want to they want to pay her a little more

uh is there a number yeah it's ordinance number uh 2026-6c uh community corrections case manager current amounts 27.47 hourly the new amount would be 30.26 hourly i'll make a motion to approve 2026-6c so do we have a copy of that oh no no you do not but i have the one we'll be signing okay i'll take your word for the i'll second till we get it All right, I have a motion and a second to approve ordinance number 2026-6C, an ordinance amending the 2025-12A salary ordinance for community corrections case manager from the current amount of $27.47 hourly to the new amount of $30.26 hourly. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Pass this down to Jim to start the signing.

And then Scott, we had talked to Mary about this too, but it wasn't on your agenda, if you're okay with it. We had a check come in for another grant that I wrote for, it's for $1,500 and we were just asking that it be appropriated to fund 91-18, it's all for training.

All right, so 1,500, 91-18, does the auditor got that? you give that information to auditor was that from the community foundation it is okay a thumbs up that has its appropriation all right thumbs up everybody's giving it uh you can advertise anything else nope any more checks yeah grants are great just keep bringing the grants in we'll keep appropriate and put the thumbs up all the time all right Next up, set for 1030, it's a part-time field officer to full-time field officer in the behavioral health, which is one part, and also behavioral health court grant, which is the second part. Tabitha Davis.

Good morning.

Good morning. And this is in your, there is something in your packet for this.

Yeah, I typed something up for you guys. On June 2nd, commissioners approved our part-time field officer position becoming full-time. We had two case managers for behavioral health court. One recently took another position in the county. I do not plan to fill that position. So making our part time field officer full time will not need any additional money in our budget. It'll just kind of take on that other full time case manager position. But I do need to reappropriate some funds. So initially for our budget. We had $107,737 appropriated for both case managers. I'd like to split that into two. One for now our full-time field officer and our other full-time case manager, which would put them at $53,873.50 annually. And then our part time field officer fund has a remaining balance. This could be off by a little bit. It's just what I pulled this morning of 19,220 dollars. We recently changed drug screen companies and now all of our screens are sent off for confirmation testing, which has improved our supervision of participants. So I'm just asking that that 19,220 dollars be reappropriated for drug screen costs.

Are you guys still taking new? New people into the program and then I saw and I looked at the specialty courts for June and behavioral health courts still not listed. I know previously had spoken to judge and that you guys were going to get approved this spring, but I don't see it. You've not been approved yet, have you? Do you know why you haven't been approved? Is there anything that Council Commissioners do can do to help you guys be approved to be a specialty court?

I don't think there's anything that you guys can do. I've been in this position since March 2nd, and I come from a probation background, case management background, so I'm just working on implementing contact standards, improving our case management, improving accountability on participant standpoints, such as changing all of our drug screens to send-offs, so that way a toxicology lab is actually telling us what's positive and negative we're not relying on instant screens so there have been changes that have been implemented and will continue to be implemented and hopefully will get us that full certification so you've not been rejected certification you're just kind of in wait or is it like an action plan they give or they said they are not certifying us at this time

not certifying at this time.

The plan is to reapply. You can reapply at any time. But again, I can't create case management that was done a year ago. Case management is just something that improves as you go. So changes have been implemented. Improvements are being made, but it's just not something that happens overnight. But and I've spoke with incoming Judge Janet Manship. She can she plans to continue to run the program. She she cares about mental health. We had a zoom conversation Her goal is to come in and run the program and to get full certification.

And just to be sure I'm clear, so we had 2. The field officer position, it says that there was a new full time field officer position. And by not filling a full-time case manager position, the new full-time field officer essentially is getting those benefits. Am I understanding that right?

Correct. Yeah, we had two case managers. We had one case manager leave. We've always had the part-time field officer. I'm just making him full-time based on that empty case manager position. I feel like that'll better suit our needs as a department to have a full-time field officer, full-time case manager, and then myself as full-time coordinator.

What what's the field officer do to to go and why do they need to go from part time to full time? What's the extra work?

Well, it's already been approved to go full time. by the commissioners, but he does field visits, random field visits, which according to all rise and best practice standards, it's important that you do random field visits. Right now we have 20 participants, but I want that to grow. So popping in doing random searches of homes, vehicles, making sure that contraband or prohibited substances are not inside the home or in the possession of any of our participants. We recently switched to, like I said, screens that are being sent off for confirmation. Most of our population is male, so Does the mass majority of our urine drug screens because it has to be same sex to do the drug screen? Sometimes we provide transportation through our field officer to treatment facilities. We have a couple of people that are impatient that we could provide transportation back and forth. Things of that nature.

Most residents are most of the participants. Hey, county residences. This field officer going all over state.

We have somebody in Richmond. We have people in Indianapolis. It's not all Hancock County.

All right, so what's required by us?

The reappropriation of the money.

Oh, it's appropriation?

So it sounds like you're going to need budget transfers for the money to move into different lines. But we're going to need a salary ordinance amendment removing a case manager position and then taking the field officer from part-time to full-time.

But we can do the budget transfer.

Well, and I think the budget transfer is all going to be within personal services, so it will just need department head approval and not council approval.

But we're not increasing the number of full-time people. No. It's a switch. No. Okay. Switcheroo.

Yeah, she'll be removing one full-time and then replacing it with a different full-time. Different person. Okay.

Okay.

So the only thing I think we're really going to need is a salary amendment created that you'll need to approve, but that will need to be typed up.

You'll need to draft it and bring it to the July meeting? Yes, I can do that. Okay.

And then the budget transfer to move money from part-time to drug screens. Oh, that will need a motion. That will need, yeah.

Yeah. Was that a motion, Kaylee? Make the motion again, is that it?

Yes, I'll make a motion. Well, it says approximately $19,000 to $20,000. Do I need a specific number of what is, or just, is it the full balance?

Whatever the remaining balance is, I would just say it would be appropriate for drug screening costs.

And that is for immediate or for 2027? Okay. And so you will not need another dollar of part-time in this calendar year as of today, right? Okay. And then when you submitted your budget already for 27, did you already move that? A full-time field officer, yes. I'm talking about moving the money from the part-time position to the drug service. I didn't request any type of funding for a part-time position for 27. Okay, but you did put in additional funding for drug screens. Okay. I'll make a motion to move the existing balance in part-time for behavioral health court from part-time to the line item for drug screening costs. I'll second that. Okay.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

And then Mary, you'll bring forth a...

I'll remember. Yes. Yes. Or July, hopefully.

8 AM.

Not to be approved for him.

Unless they want to pre-approve that full-time position now and then we retro it back next month.

I don't have a problem with that. I don't know why we would force people to wait.

Yeah. And with this all being within the same fund, she can go ahead and make her transfers. And then we can just maybe thumbs up that we all are in agreement that that's what we wanted to happen.

that good enough if i could get a motion that all right i need a really great emotion not just emotion effective uh he has not yet started full time but you'd like as soon as possible is that is monday okay

We start Monday that way it's a part of a new week.

Can we double check with payroll just to make sure? I know they prefer it to be the beginning of the period.

Okay, so we could even do the 22nd.

Payrolls next week. I think so because I think we just got paid last week.

I'll make a motion for the field officer to start full-time at the beginning of the next pay period.

June 22nd.

I'll second that, if that was easy enough.

Yeah, as long as the legal counsel is good with the motion. Are you OK with that, Scott?

Yeah, you've explained what you're doing. We've done that many times.

Got a motion by Mr. Smith and a second by Mr. Fisk. All right, motion on the table. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

Um, if I do, I will, I'll send you an email. Okay, great. Thank you.

I'll stop that one. And now you have a behavioral health court grant.

Um, I think that was already taken care of, but I did receive a $500 grant from the community foundation. Um, and that would be to provide ride vouchers for participants through Hancock ride with senior services, help them get to treatment. Appointments or any type of court ordered.

Therapy, so we still have to advertise it. Yeah. Yeah. If it's not been voted on through appropriation, we have to appropriate.

It would just be a thumbs up.

All right. Thumbs up. We'll have a hearing on it next time. All right now, do you have anything else? That will conclude it.

Thank you so much.

No problem. way ahead of schedule wait i know i've just i i think i'm getting too i think the paper is going to write an article about how well i run meetings the efficiency the efficiency that's all i get done he may not vote like everybody likes but at least he's efficient um i mean would it would it be okay for us to have our

Discussion our own discussion.

Yeah, I mean, we can have our discussion and since I did, although public comments not set for a specific time necessarily. I mean, it'd be nicer if we do keep it close to 11, just in case someone shows up at 11. but if people already here, then they can speak off. So if they want to, when we're ready for that, but if we'd like to do our discussion 1st, that'd be fine. We'll have something really urgent to say.

We're talking about the scales of success?

Yeah, it's in your packets, the scales of success abatement, which was presented to us a week ago.

Yeah, they did not fill in whether or not this abatement application is specific to real estate. Or personal property or both, so that needs to be defined on the application still, and the terms of the abatement schedule was not specified. So those are the 2 things that we need to. On in on as to what we're going to be talking about and voting on is. Is this just real or real and personal and what are these. Schedules that they're requesting.

i thought that that application there was two places one of them both were blank like boxes but then further down i thought they did put real and personal that they were asking for both but then i thought the application was only on the real and that the personal was going to come later yeah well question seven and eight say they're they're asking for both uh real and personal property so you're saying that uh if the application is for both And then they did put in section 2 on the project questionnaire that they were asking for 10 years real property, 190, 80, so on and 5 years on personal 180, 60, 40, 20. But the personal property application was not yet filed.

But, I mean, there's no box or anything there.

I've cleaned that up a little bit and sent that on to the auditor's office to redisperse that to ATDC and to Nicole. So that it's a little cleaner on what that part of this. Application supposed to say, so it's easier to be a box.

Yeah, I mean, if I was reading it, that's what we're offering and. So they took us up on it.

Yeah.

my um you know i am still immersed today on large speculative warehouse abatements my opinion on that hasn't really changed and assisting that opinion is the fact that we have some still available but this is a building that is so small there aren't buildings that size out there it is owner occupied it is a real life business owner with a real life operating business bringing real jobs. So I don't feel negatively about the scales of success requests like I do so many other requests. I am negotiable on the terms of it. Of course, they asked for 10 years as a standard. I would certainly entertain something shorter, but generally speaking, I know many times we said, well, we wish owner occupied. We wish this wasn't speculative. We wish we knew how many jobs, what about the little guy? And I feel like skills of success is the little guy that we said that we wanted to attract.

I concur with what you said about the large specs versus this is so much better. I would say I'm not negotiable. I think we ought to grant the 10-year. The tax abatement means more for the smaller people than it does the bigger people. And if we were going to negotiate something less for somebody, it would be somebody that had a lot more money. Right. A lot more profit and a lot more, you know what I mean? But this, I see you're kind of making it harder for them to survive, if anything. You know, it is a shock for them to even move out here. And I think it fits all of our traffic. It fits so many places. You know, if it's so many boxes right now, I'd hate to see us jeopardize it.

It looks like this also includes the management of the company.

Yes, salaries. So, um.

I think the building, I don't they were supposed to provide us with a better schematic of what the building tool like, if we recall the. The one that's attached here is not the best as to see what the structure is really going to look like when it's finished. But I like the idea of the size. I like that it seems to fit in with what's already there, which is going to be a smaller Area of. Of businesses that aren't your large scale warehouse types and I don't know if this building doesn't go on there. What else that pieces ground will ever be used for? Yeah, or it could be we've had worse things proposed for that ground, you know, so if they don't require and if they ask for an abatement, then the control is gone completely.

Right then we don't want and we don't have any control. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, to Ken's point, you know, I would be negotiable on something on something lesser in terms of years. But, you know, in all fairness, they are asking for what we gave.

the big guys years ago and so why do they qualify for less than the spec uh profiteer and the only thing and i said it to the lady and talked when she was up here uh about the personal property because we generally don't abate small very small personal property scenarios yeah well and she said that's not the that's not the force of her that's not the problem for her

Well, the resolution that's contained in the packet, which I think Mr bacon review for all of us, I think it just talks about the real property 10 year payment. I don't see anything about.

She didn't file yet on personal. I don't think they know exactly.

And of course, can also remember is also, we will be doing a public hearing in the future. Regarding this, although I was going to do it. Right time today, just in case before we start voting, but.

On the other hand, $2.5 million in personal property is not small. I mean, it's small compared with Walmart.

You beat it down with the percentages.

In the history of the companies that we've abated, $2.5 million is not that small.

i'm kind of agreeable with everybody else so much that spoke so far is that i think this is going to be just about as good as we can get i mean it's family owned i like that and it's small and i don't think it's going to interfere with the neighbors very much and i i drove out there and looked at it and there's businesses on each side of that property

Well, you know, Jim, we did on most of the small item companies that came in, though, we intentionally didn't do the personal property because of the school system. And so, you know, I mean, now at the same token when I'm saying that I think we ought to stay coherent to what we've been doing, I don't think we ought to cut the real property. That's why I said if we're not going to do the personal property like we've done many of the others, because that does affect the school system, then I don't think we ought to hurt the company on the other end by cutting their real property.

Yeah. I do prefer the five years. If we do personal property on anything, I prefer the five years rather than 10.

Oh, yeah.

Because by then, you know, there's nothing left. There's nothing there anyway.

Well, maybe if we're going to stick with the dictum that we generally speaking don't abate personal property, maybe we want to take it off the suggested list here. Somebody looking at the...

uh form would say oh they're offering personal property i did clean that up a little bit i removed the schedules and just put lines there for them to fill in what their request is going to be for not as opposed to this is what a standard abatement looks like but so that suggestion is not going to be i think they need to fill out the new application yeah yeah i agree it gives us more information than this does yeah but um yeah i i i support the idea that uh this size building is the best suited for that location i did i mean i couldn't pull up the exact parcel but just knowing other parcels

The rough amount of taxes currently paid on ag ground that's about 80 acres is about $10,000, give or take. I don't know what the improvements and the assessed value would be, but I think we saw some earlier. They're paying anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000 in additional taxes. So let's just say it's $50,000. So year one, it's zero. Year two... 10% of that is 5,000, but then if you look at the salaries, their salaries is 2.7M take they said 30% of that will live in Hancock County and then take I just took a rough 2% tax rate and didn't want to get down too much of an integrated that comes to about 15,000. so year one we're looking at probably about 20 000 additional dollars in taxes paid by both the company and the employees and then you know if we do a 10-year payment halfway through that's about 25 000 so we're looking at additional 35 000 and then if they expand but probably after year 10 my rough math very rough is probably about additional fifty thousand dollars that The different entities would see, you know, I don't I don't have to break down right in front of me.

I just did some quick mental math, but the estimated assessed value will be should be similar to what they're estimating. The project value is on the improvement because that's the best base for the assessor to go by is cost when they're brand new. The land is not abatable. So as soon as that transfers and they quit putting a crop in it. that assessment will go up significantly and be comparable to the properties that it's contiguous to that are commercial properties so we'll see a an increase in av on the land right off without an abatement or with an abatement and then the abatement will be calculated on i think roughly five million dollars yeah that's where i just the question i've heard is when these come forward what what is the local impact that's my back of the napkin what would the local impact be So I assume then again, this is still across from the subdivision that's been a hang up for us a few times before that they have worked with. I assume it would be planning or the commissioners as to ingress, egress, traffic flow, just anything they can do to make it a little yellow. All of that will be met as specified before they move forward.

i think the only thing is they're wanting to move in april or may of next year maybe it was june but going through all those conversations and the planning and breaking i i'll give them major props if they're operating in may or june of next year but that's not for us to decide but i just they will that will take some time to do that due diligence

Can we go ahead and do a declaratory?

I was going to do the public comment and then I'll take the motions after that. If there is a public comment.

The very first thing we have to do is introduce it. So there's really no other than introducing it.

There's no final decisions. And then we probably need to set a date when we're going to have the real public hearing. I don't think I have a claim.

Did we have the declaratory in the packet last week right but not I?

Thought was the declaratory in the resolution Resolution you all need to print off a clean copy. Okay of it.

Okay, so she Oh, oh it is yeah, it's in here Okay, so what I'll do is is there anyone here that would like to make a public comment regarding this abatement request

And they also will have an opportunity at the hearing.

Yes, yes. We have a special hearing where we have to give a public hearing. I just wanted to see if there was anybody who decided to be here and wanted to make a statement. You want to make a statement? Come on. She has a comment to make our job better. Oh, awesome.

Thank you. First, I'll go off the clock.

She can make a comment on the clock. It doesn't matter. you know she if she has a way to make us do the job do our part better for the cf1s and all that you know okay all right i don't have anything for public comment then so was that a motion what resolution number is it resolution number will be 2026-6-3

three what date is the public hearing going to be set for that's a that's a blank item oh yeah i think we'll have we'll have to be august i feel like august would be yes the safest unless you want to try to have it at 8 15. no we are well we already have to lie is the june 30th meeting not timeline wise um i know well you have to have we have to have 10 days we have to have 10 days in the paper And they'll actually have to advertise it. It's not our responsibility to advertise it. So if Brian could get it advertised, we could do that June 30th.

Well, we can tell them they could do June 30th. We already have another abatement presentation, tax abatement presentation that's going to be made June 30th.

Do we have the application yet?

I believe so. Oh, yes, we have the application.

Yeah, we have it.

And I think it's been mailed out to everybody.

who is i don't ambrose ambrose warehouse zero salaries zero employees was it how many square feet seven hundred i believe it was nicole do you have that information

was it was emailed it was a the application was everyone should have it yeah so yeah i'll introduce resolution 2026-6-3 i'll second it and is that set for june 30th 2026 at say 6 p.m that sounds good okay yeah i think that would be safe okay that's a joint meeting

I'll call for the question.

Okay, so I've got a motion in a 2nd, uh, for the resolution number 2026 dash 6 dash 3. Uh, everything filled out. Okay. All those in favor please state aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye aye Thank you. I'd rather see it for be three year than 10 years. That's just my reference.

Well, and we want to be sure on this one too. Ambrose filled out the old application and we want to make sure that they fill out a new one. It has just a lot more information for us.

The new one's been made available to HEDC and the auditor's office.

Can the auditor's office contact them, Ambrose, and let them know they need to fill out the new version? You come on up. We've already done it. You will be present it approved six to one for the real property abatement for 10 years. No, it's for the hearing for the hearing, which will be set June 30th at 6 p.m. She just walked past.

uh but let's go ahead and clarify why you're here brian uh i do have a couple of cents you do go ahead you better not you could lose it you know as an attorney you just go thank you very much for you to not have to wait until august there's a june 30th joint meeting with the commissioners where they've they've agreed to put the confirming resolution on the agenda, but Mary says you need to advertise. Yes, he knows. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, okay.

And he knows he's gotta get within, he's gotta get published before 10 days. He knows that. He knows the paper runs twice. He knows it's a problem.

Well, real quick, because I brought the copies you want. I have two copies of the Confirming Resolution and two copies of the Safe Benefits. But the important thing that I have is Ms. Lauder pointed out to me that our application had one digit error in the parcel number. And so what I have, if you want to see it. Corrected project questionnaire and we have corrected that part. So I will tender this to you.

Brian, so what what is going through the system right now? Of course, it's an introductory resolution was was passed to do the, um. To the hearing on the 30th, but the motion was for the standard 10 year real abatement, not the personal.

No, we're withdrawing. Okay.

All right. So that that was what was speed funnel through.

I will take my victory and get out.

But if you have pictures, maybe it's updated.

Yeah, so she came all the way. Please let her feel free to even got out.

We wanted to see the picture. Yeah, I'd like to see the correction of the person for every hour. Yeah, yeah, I'd still like to see the house. You gotta be here early. I know, but I'm quick. Let me pass these out.

These pictures I actually took this morning.

Now I'm not sure this

Yeah, no, I don't need to see landscaping.

That'll be planning or, you know, all those people that go through that. I wanted to see. I think that may be wrong.