County Council - Regular Meeting

Just a thought. Well, my my thought on it, it whether it's next month or it's got to be addressed. Well, that's got to be addressed. You know what I mean? People think I haven't showered since I Nobody wants to sit next to you. Nobody wants to sit next to me. They They've applied. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I just the start of the problem. The recording is on the agenda. All right, it's 8:30. I'd like to call the meeting to order for June 11th, 2025. And the first item on the agenda is the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Want to thank everybody for coming today. Yes, even you, Randy. I want to thank you for being here today. Um, so we Nicole, we have the CF one approvals to work out here. Good morning, everyone. Morning. All right, so we're going to kind of go through my highlighted ones that I thought need your attention. So, we're going to start off on the first page. Number three, COI Air70 Logistics Park Building 1 LLC. When they submitted their CF1, there was no employee information. Uh, their SV1 stated they expected 50 to

200 employees. Um, they did not have any employee information last year and they are two of 10 years. So, I don't know if we if you want to just have me keep going. Yeah. Do we the ones that don't have employee information, do we know if the buildings have been occupied yet? I don't know. I don't know any information and and the compliancy is based on the time frame in which they submit correct form. So to be non-compliant would mean being that they didn't turn their form in time and that's what you highlighted, right? Yeah. So all the ones that are in front of you. So there are a total of 19 plus five. So I have 24 CF1s that were turned in on time. There are ones in here though that I'm going to kind of go over the employee information to let you know that they're not in in line with their SB1. Okay. And that's at your discretion if you want to say they're non-compliant because last month we had five that you wanted me to send letters out to say they're non-compliant because they don't have any they didn't have any employee information or they marked zero and you wanted an explanation from them which they're going to be presenting here at 8:45. Um so I kind of went I'm going through and highlighting the ones kind of the same situation as last month. They did make their deadline for correct but okay. Yes. All of these were all turned in on time. It's just the mere fact of now looking at the meat of the paperwork to say hey are we in compliance of what they said they were going to do when they applied for their abatement. Thank you. Y um so number three COI no employee information. Um number four CF or C5 Indianapolis. Um, that building is vacant. I I don't know

if somebody emailed me and told me it was or it says vacant on the form. Um, they had no employees last year. They are two of 10 years. Same page number eight. Um, I this one I didn't know if you wanted me to worry about it. Their employees were under the SB1 count. So, the CF1 states seven employees versus the SB1 was 26. They had 20 employees last year and they're four of 10 years. And then if we want to go to the second page, number nine, exit Mount Comfort Land LLC. Their building is vacant. Uh their SB1 stated that they were going to have 40 employees. Their building has been vacant for three years and they are three of 10 years. Uh same page number 13, Greenfield Distribution Holding. Um, the only reason why I'm kind of highlighting that one is their CF1 states 10 employees where their SB1 said 24. Uh, last year they had 12 employees. It's kind of been all over the place. Their first year of filing they had 66 employees. The next year was 30, then 77, then 12, then 10. So, it's kind of been all over. I just was wanted to throw that out to let you know about that one. Uh then we're going to go to the fourth page. Uh the fourth page is personal property filings. Um I wanted to uh bring highlight Midwest Mole which is number one. Uh they do have delinquent taxes. They did not pay their spring um installment. So their spring installment plus the penalty. They owe 29,000 and some change. And then number five, Lanceburg Aurora. um they have been uh delinquent on taxes. They have received no abatement the past two years uh either due to

delinquent taxes or they didn't file a CF1. Um so I just wanted to bring highlight to that one as well. So I don't know how you want me to proceed with the ones that I've kind of gone over with you. Well, can we talk real quick about the very last one right off the bat? Um, so if they don't pay their taxes, then they don't get the abatement. That is at your discretion. Okay. For for that period of time or is that on the application don't pay there's no it's abatements the CF1s are at the discretion of council. I so we have Frank at Nexus who gives me all sorts of guidance when I have questions about you know what business can can't do what stipulations are and every time I ask some sort of question he always says it's at the council's discretion of how they want to proceed and grant compliancy to the the business. So that's kind of how I I just kind of give the information to you and then you let me know how you would like me to proceed because I which is what I've done in the past. Well, you got on there is seven of 10 years. So the abatement isn't that high running out. Uh but if they're not paying their taxes to bait those years taxes, right? I am curious Nicole. It says that there's been prior years of delinquent taxes, but now they they're they're delinquent just for the most recent year. So, at some point they are catching up, right? They're just late. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then the number one on personal property, they're still delinquent from last year. Uh are you talking about Midwest Mole? Yes. So Midwest Mole. So, what I was putting in there was they

filed their personal property filing late for 23 pay 24. Um, they did get caught up on that, but their only delinquency is their spring installment for this year. This year? Yes. Okay. That was May 10th. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But they are also in year 10 of 10. So, if we deem them non-compliant, there's they're not getting they weren't getting that much abatement at this point. No, but the way that this works, you know, you can deem them non-compliant right now and you can request their presence at next hearing and then they'll probably pay it and everything will be fine. However you want to do it, but you've got kind of got two times to, you know. Yeah. Have they received a letter about being late? Is it possible they don't know? No. No, tax bills only go out one time a year. Um, the only time I know the treasur sends them out is if they're going to go to tax sale. Okay. Yeah. Well, I I think we should direct her to to send them a letter. non-compliant and they're late on their taxes and they're not going to get their 10th year abatement if they don't pay them ASAP and see if it sparks and and if they if we even tell them they need to come in here if they do catch everything up prior to it we could forgo that. Well, just on personal property, and then I'd like to go back to real property, but just on personal property, I'll make a motion uh for non-compliance on number one Midwest Mole, number five, Lansburg, Aurora, and uh and grant compliance to the remaining on the list. I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second u for Midwest Mo and Lansburg Aurora to be deemed non-compliant and the other uh ones to be compliant. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same and it passes. Can you can you reach out to them or

send them a letter and stuff? I will actually I since they're personal property I kind of hand that over to Michelle in the assessor's office and I will let her know that Midwest Mullen Lanceburg need a letter sent out to them and we'll uh see if we can get them the taxing units the school and everybody gets the personal property tax that comes out of this so it is important and once again we are one of the only tip districts in this state that allow the personal property to pass through so that's a positive um does anyone have any thoughts on those she highlighted for real property. Well, if they're vacant, why? Yeah, I I foolish to they they've spent the money to build the building. They're apparently current on their property taxes. Um I think I I mean I personally don't think we should pull somebody's abatement at this time. We are getting bombarded with a number of um new investments coming into the county and I think what we're going to find is that um these buildings will have a market here soon. I've even had a conversation with one of the HDC people and said one of those buildings is probably in the next 90 days going to be sold or leased. So, there's four or five of them that are vacant and um my personal feeling is I think we need to wait before we or we take somebody's abatement away from them. Well, this isn't you're not taking anything away. All that we're doing is on the sheet we will if this is what happened last month. So, I had five of them and I just deemed them non-compliant and I put building vacant. he's come in to explain, you know, what's going on, which I got everyone here to talk about that last month. So, they have another time around to explain

their case and then, you know, you can let them know at that time what you would like to do. Well, I mean, it might if you send letters out to them, then we'll find out for sure if the building's occupied or not. Cuz they you sent them a letter and they didn't respond. Correct. Uh, no. So, I had I had five letters I mailed out per last council meeting and I had responses to all of them but one and they're not on this list. They're not on this list. That's at 8:45. Yeah. Yeah. Um on number three, the COI Air70 logistics being year two of of 10, I assume their first year EDA payment isn't even due yet, right? That's not something they're So, we're talking about 25 pay 26. So 26 would be when their EDA payment would be due. So they're not behind on anything. They filed on time. I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. Um second same same thing on the number four that says second year VDA payment. They're not late on anything. No. Right. And then number eight, um, you know, they do have less employees, but it is at a significantly higher salary per employee than they originally, uh, filed for. So I don't have a problem where people were able to offer better, higher paying jobs with less employees. Um, number nine, it is year three, but again, building vacant. And at number 13, it is again it's less employees, but it is a much higher it's a 67% higher salary employee than they committed to when they filed. So that's just kind of I I don't think any of these are egregiously out of line, especially where salaries are higher than they init.

Well, I mean, I just need a a flavor of the board because um me personally, if their salaries are higher than what they then I don't think we should deem them non-compliant because the salaries are what we're I'm always good with that because when they fill their paperwork out to start with, they've all told us they don't know who's going to be in the building, so they have to guess how many employees. So, you know, Right. Yeah. A lot of them don't have a vendor at the time they're building that building. All right. So, you know, with the salaries, um, so I'll move we approve them all. I'll second it. Okay. We have a motion and second to go ahead and approve all of the um the rest of the CF1s. All those in favor? I oppose. Motion passes. Thank you. Now, it's 8:45. Yep. So, we will. So, last month, like I was saying, I had five letters that I mailed out. So, I'm going to start off with I didn't number these right. Sorry. But 70 Connect 2 and three. Um, so last month I presented their C their CF1s as sent to me. So, 70 Connect 3, uh, the original CF1 stated no employees. Um, and it was confirmed that the building is vacant. Um they are three of 10 years. Um the building has been vacant since completion. They have a 5% abatement fee. Um they actually do have an EDA payment. We have not received the payment on that. I have been talking with someone um via email. Um I don't know. I've got Adam Broadick here to present to talk about 70 connect 3. Um so we can talk about that then. Um and then he's also here to talk about 70 connect 2 as well. Uh the original submission of the CF1 had no employee information, but they resubmitted a new

CF-1 with 40 employees. Uh their SV1 stated they were going to have 270 employees. Um in the past looks like no employees for 22 pay 23. They had some employees 23 pay 24. They're four of 10 years 5% abatement fee. Um, so I'll go ahead and hand it over to Adam and have him talk to you about 70 connect two and three and then we can go down to the rest of them if he's here. Hi, if you don't mind state your name and everything because we are on recording and sure if you didn't know Adam Brderick with Loth Property Group. Start with 70 connect 2. Super and apologies some of this predates my um time with Loth so I'm a little behind on on some of it. I brought uh Scott Friselle who was a part of um with Creek Devald who was a part of our negotiations when we put the EDAs in place with 70 connect 2 our tenant use and logistics moved in. We've had um call it issues gaining their employment information which is why some of the forms were submitted without that information. Um they are lighter from an employee count than we had anticipated. Obviously, we can't control how many employees they end up putting in the building. Um, but we have um explained to them that we have to have this information in a more timely fashion on a go forward basis. Um, and I'm happy to answer any questions or Scott can help as well. Um, my biggest question would be it shows delinquency on a spring installment um of the economic development agreement payment. Do you can you speak for 470 connect three? Oh yes, correct.

Yeah. Um, excuse me. Good morning, council. Uh, my name is Scott Friselle. We were working through the EDA payments and 5% uh, abatement fee. There was some confusion on that and so we're still working on getting that paid and and confirming the payment amounts. Okay. But you've not paid the spring installment of the EDA payment. That's correct. To my knowledge of the should be resolved in the property tax, right? Property tax is current. Yes. Okay. Is that their first EDA payment? Yes. Yeah, I understand. Um, yeah, it's a if there's an imperfection in the system, which there's many, it's the employee scenario when you first when we first agreed to tax abatement because they're always inflated to make everything sound better. And some of these buildings were some of the first ones we did back years ago. Um, you know, we're a little bit smarter now, I think, than we were when we first started because we didn't have a lot of buildings to start with. But, um, um, but I mean, I I personally appreciate you coming in and and telling us what's happening. And you're saying that that 70 connect 3 is occupied. 70 Connect 2 is two is occupied. the half million. The million square footer is vacant. We've working our tails off to get that leased. We have a couple um full building user RFPs that we're responding to right now. We've responded to I don't know 30. Well, I mean it can't it can't be good for your company to have a million square feet sitting there. No, no, no. We're we're spending plenty of our own u money carrying the building. Yeah, I do think to lease it. I don't have a a problem either with people, you know, with the employee count being lower or

vacancy. Uh but the, you know, delinquency on the spring installment specific to 70 connect three, I can't justify granting approval to something that is knowingly uh delinquent on what was agreed to be paid. So, um Nicole, what is the process? I mean, could we table this? Are you on a timeline if we were to? Yeah. So this is their second go around. So on the CF1 form, we've already filled out the first part saying they're non-compliant because you guys wanted to question the the information on employees. Then this is their second kind of almost want to say final time per se. They have a right to appeal, but the second time if you deny then they don't get their abatement unless they decide and they go through a court process to appeal that. That would be clear when you say non-compliant. You're not talking about the law that they didn't get in their form on time, right? Their form was turned in on time. So, so they're they're compliant, but they're not meeting the direction that this board gave us for the employees. I just want to make sure that we're not saying that they didn't turn that in on time. And my my biggest thing with it too is when we did economic development agreements, there were heightened abatements, you know, associated with a with agreeing to be part of an economic development agreement. So if you don't pay the economic development agreement, you have a bigger abatement than you would have had otherwise because you had made that arrangement. And so is this something that you can rectify in the next 30 days? Well, I do want to speak up real quick. When semi connect 2 and three came online, they were abatement first and then the EDAs were then approached to them afterwards. Just as an FYI by one elected official who's no longer with us.

They were one of the first ones that had already had everything in process and then the EDAs came on board. Right. That's what I was going to say as well. the EDA payments through the economic development agreement. And so we treat it as separate from the abatement. I mean, it it was all tied to the negotiations for the abatement and incentives, but that payment was not um received by an invoice. And so we just became aware of it recently. Um it was forgotten. And so we're working on resolving that. And I'll let Adam confirm if he believes that can be paid within 30 days. Yes, we'd like to have a meeting outside this to discuss because there's there's a little confusion on um call it the math if you will, but we just became aware of it and are working back through our records and want to sit down. I think um someone from our office has reached out. I'm not sure to who but I will find that out. I mean that would be me. Okay. Yeah. And there there were and and our auditor u I've kind of already given an opinion though issue if I same one which I think it is I think that was a that was GDI so that's and that's been taken care of so this is this is not so if there's an issue with the calculations or the percentages we might need to talk to Greg too oh okay I think we need to table it until they can till they know what they're supposed to pay. Yeah. And then give them an opportunity to pay what they're supposed to pay. Yeah. And Nicole is working closely with um to so many people, but there is somebody, right? There's a phone call. So, do you want to make it 60 days? I mean, next week, 30 days or some I would say 30 days for them to come back with an update on until they can get the numbers to them in time. Are we limited by statute on how long we can? No, not really. I mean, at this point, there's not statute really that's

governing the EDA. That's something that's fairly new. I mean, but we're talking about the abatement, right? So, on the CF1 says that the property Oh, so this is from last month. Um, the um property owner is not in substantial compliance. says a property owner found not to be in substantial property owner shall receive the opportunity for a hearing the following date and time has been set. Hearing must be held within 30 days of date of mailing of this notice. That's all I have. Then from there it's up to us. It's up to you. Well, July is budget meeting. Yeah, I'm thinking so the first week of August would be I'm I'm sorry you were ever approached about an EDA with a standing abatement and I recognize that it's totally fair if you want to verify calculations and so I don't want to punish them for that and July is just bad for us because we're doing budgets. So would everybody feel better about the first week of August having it having it rectified? Is that a motion? I'll make a motion that this be tabled until the first Wednesday of August for further discussion. I'll second it. I have a question though. Are you just considering only because that's the only one that has any does not have an EDA payment? I all my I'll amend my motion to be specific to uh item number one for 70 connect three. Yeah. And second on that. All right. All those in favor I oppose the same. And then that motion passes. Now 70 connect two. So we got till August to figure out how much the EDA payment actually is and to get it rectified. Thank you. And then on 70 connect 2, we had mailed the letter because we were missing the employee information. Correct. We do now have the employee information.

Um, so I'll make a motion to uh approve the amended CF1 for 70 connect 2. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second to approve 70 connect 2. All those in favor say I. I. Oppos the same. And it is approved. Thank you guys. and hopefully we get it all and you won't have to come back in August if we can get everything figured out and then we'll um because it seems like it's a specific scenario we can figure. Would it would it be fair is there consensus that if the spring installment is made before the August meeting they don't need to appear in person or that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that would be fair. That's what we're Thank you guys though for coming. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you coming in. Thank you. All right. So, the next one I have is uh USICV Mount Comfort Building One. Uh also known as GDI number one. Uh their original submission had six employees. Their new submission has 29. Um the SP1 stated 25. Uh they had 45 employees last year. They are six of 10 years. And I have Leah Fan here to speak on their behalf. Good morning. Hi. If you'll state your full name, we are recorded and everything. So, Leah Fanton, I'm a senior property manager with CBR. And um Nicole, what was our original scenario here? original scenario was they had submitted only six employees and their SB1 set at 25. Um, but they have resubmitted and it's safe that they have nine employees now. Oh, good. I did not submit the tax abatement forms, but

I can shed some light on the occupancy of the building. So, the o the actual building is demised into three different spaces. The south end is occupied by the majority tenant. We have not seen any changes with that tenant. They've been in great standing, very stable. The middle space is currently vacant, so that previous tenant had moved out in 2024, which is part of the reason why we're experiencing some changes on the tax abatement forms. The north end is occupied by a third tenant and they recently informed me that they had relocated their production team to another building in Greenfield. So again, that would factor into the the total number of employees and salaries that was submitted. But Nicole, remind me, the first submission said six employees and did not state salaries. Is that right? Um, they had 300,000 in salaries. Okay. So, we asked because that was probably significantly lower than stated, but uh the amendment shows more employees and higher salaries than the original filing. So, I'll make a motion to um approve GDI 1 amended CF1 second. Okay. And uh it sounds like you're got some in some vacant, some not. So, you're doing as good as you can right now. was we're actively marketing the vacant space. I know the landlord has invested money into making that space look great. U we have a motion and a second to approve the GDI1. All those in favor? I oppose the same. Thank you. Thank you for coming in and uh good luck in getting the rest of it. Thank you. Thanks.

All right. Next up is Inland LLC. uh CF1 stated no employees um and as far as I know there are no employees uh building is vacant they are three of 10 years they have a 5% uh baitment fee and then taxes are paid and I got Terry Mccardwell here to speak on behalf Terry Mccardwell excuse me I'm with GDI and Indie is our building uh ownership name um as Kent, I think summed up very well. Unfortunately, we haven't leased the building yet. Uh we along with the others in this room and we're all trying very uh hard to get these buildings leased because we are carrying them. We're paying the property taxes and uh I think it's good. So, it's bad for us that we don't have a tenant yet, but I really think it's good for you, the council, and Hancock County because we've got product, i.e. buildings sitting out here available uh to be leased. And as Kent mentioned, and I see Michael Weiser in the crowd who's with uh Kushman. I'm g I'm sure he'll speak to it more, but we have we are just responding to a tremendous number of RFPs right now, requests for proposal for people that do need space. Uh we came out of the the pandemic years and things were booming. You know that because we had those conversations. A lot of buildings went up and there was a lot of space being leased. The last two years we the demand has just dropped precipitously and there's just not been the tenants out there that will lease these buildings. However, this year since January 1, we've seen that change dramatically. And I think if I had to guess right now, I think Hancock County uh probably by year end just with the activity that we've seen to date, there'll be 3 million square ft uh of space that's

vacant right now. And that's we're a part of that with our 700,000 square feet that will be leased and that trend seems to be continuing. So I think by year end uh you're going to see a significant number of these buildings leased and that will be good for me because I won't have to come before you next year and uh explain. So that's kind of what I have to to offer you. But I'd love to take any questions or answer any questions that you might have. But we do appreciate I appreciate uh what you've done uh in the brief time that I've been here this morning in having some grace because I think we're all trying hard to get through this and we will get through it. Um in our and these users that I'm talking about this 3 million square ft that of employers that are coming it wouldn't be possible if you wouldn't have extended the tax abatement so that we could build these buildings. So I think it it's going to be a very positive thing uh for you in the next year or so. questions. Well, I mean, they are only in in year three. We do know demand dropped. They're not behind on taxes. They didn't file late. So, um I'd make a motion if no one has anything else they'd prefer to say first. I'll make a motion um to deem compliant and approve CF1 for uh item number three on the list inland LLC. Second. Super. We have a motion and a second to go ahead and deem compliant with Inland LLC. All those in favor say I. I oppose. The same. I I appreciate you coming in. We We're just trying to stay vigilant on everything. Um I think patience is the virtue right now. Uh we did go through the last couple years of uncertainty on on a lot of stuff, but I think um um the next couple years going to be another big push. I agree with that. And it's not good for you at all to have vacant buildings as you know

that you've already spent the money on. You've already um you know make making payments on those buildings. So um we don't have to uh encourage you guys to seek vendors. So I think too uh it is a good thing that we do have these buildings uh that we don't have to build new buildings at this point and that's our goal I believe is to fill these empty buildings for us. And we've been real vigilant about not adding a lot of of of spec stuff and stuff in the last couple years now. Well, Terry, I know you had approval all in one swipe for multiple buildings. Is this building two, three? This is our building three, but it's probably uh one, two, three, four. This is the fifth building that's in it's one of five buildings that's in the park right now. And there's another just of interest. There's another 1.2 million foot building in the park with core 5. Um, it too is vacant, but I can't say too much, but I think that may be part of the really good news that's going to be coming down the pike uh yet this year. But do you have abatement approval on buildings that have not yet been constructed and is correct at this time? There is no construction. That's correct. Right. Well, we However, let me I'm sorry to interrupt, Kent, but what that has allowed us to do is pursue some really nice build opportunities. In fact, we're finalists right now for a 1.6 million square foot uh a build a suit. So, again, without you granting us the tax abatement, it doesn't allow us to be a finalist for an opportunity like this. And this was with a Fortune 100 company. What would occupancy have to be for you to build another speculative building um on the abatements you already have approval for? Probably a total market of B u vacancy of 7%. That get down to seven. That seems to be a normal which is about where it was when you got

abatement approval. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Well, and this is typical of Indianapolis. I mean, it's an up and down market and we got a seven-year I think from the abatement there's a seven-year window. You're in that window with those un unbuilt buildings right now. So, that might push you faster than the uh well, the market's moving pretty quick right now. All right, very good. Thanks for the update. Thank you. Thank you. All right, one more. I've got Hancock 13RL LLC. Uh their CF1 stated zero employees. Um there have been no employees for the past year. I'm assuming building is vacant. I got two of 10 years. 5% tax abatement fee. Taxes are paid. I didn't get a response from the letter, but I don't know if there's anyone here to represent. Here we are. Respond. Uh Todd Ward with Red Rock Developments. Um, first I'd just like to say, uh, Mr. Chairman, uh, members of council, I actually appreciate this conversation as a taxpayer in my county. I wish they were a little more fiduciary responsibility, uh, wise, but, um, but I appreciate what you're doing for the citizens of Hancock County, making sure everybody's on the up and up. That being said, um, I could pretty much echo everything that Terry has said. Uh, we're trying our darnest. The building is uh, vacant right now. We're trying to keep it in tip-top shape to give it the best viewings we possibly can. Um, we've been, I think, a great partnership with us in Hancock County. I have not a bad thing to say about any of staff. They've always been responsive. We've worked well together. Uh, we tried to do things uh again to be a good partner with the county such as the road widening that we did. It was only required to be 24 ft. We ended up doing 30 because we thought that was appropriate uh from our experience in other places. and a few other things like the upgrade of the

Margaret Wallace drain um etc etc. Um what I'd really like to do is just if you would mind a couple of minutes for Michael Wiser u with with Kushman Wakefield to just kind of tell you a little bit about the market and our marketing strategy and I think it will also help you with some of these decisions. Michael, thank you again. My name is Michael Weiser. I'm with Kushman and Wakefield based out of Indianapolis here. Um, I've pulled together some of my thoughts on on in followup to this meeting and and and appreciate your uh, you know, wanting to, you know, look into this and better understand kind of what's going on. We, too, as you've heard, have a 1 million square foot vacant building. I can I can speak on behalf of uh, Red Rock and and LXP. They don't they don't like that anymore than the other guys that have been uh, up here speaking. Um, it was mentioned a little earlier during COVID there was a huge spike. we'll just call it a spike in industrial real estate across the entire country. Um, we started buying from online outlets more. We weren't going to the stores quite as much. And what happened was is that that put us in a position where we were building, and I shouldn't say we, industrial developers across the country were building more industrial real estate, warehouses mostly, but some manufacturing as well than they had ever done before. The problem is is that back in roughly 2023 that started to kind of tail off and as you know some of these buildings were going up in 22 and 23. It's kind of a little bit bad timing unfortunately. So what just to put it in perspective from a local perspective there were 17 transactions in 2022 that were signed that were above 500,000 square ft. That started dropping significantly over the last you know couple of years after that. To give you an idea, 17 were signed in 2022. These were 500,000t buildings and larger,

which is exactly what we are, you know, here talking about today. To put it in perspective, in 2023 there were five. So, you started to see that tail for the next year in 2024. The good news is right now we are seeing a little bit of this kind of picking back up. Terry mentioned that a little bit. We're seeing manufacturing come back. You know, I heard the word uncertainty. We try really hard in our world not to say uncertainty anymore than we have to because you could say it about every moment if you if you really wanted to. But to give you an idea, so far this year, uh, we've signed four 500,000 square foot. So, we we've signed what we have in all of last year. We've already done that this year. Kind of going back to Terry's comment of it is picking back up. What I would leave you with and and and and I I I think I heard uh they've had 30 proposals out. Just to put it in perspective, we too over the last two and a half, three years have put out 29 proposals. Strangely enough, only two of those have landed in Indiana. That just kind of puts it into perspective. We're all working really hard to try to get these buildings filled up, but that's kind of what we're up against. The good news is we are starting to see that pick up. So, um, Terry had mentioned of of a large deal that's really very much so looking at this market. That deal would need to have tax abatement to really be looking at this market. So, I I'll kind of leave you with this kind of final thought. Right now, in our central Indiana marketplace, there are a number of 20 20 buildings that are 500,000 square feet and larger. And I will tell you that every single one of them has 10-year tax abatement. Every single one. So if that does get removed, it truly does create a competitive disadvantage for this submarket, which I don't think any of us

would want to see. So the great news is we have inventory here. When you don't have inventory, people will not look at your market, right? They will they will go to Louisville. They will go to Columbus. They will go to Chicago. when you don't have mar the the availability in the market, they won't look at you. You have it. And I do see great things in the near future of what's happening in Hancock County because of that. Let me clarify. You said there's 20 buildings. That's not just Hancock County. Correct. That's in the entire central Indiana marketplace. Hendricks, Boon, everybody. That's exactly right. Right. Yep. That's exactly right. And the point is is that they all have that 10ear tax payment. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when we when these were all coming up and I had voted no to many, I said, I'm not sure there will be demand for all the buildings that are being requested. And truly at that time, I looked at it, there won't be enough demand in the Hancock County area or central Indiana area, but as you said, I do a lot of travel and these buildings are off the interstate all over the United States. And so, we're not in competition just with central Indiana. We're in competition with those buildings that are sitting vacant all over the US at this point. Um they are only in year two of 10. Correct. Correct. Uh they have not been delinquent on anything any payments any or any paperwork. Um I will make a motion when chairman's ready. Um perfect. because I I know I was here when when we went through all of this and but demand is relative uh and and what we found is demand changes every so many years and we're probably going to we know we're coming through another period of high demand. So, we're just happy that it's coming

this fast from the lack of demand. Uh a year or two is is not a long time frame. you know, it might be to some, but it's really not cuz these are 10ear scenarios, 20ear scenarios. This will help the community for years and years to come. So, uh, one thing if you were here earlier, I said as you look at tenants, and I can't speak for anyone else or future votes, but when you look for tenants, um, I personally, I know you you you expected a lot of employees, and I would not be concerned if your future employees were less as long as the salary those employees make is not less than you originally stated. That's just my personal uh, take on it. So, Anybody else have further discussion? I'd entertain a motion. All right. I'll make a motion uh to deem compliant and approve the Hancock 13 RLC CF1. I'll second. All right. We have a motion and a second to approve the um Hancock 13 RL LLC. And all those in favor say I. I. Post the same. And it passes. Thank you for coming in, guys. Thank you for your insight. Thanks for coming. We really appreciate it. All right. Super. Oh. Um, put them here and I'll sign them right out. Can I do that? Okay. Um, all right. We're right on time. Mr. Pool, we have a request for addition appropriation. Thank you. We'll get to it. It's a pretty straightforward add-on. It's for material for some uh roadway construction.

Uh it's also part of a CCMG grant. So it's a 50% reimbursement. Okay. So it's an additional preparation. So it's a thumbs up to advertise. Yep. Very good, Carrie. Yep. If there's a positive, this is a highway, right? MVHM. This is No, this is uh Woke Road Street. Pardon me. It's 1176. Yes, it's 1176. Yes, MVH. Yes. If there's a positive to still having some unused buildings, it's the ability for our highway department to catch up with the roads in those areas, which we it's given us a a chance for a year or two to to catch up. I'm one guy that does not complain. And I like to see the tax money come in without any of the use for police, fire, or the roads. It's kind of nice. Thank you, Gary. Thanks, Gary. Thanks. Is Jeremy here? I am here. Yep. Good morning, everybody. Morning. Thank you for taking time to see me. I know it's a busy time of year with budgets coming up and that's kind of partly why I want to get in front of you um regarding the my office's comprehensive plan that was uh revised late last year and took effect in January. We talked about in January and as a result of that I understand um the county you guys had Mr. Geras do a cost kind of benefit uh study and our understanding on that is that he recommended that the office stay in the form it is in and my understanding also is that Miss Ellert um found that our staff positions that we recommended for parody were appropriate uh based on the county other offices in the county what we were looking at so what I'm here today is the sorry used to be the commission now it's the commission on courtapp appointed attorneys used to be the public defender commission that's where we report to with our numbers and who provides funding the reimbursement back to the

county the 40% reimbursement uh so they are looking for an update on where we stand on the comprehensive plan and for that me to give them an answer I need basically kind of an answer from all of you regarding how you would like and what you plan on proceeding um based on what you would decide today the CCAA would have several options on what to do basically what it boils back down to is we've asked for in the comprehensive plan now requires um that the office manager position and the parallegal position receive a salary on par with their uh counterparts at the prosecutor's office. Meaning not hearing me. Sorry. Okay. Um I can hear that now. So um basically what I'm we're looking for the council to kind of give us some guidance is how the council wishes to proceed what they think is going to be best for the county. there's a few options that we could propose. Um, and based on whatever you decide you want to do, then we'll report back to the commission and what the council reports and then they'll kind of review that and decide what they think, how that complies with the comprehensive plan and what they suggest. Um, one one example of a solution would be just to provide immediate raises back to what we asked for in our budget last year. Uh that would bring office manager and parallegal up to their counterparts in the prosecutor's office. And Jeremy, is that $12,000 a year? Is that what that was? Or it's it's a onetime it's a onetime upgrade expense, but it would be $12,470 gross. That's what we're asking for. Going on though, too. Was that a That would be ongoing though, too. Well, that would not be that would be their salaries and then next year they would be getting their 3% like everybody else does and so on and so forth. It's not a that much every year increase. It's just to get them and we just lock step with

the prosecutor's office year by year moving forward. But when we amend the salaries for those two positions, the total annual difference versus what it is now is $12,470. Is that am I understand it right? I'm not sure I understand your question exactly or to answer it correctly that $12,470 is the expense that needed at this moment to bring those two positions up to where they the comprehensive plan needs them to be. So on an annualized we're halfway into the year. So an annualized basis it would be double that or no? Yeah, it would need to be it would probably need to be the suggestion would be make it retroactive to January 1st when and I think my understanding is this auditor would then just change their payroll to account for that moving to the end of the year and then next year they would just that total salary would be increased by 3%. Let me ask you uh uh Jeremy in your uh submission for the 2026 budget Yes sir. Uh what I assumed uh I haven't gone through it in detail yet uh but um I assumed you assumed that this was done and that your 26 budget reflects that. Yes sir. If I understand what your question is. Yes. Our our 2026 budget assumes presumes that the council approves these changes and makes it so now and then next year salary would would allow for what the salary wish the salary to be plus that 3%. So yeah that answers your question. So it's baked in the numbers for next year already in my proposal. is there. And I guess that's my thinking is that we uh do it in the 26 budget rather than messing with 25. But Well, can I ask you this, Jimmy? Of

course. So, um is the commission mandated by state and and if so, do you have an IC code for it? Like if it's truly commissioned by the state? I don't have an IC code for I can get that for you. It is a state agency basically. Um they are created and run. They are state employees for that purpose. I can get you whatever codes we need. I can get reach out to them and find that for you. But then they oversee all the public defender offices across the state and not every county is part of the commission. Okay? So most counties are. Um but when you join the commission, you're required to follow their rules. But in exchange, they provide the counties that that 40% reimbursement. Um, and on that topic, just to give you a few examples, since the office was started, we've brought in in 2022, the county received $416,000 and change in reimbursement. Um, $45,000 in 2023, $43,000 in 2024. So far this year, we've received $22,000 and are anticipating, we know we're going to get another 117 um 1819 actually with title 4 e- money in July and then we'll get one more reimbursement payment this year, which we expect is going to be probably at least that much. So we'll bring in close to $440,000 this year. So if it is if it's commission is mandated by state I do think um Deb your office would need an IC code. I mean there should be an IC code for it. There should be an IC. I mean in 2022 we've been in the commission I want to say since 98. Um just there wasn't an office. The county has been part of the commission which is why there was a board and that's what the the commission requires. And that when you create an office,

there has to be a public defender board that kind of oversees the office since not an elected position. Um, so but yeah, if that answers your question and if you need some IC code information, I'm happy to reach out to the commission and should have no problem getting where they're how they were created, funded, whatever along those lines, I guess. So here's here here are my thoughts. And I know I I realized that um the comprehensive plan was predates me but it's my understanding from doing some homework that initially the council was not in favor of moving forward with comprehensive plan. Council has moved forward. I feel like now we are being forgive the phrase just going to be blunt. we're being forced or backed into a corner due to this to give these increases. They're not based on not that your staff isn't doing their job and going above and beyond, but they're not based on merit. They're not based on on, you know, other county salary, you know, questionnaires and and so forth. I feel like we're we're being pushed into doing this. We're the fiscal body. We make those decisions. And I feel like by law are are we being forced to do this and is it the right decision? Can I respond to that just briefly? Absolutely. Thank you. And I I understand where you're coming. I know when they edited the comprehensive plan, we knew this was going to be if I was in your position, I'd kind of feel the same way. You're being told, but forced I understand the use of that phrase. You don't have to do it. If you don't though, the county will no longer most likely will no longer get the $400,000 a year. There you go. It's a it's a conide to the reimburseable reimbursement. It's almost like being in a union, you know, like you have a union, you know, but that's taking our

power as as the fiscal body for the county. They've always confused. We've always gotten the reimbursement. So I don't understand why it's changed now that did not give it to you because the comprehensive plan got changed by the board to change those two things those that make these were always it's always been a or at least for some that new guideline they adopted was recommended by the commission to adopt it wasn't mandatory but our board my board chose to do that. Who's on the board? It's John Albbright, Marcus Dennis who's here today. Uh, and Mike um was freaking out. Mike, I know who it is. Atkins. I always space on his name. I know. So, those three. Um, John Akens. It It's a multi-political board. Yes. It's I know. I know. Michael is appointed by the CCAA um to represent their interests on the board. Mr. Dennis is rep is appointed by the judges in the county. Right. and then John is appointed. So the gist of the whole thing though is that the the public defenders equal access to income as the prosecutor's office. Yes, sir. So that the court system can be in monetarywise equal. You can't say that you're you're you're funding the prosecutor's office at a high level and you're not funding the public defenders so that the individual that needs a public defender is getting a bad a bad rep. I I I understand that that's the gist of the of the scenario. Um we get caught in the middle here, you know, somewhere. Um I'm glad it's 12,000, not 200,000. Sure. Okay. But is

this going to happen next year again? Are we going to raise the prosecutor's parallegal and you have to control what you pay the prosecutors at that point? We'll have to be because you have to think of them both as one because this is and and I'm not saying that's not a fair system because somewhere down the line I think that's a fair system that that we're not over over funding one from from the other. Um it's a consequence if you're within $12,000. Yeah, I know. That's why I said I'm happy that it's 12, not 200. Yeah, it it's not the $12,000. It's it's the point of it that I don't want to feel like we are being backed into a corner. When we have people come in front of us or we have office people in this building that they do a heck of a lot of work, love to give them more money, they come in front of us, oh, we can't do it. I feel like we're being forced. I just want to say I don't like feeling like we're being forced to do something. On that note though, it's not the $12,000. On that note though, even where there's no commission and all that, the whole time I've been here, you'll always have department heads saying, "Well, my so and so with this job title isn't getting paid as the so and so with that job title down the hall." So, we hear that regardless of the commission piece a lot. But just to kind of backtrack, this whole conversation sparred a whole look, right? This when this first came up, it turned into is the prosecutor's office even struct or sorry, defender's office even structured the best way. Should we be using one of the other two models? And Greg Geras researched it extensively. We paid him to research it. Scott Binky researched it. Judges weighed in. And I think everyone's consensus was this is exactly as it should be unless unless I didn't get information. No, this is the best case scenario. So this is our best case scenario.

Personally, I don't have a problem bringing two employees up to par with the prosecutor's office. Um whether or not we prefer to just do that in the 26 budget and not make any modifications for 25 or whether we do something for 25 I'm pretty flexible on. But I'm not opposed to just bringing those and going forward we will be cognizant that when you do something for one office you're considering doing it for the other. I I tell you, I've been on here long enough to know that the court system, if anybody forces us to do things, it's always it always is that building over there. The judges come in, well, you have to hire this guy. You have to bring on another judge. You have to bring on another child man magistrate. You have to do this. The the state says you have to pay the prosecutor's office comes in. You state says you have to pay these people this. You have to do that. And we always struggle with you have to do something. Um, you know, now we do get reimbursements for some things that lessen lessen some of the penalty of that, but uh um then they take away some of those in the in the future, too. If it if it makes you feel any better at all, and I know, Mr. S, it's not the money, it's the principle. I I understand where you're coming from 100%. If I were in your spot, I'd feel the same way. um if it doesn't does doesn't make you feel any better. Um while you are generous in giving people raises this year and while the county still pays my salary and um my chief deputy um we aren't getting raises next year. So um that will save you in some way about $9,000. You're not getting we make fine money. We did a real good job of lobbying the state would pay for yours and and your def would be a real big help. If if you wait to put this in his budget, will we not get the reimbursement for 2025? Thank you for bringing that up. That one's going to talk on that. So what whatever

you decide to do, I will go we'll report back to the commission and I don't know what they'll say. They may say that's fine. They will consider your plan and what you propose and they may meet they're meeting next week. I don't know if they'll address it then, but they will be aware that our office is out of quotes, you know, out of compliance. So, they may they may look at that and say, "That's fine. You're a year late, but you're fine." They may say, "No," and they may send what's in called a 90-day letter uh to us and would get copied to you all, and it would say, "Hey, we're not we're not satisfied with that plan." We would give you 90 days to propose another plan. And then and it doesn't have to be what I talked about. You know, we talked about making everything immediate retroactively. Um it's kind of up to them to decide what's going on. I don't have any say in that. I I'm just literally kind of a middleman here saying they want us to do this. I do agree with Tammy, though. I mean, I think it should be known that some of us would consider reviewing the whole thing if we feel like we're being backed in corners by a threeperson board that we aren't connected to. That's an unelected board. An unelected board, right? But um we we are elected to make the hard decisions. Well, but we we've had done we've already done a lot of research. Yeah. on this uh and we don't have another plan for the public defender's office and it's our and it it is our personal the personnel uh policy of the county to pay people uh equally. That's our objective. But uh it's our decision as to whether a posi two positions if you're comparing them are the same and none of them are the same. So you know so if we do this increase if we do this increase now and then

year 26 budget they're going to get increases on top of this amount. So then do we have those two positions in the prosecutor's office then making less than or are they going to be hand it does bring that does bring up a good point Tammy that because we allow department heads to choose how to distribute their raise funds in any given year um we could be chasing we'll be getting off because it would if everybody just got 3% nothing would change right everybody would we would get them up and everybody at 3%, they'd all stay on board. But if Brent decides that those two positions are still not compensated well enough and gives more than 3%. Then you pretty much will have to follow his lead or it is. It's that cycle. Oh, that's a good question. I would hate. So, does the PD uh uh reduce S? No, I'm beingious. But you couldn't come back and say, "Well, I need more raise again for these certain people cuz I didn't choose to allocate that much to them with what I had." But he can, right? But he can, right? And he will. Well, because the commission is saying, "Oh, they have to have checks and balances." So, we are creating a cycle here that we aren't going to be able to get out of unless something changes. You're assuming that the commission isn't going to hold them to giving the money to the people that are supposed to get it. Like I said, I I've I've worried about that scenario because I understand that Brent can do that. Um and I would hate to I I don't want to be in that position where I'd have to come back and go, well, Brent gave these people because they had 5% so I need to it's not fair to to come back for as a council. And that's something I' I'd need to address with the commission. And in all fairness, I it's not something I would try to avoid at all costs. I mean, well, you could make a motion on race cycles moving forward. Everybody, you know, gets the

lump sum to distribute however they want except for, right? Except for somebody that's tied to another um somebody's tied to another thing because if he gives more to one, he's got to cut somebody else. True. Not somebody doesn't get 3%, somebody gets two, somebody's not getting it. So, it's not like you can hide that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um but um he gives he gives himself an increase. You don't get one. I mean just Yes. Brent and Syler's mine are actually tied by statute. He actually does make some more money than I do and so do the judges. They have to have another five or $10,000 from a a different state fund whichever. I mean I'm not doing this for the Well, I am doing it for the money, but you know, that's not what my goal is for myself. I think our policy is to pay people equally and we ought to take it up in the 26th budget. Um, if you want to try that. I mean, I'm I'm not for retroacting a bunch of stuff. We're halfway into the year. um you know, if if it if it's in the bud if it's in his figures right now, we're we're fighting over those already, but uh um that's going to be another thing we we can't cut if we you know, but uh right it um if someone wants to make a motion for any of it or if you want to make a motion for that, I'll entertain any motion that that everybody wants to make and we'll session if we need to uh I don't I don't want to make a motion only because I I think since we're doing budgets next month and those hard number I don't have any of those I didn't bring those in front of me the exact salary amounts or anything so I'm not prepared to make a motion on exact salary amounts but you know I will say I'm supportive of approving a budget that brings them

on par and um if we agree to his budget next month we're basically agreeing to it right for starting January one. Starting January one. Right. So is that the flavor you want to leave it at that? If we agree to his budget, then we're basically agreeing to what what he correct just retroactively. And then if the commission decides that that's not agreeable to them, then we'll bring it back up in another month or two. And I I'm not sure where the money would come from right now anyway. I mean, uh, we don't have a specific fund set aside that, um, would cover that salary to deal with this pain in the butt agency. Well, we'd have to do a separate salary amendment. Correct. We would have to advertise and allocate funds. It would be a process. Um, and then that would make something else short, right? But if there is any in in the past during budgets, if any if we have decided to implement a raise sooner than the coming budget year, we've discussed that in the budget process. I think that any further discussion on that could be done with the approval of the 26 budget and Scott and Mary aren't here. Right. Are you uh okay with that? We're we're going to um um basically then next month when we do the budget process, that's when um the 26 salaries will be addressed. Sure. If so, if I understand right, and this is I'm I'm just a middleman. Again, like I said, whatever you decide and you think is best and most most easiest to do is back up here cuz they'll be back here next month. Yeah. because we have to uh discuss the rest of the items on the budget. I understand two members aren't here today and there's no motion, no nothing further passed. But informally

um sounds like what I can inform the commission is that the plan and goal right now is to bring us into full compliance effective January with the new budget and I can relay that to them and see what they say and I'm happy to do that. That's that's at least my opinion. Well, that's that's my flavor right now. Of course. Yeah, we and we are short a couple of people and we're short. Our at our councilman that is an attorney also and on these issues. Um I do like to hear Scott's opinion on stuff. Understood. I appreciate your time and uh I'll be back next month and we'll see where things go. Thanks, J. Thank you very much, everybody. Have a good one. Okay, keeping uh on line with the agenda as we can. Uh Bernie, are you here? Bernie, come up here, young man. Bernie's always wanting money. He says sometimes. Um, good morning. Um, won't we'll take up extra time. Um, we have a lot of projects going on right now that in the county that, um, we're starting to fall behind on. Um, and we need some professional services to help us out. this jam that we're in now. What it is, we we need an overhaul of our it's called Active Directory. What that is is how we control all the user permissions and and shares and those type of things. Well, it's moving more to a cloud-based uh scenario, which means we can control things in the cloud now too as well. So, we need to change that the way we're doing. And uh it's going to cost us about u $30,000 to do that with some outside help. That's about 125 hours of help that we could get to get this done. So, um you see we can either do that or we some of the projects we we have now we have to just hold off on until we can get some things uh squared away in our active directory. So, what are the projects you would have to hold off on? Uh the sheriff has a project that he's

doing u want to help me on this, Brad? Um um and the 911 center is upgrading um some of their equipment. They've got some projects they're having in mind too is as far as being able to share data out to different agencies. We need to change our security for that as well. So, yeah, I have two pending projects that um one's been waiting for at least five months, I think, um and due to the security issues, but it's it's the jail program with the um lost my train of thought. um the the VR vision for the jail programming so where the inmates can learn how to do um oil oil changes and tire changes and things like that, but it it's got a hook to the internet and we're worried about backend security for that happening, you know. So, I got to have this piece in order to get this program up and running and we've been waiting for a while to to get that done. Um the second one I'm waiting on is a um tracking system with inside the jail. So when the officers go throughout the jail, they basically scan codes on the doors. That way we know the security checks have been done. We're monitoring the inmates. Um we know if there's a suicidal person that, you know, we're checking those on a regular basis. So when people tend to want to sue us, we have all that documentation showing that the checks were done. And so it's a very important tool and piece that we need, but we have to have this this equipment to be able to make that happen. And so, um, this is this is pretty important stuff. So, it's, uh, making your operations more efficient. Absolutely. What you're Yeah. In order to get in order to get what I need done, I got to have this. So, yes, it would definitely help me move forward and potentially reducing liability. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Because I got to have that documentation. Uh, especially like on our suicide checks, you know, because you got to do those every 15 minutes.

And so to be able to show those documentations when we're getting, you know, lawsuits and things like that, that's just one phase of it. Um, but there's many, many other things, you know, if you have a fight, you can take a picture, it's logged. I mean, there's just so much data that you can keep in that um that particular system. But I'd like to see it happen. Yeah. Um, but the VR thing, too, I mean, that's been a long waiting thing. And I just actually got an email this week asking where we stood on that, and I said, "Well, we're still waiting. We had a meeting today um to talk about that piece." So out of curiosity, will they end up with some kind of certification? So they get a certification out of that. So I've been working with like say the Jiffy Lubes and Riley Park tire and like like the oil changes in town and so when they come out of that they're willing to take them on as hier with this C certification. Um so but it's breaks, oils, um you know different various types of things will be able to come out and do that certification with. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. And Bernie, is is this in your office? You don't have the expertise or just the time? We we we have uh starting we don't know. I guess to to answer your question, no, we don't have the expertise for that to to get it done correctly. And that this this actually affects everyone in the whole county actually when when you like you want to use your phone to to get on our network or something, we could control that. We could allow that if we had these these uh procedures in place. It'll it'll just help overall everything while we're doing that. And and this is a one time this is a one time shot for this this type of service. Yes. Yes. Perfect for food and beverage. We do have funds allocated. Yes. Can you do you have that number? How much we have allocated? We have available and then we'll have another Okay. Oh, okay. I'll I'll make a motion. uh to allocate $30,000 for professional

services to the IT department from food and beverage. I'll second it. All right, we have a motion and a second to um allocate the money from food and beverage to 30,000 for the IT department. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same. The motion passes. Bernie, thank you. I do have one criticism. Yes, sir. I'm inundated with these. There's two of them. There's one for the Homeland Security and there's one from you. These no before things. You're not You're not going through your training, are you? Uh Bernie, I've got 10 email accounts and two other businesses and I'm not I'm not a full-time county employee. And I if I do these things, I have to be doing them on a Sunday or a Saturday while I'm sitting at home trying to figure out how to spend an extra five minutes at of time I got to relax. And so no, I'm not doing your no before scenarios. Is there a um criminal code that I'm violating? If not, no. Then I'm I've I've spent more time trying to figure out how to block them from my phone without just shutting off the county. to answer that. I get them too. Yeah. But and I I'm like, well, once a year, twice a year may not be a bad deal, but these are like just every five minutes I get. Well, you're probably getting in because you haven't gone through the training. I I I did some of them. They don't take five minutes. They take a long time. Well, it depends on the the initial training does. It takes a It's a 45 minute class. Okay. That one we that that that's a 45 minutes. after that is five or 10 minutes. So, and if you if you don't if you don't pass the first one, um I'm not getting any It's been a year or two since I've done done the initial

once cuz I sat down one weekend and tried to clean them out, but All right. I'm just telling you. You want You want So, you want me to take you off of that? If you could take me off of that. Is there that would be appreciative. I'm probably going to be um not doing them every time you send them. So, Sorry. Now you know. I know. Okay. Uh, okay. You got a 9:45 public meeting. Yes. All right. Thanks, sir. Thanks, Bernie. All right. Thanks, Bernie. All right. So, let's open the public hearing for an additional appropriation for the food and beverage fund 7201 for $200,000. Um, at this time, I'd entertain any public comment on the uh food and beverage fund. State your name and your reason for existence. George Langston, I'm just going to come up here once again. It seems like almost every time you guys meet, you guys are hitting the devil out of the food and beverage. Um, it's just, you know, we got to start learning to live within our means. I can't, if I don't pay my bills, I don't pay my taxes, I lose my house and stuff. And the public needs to start having some breaks on their property taxes and that kind of stuff. and and you guys talked about suns setting uh food and beverage sometime. I don't know what that date was, but in one of the meetings here recently, you said something about food and beverage sun setting. Uh as far as this appropriations, you

got to have the money. Sounds like you may have to do another appropriations just after what just occurred. So, but I would encourage you guys to start looking at living within your means. Last night on the news, the governor has asked the all the state departments to cut another 5% out of their next year's budget. So, it's instead of a 5% reduction, it's a 10% reduction. So that means something's coming down the road and we we really need to start living within our budgets and learn how to say no. The talking heads on TV and YouTube are saying that cola is going to be approximately 2.4%. That's what I got to live within and my family's got to live within. And there's a whole bunch of other people like me out here in this county. It's got to live within that. And uh so don't be raising this taxes on us. You know, we only get so much money and we got to have a place to live and we worked hard for our homes and we paid them off and we shouldn't have our homes taken from us because you guys has taxed us out of our homes. So, thank you very much. All right. Um, George, thanks, George. I will say though that the food and beverage keeps us from raising property taxes. The reason the property taxes county have gone down the last four or five years in a row is because we haven't had to uh uh come up with uh extra money for things that happened to us because of 15% growth and because of the court system, the IT system, the

things like that that um that we can't foresee, we can't plan for um but um the food and beverage has done a real good job of protecting us from raising those taxes and and if you look at your tax rates, they haven't they haven't gone up. Um, but we do have a um we do carry a healthy balance in that account. We're not anywhere near where we would be um breaking that down. I don't think we should carry millions of dollars in that account. We have millions of dollars in other accounts that we carry. Um we have a rainy day account that um we probably will never use. It just sits there because um we've been able to do things with food and beverage and with other things staying within our means to keep from spending any of that money. Um and I know I will be on off the board long before we have to dip into that. And so, but I appreciate your Yeah, we do have I'm a big fan of not sitting on piles of money here. You know, as a financial adviser for households, that's the goal, right? To pile up wealth. But here, these are taxpayer dollars and it would be irresponsible for us to try to pile up more than we need conservatively. And just for the record, uh, food and beverage does have five times our target balance and has maintained that or more since I've been here. And it is a tax only collected on the discretionary purchase of dining out. Right. So to your point, Kent, it helps offset for those that can afford to eat out without that being a financial burden. That tax reduces the need for income and property tax. I've said since we've had it, there's not a single thing we've spent

the money on that I wasn't proud to support. Um because we do use that for uh police and fire. We do use that for it. We do use that for the court system. We do use that for vol for even um excuse me even u social programs and stuff like that that have to be maintained that don't have sustainable funds. So, it's um um you know, I'm I I uh I don't want to be on the board the day we don't have that cuz then you're faced with um you know, with the prop property tax issue. And uh All right. So, uh see no further comments, I'll close the public hearing and then I'd entertain a motion for the additional appropriation. Make a motion to appropriate $200,000 from fund 7201, food and beverage. Second. Right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. The same. Thank you. All right. Um we are still on schedule. Um the ongoing opioid funds requests and scenario. Um, Sheriff, would you like to u approach us once more and and um see if if um we can at least agree on the first little part of this? Yes. Um so last Wednesday at budget committee, um I I brought forth uh some training information uh through Westland University on uh opioid use disorder. um and um requested funding from restricted funds through the opioid grant or opioid funds um to do the training. And so it would cost about $52,000 to get all the

staff um through that training. Um it's a 4-hour training they have all year to actually complete the training, but we'll come out with a certificate through Westland University if they complete it. So kind of where I'm at. I think it's a great use of the money. I thought we set up a committee to look at Well, we did, but I for asking for applications, but the only interdep department request we've had is from the sheriff's department for any part of that. Um, it's what 50,000 52,000 would take care of all the training for everybody. I mean, um, did did the commissioner submit the letter to the state Deb saying the intent to apply? No. And I have it right here actually. I said I haven't seen the letter that we were going to draft on their letter head. I have it. So, I think the thinking would be not before, but I have it with me. Okay. And Deb, you have the information where to send that. All I have is the email on that email. It's where that email's on there. So, I don't think we we can entertain, you know, since we're saying we'd commit 500,000 if we got a match. We don't want to spend that. But we do have umund and was it 30ome of restricted beyond that plus 60 or 70 and unrestricted. Uh the sheriff has said restricted because allowable use but unrestricted means any use. Right. So Right. So I I mean but surely this meets restricted guidelines and it has a favorable recommendation. Yeah. So well I've always felt like if

we can possibly use some of that money for uh our departments that we should because that does relieve our taxpayers of paying these things. So I can see no mean and that's what it was used for. I mean that's what it was meant for this particular training. I mean it was meant to use that money for that. And so that's the reason I'm I'm just asking for that money because that's what that was intended use or unintended use for it was for this type of training. So I'd entertain a motion. Okay. I'll make the motion that um we um allow Sheriff Burkhart to have the money from the restricted opioid funds and uh that how much exactly 52 52,000 right at 52,000 and uh I would make the motion for that. Second. Super. We have a motion and a second for uh to fund that out of the restricted opioid. Um all those in favor say I. I oppose the same and the motion passes. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Is that allocated? We need to add none of that money is appropriated. Okay. Do you want us to give us a thumbs up for just the 52 or can we go ahead and just appropriate what we have? How do you want us to move forward? Uh I mean at least the 52. Yeah. Yeah, but if you appropriate it all, then somewhere down the line, we are going to spend that money. We're not going to leave it in the And if it doesn't get spent this year, it just rolls back out, reappropriate it next year, right? So, let's go ahead and appropriate it all and then we don't have to wait another 30 days once the once our program is done and we've and and vendors have been selected or people have been selected. So, that both restricted and unrestricted, I would say. So, no reason for it to set there or not. We are we aren't I mean it's my opinion we're not going to hoard that money. We want it to

be used in for something. So the consensus is we will that expenditure is approved but you'll have to wait until we allocate funds. I'm used to waiting. Yeah. You'll have to wait till next month till we have the additional appropriation hearing for that. But we're going to appropriate all of the all of the funds. And that's just a thumbs up. That's budget, isn't it? Maybe August is that I mean we could have that hearing first thing at 8:30 a.m. on budget day. It's not going to take any time. That's true. You're going to you're only going to do one meeting next. I We've never been able to totally break if it's going to take two or three minutes. You know what I mean? We never been able to totally break away from having anything that that meeting. Yeah. And the conversation's already been had. So, it's just allowing a public opportunity and then we can move on to budgets. The second, right? And is that meeting at 8, not 8:30? 8:30. Yes. Starts a half hour later. Can I wear my jeans? No. There'll probably be one or two other things that So, let's do it. But I would I would set that hearing at at 8:10 or something. Okay. You know what I mean? I wouldn't because that's why we started a little bit earlier to clean up. But you can be late just not early. Right. Right. On a hearing. Correct. So if you say 8, you can have it after 8. You just can't have 810, you cannot have it before 810. That's fine. Thank you, Brad. Appreciate it very much. Thank you, Brad. Not before. Thank you, Shar. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so um we're we're done with the the gallery. is um can we take a fivem minute recess before we jump into budgets budget issues cuz yeah I think that may be here for a

minute well that may make us be here for so we'll take a 10-minute recess real quick thank you first said five now it's 10 I'm sorry good man thank I know you are doing okay around the kids. Yeah, just like new schedule. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, that wasn't better than the alternative. your work. Well, I'm glad you are here because I have the worst possible child of myself. You say someone who is a child who was a child because my property taxes. Oh, they haven't. 2020 $275 year. Last year was 1128. Oh, well, I don't know what that percentage is. Yeah, a lot. No, that's it's a lot. Yeah, like 500%ish. Yeah, I don't know when I'm going to have I'm going to go take my break. $6. Well, better than up, I guess. Hopefully these credits and assessments get you know what I mean

here like sometimes like I feel like I'll get making an There's no reason that it's not even the average last time we bonded out to something like [Applause] that. So true. next year or some time to my big giant annual sense of something like yesterday was yesterday I think a good spot for that would be the governor's office. probably I really don't I really I didn't catch any of that office before before he was governor and they were so but they listen to a state rep or you have a better prediction [Music] cabinet secretary over Yeah, do an invite to them. I'm happy to

help facilitate. Okay, maybe I haven't gotten my thing yet. I'd say start start. [Laughter] Yeah. Well, who's not yesterday? All the steel will be done. [Music] Okay. And they're going to do a little thing for the elected officials. See what we can do on the wall. like, okay, this is a milestone, right? There's some time involved in I saw the couple in a couple months. Supposedly we are a go for July 2nd for us to get capping in their system. Wasn't good for you. Well, two days before. Oh, I know that's true. I know. I don't know why they would do it then. That's a short week. You can go some other day. Well, it's not going to be my decision on that. I I think I don't It's the majority rules there. too many schedules. Well, I told what I said I said my goal is recommend somebody

secretary of education absolutely just somebody on the national level put us in that way talking about kind of a those ties in right now. And so and but you know like they have no idea and that's I just advocacy your client's best interest and frankly I don't feel like I fact that they would win from No, no, they did. But they do they do for things like this sometimes. Yeah. Well, I understand. Clinton has been in when I was president of school board and one of the schools. Okay. I'm happy to help. Obama has been here twice for stupid stuff. Okay. And so this is more important than any of those things. They need an ambassador. But and even if we don't get the top, like I said, the vice president is here we do have a secretary. I heard they're very very quiet because they need to be told. Yeah, that's what everyone stored in these. That's that's really big on I mean that's the whole thing because I think

it's more for public optics. Yeah. Hey, we looked at one. I'm hoping direction. I mean, you know, we're we know we're going to have about 400 kids opening up. It's about 60% of the building is for is for for school systems. The other 40% is for after you know for older people. So, we know happened initially. at least. That's kind of what how our budget's going to be. We don't know how much the other 40% of the building say, well, I need to go to [Music] and things like that. But it's all it's all a part of recognition to get it. Indiana builders association association of builders and contractors that are workforce pipeline. It covers just about everything. got to put well that's one thing you can put an association in there though they cover and I tech is anchoring our stuff you know and especially the stuff for for people they're anchoring that and then we are already have a lot of those trades increasing the amount of those trades be

I think double because I think eventually the adults will be less and more right because people will realize my child not have to go to Purdue for four years and pay $150,000 something Just last week I training center. So you get a million bucks a year. You're going to get a lot of manufacturing brought back and the needs are the AI takes a lot of the robot stuff away can't do is going to only go up belongs to 440 and he's been in it for years. That's how I money and he will have a great retirement scholarship. No. And so as I said these traits for example I guarantee years from now they won't have bringing in all these robots with no extra people. only their population. It was Walmart that Christian

faster than what is Walmart is on the agenda today. We have an alternative. We have time next month that we can post. Well, we'll we'll need it. So, we're not We do have paper. We do have they have submitted they have submitted their application. That's all. You send mainly and the hospitals and he said all those people get their degrees from where he said go. Oh, she went back upstairs. Oh, that's true. I haven't seen Nicole's daughter's name. I haven't seen a lily yet for the country, not be hiding, but I've got to have No, you're right. It's so hard to break in one of those. talking to somebody that does and they don't even know how to as long as you know the lady from Shream's office said would you like to yeah set up a meeting and so I need to know who would be in the meeting somebody don't know me all of that event we'll have an event and then try to get I've actually focused on person just like yeah I remember when you did that yeah so I actually spoke to him to get we got [Music] down to start [Music] whenever you're ready.

I had a meeting Saturday. Yeah. Well, she was over at Qriket Reel looking at the yard sales, I think. Oh, she loves acquiring things like that. I wonder if that's where she got her little silver serving dish she was showing me yesterday that she had all cleaned up. Yeah, she was she was out hitting the the garage sales. I'm going to bring the meeting back to order about 8:15. Doesn't even phase me. I don't know how to exactly [Music] commuting especially with 70 restaurants being closed and having take 40. Awesome. Thank you. So, yeah. I don't feel like I'm Okay. Okay. Can we call the meeting? Can we get everybody gathered up? Call the meeting back to order. Okay. Okay. Let's go. I'm excited.

Thank you everybody. So, let's The next item on the agenda is the 2026 budget issues. That's a broad scope. Okay, you got a handwritten sheet there. Very delicate. I love those piece of crap. I know. I've even got the the last scratchings. Okay. So, since the budget meeting, we have received uh from the auditor's office the uh summary of the requests for 2026. And uh looking at that um the request for the general fund for uh 2026 is above the adopted 25 general fund budget by 2,25,202. We had said that our target for 26 based on the revenues that we're believing we will have increased by a million5,126. uh you know subtracting that from the requests uh we've got a,10,76 that we're being requested to appropriate higher than we're saying we're willing to do or or based on our target. So that's our I guess our target is to try and reduce the requests by that much money. I would say too, I think in going through and Robin, help me here if you see if you saw something different, but I did not see in the commissioner's budget a significant line item for senior services. And if you recall last year,

we put senior services in food and beverage. Mhm. So, this does not include senior services and also the probation, whatever you want to call it, underruns of fees or so, we also had in uh food and beverage. I didn't see it in the probation budget. So, those two items I think are not included here. So probation you would have think would have included all necessary numbers in their 26 request or you're just saying since we didn't pay it out of general fund. Yeah, it wasn't it's not part of that last year's number. I got you. I think I think now I'm and that would apply to anything that we additionally appropriated that was not in the approved budget that was intended to be perpetual. Uh I don't know. Well, I haven't double checked if there's anything else that falls into that. I think those were the only two things. Okay. Do you have proposals for what you suggest not funding, Jim? Well, I had a few minutes to go through without Thank you for that. And unfortunately, I only came up with $645,000. Okay. Um you in past years it's been pretty easy to come up with some bigger hunks. I didn't say that Robin. No I didn't even So this may be more difficult actually Kent to meet meet our goal than in past years because because of that right let me ask a question. Um, every every budget we have has multiple line items. Um, and the line items in every single

budget that were not spent last year to their fullest, is it is for all of those line items, there's dozens and dozens of them, is it something where we could u, this is just brainstorming, okay? do a five or 10% reduction on those line items. Um, you know, every single department has 30, I don't know how many line items, 30 or 40 line items for everything from pencils to to everything. And if if there was money left in those line items, is that something that we could do? because I know the the governor's office I can't believe I'm referencing George uh but he's talking about they're asking about a 5% reduction across the board and some of the budgets and things like that. Yeah. Do you you probably don't have it handy but do you know versus what was requested what what the what the 2025 approved budget year-to date. See it's so hard because even if we do year-to- date expenditures there's some things that get paid later in the year. So, we can't just times two because we're halfway into the year. But I I I'm with you on that. I think, you know, furniture supplies, some of these perpetual line items, we could just But in in the booklet that we have, we have the actual uh a column here for the actual 24 expenditures. But we can go back as we go through uh and talk with them. We've got what they spent in 24. We can supply you with a report out of our LA financials that tells you wasn't spent. Um it's been a little tedious. 2024 since I've been here, we neglected to say to that person, we want you to take $500

out of this line item or a,000 out of this line item and stuff like that. But in the whole, it's large in in one or department by itself, it's not. And um um and I think that's what's happening everywhere statewide, nationally. They're saying, "Okay, we got to we need you to be 5% less on these parts or 10% less on these parts of your budget." Um, and that's one option. Only other way to to break this deficit we have down is you either reduce some or then you add income to it that we previously haven't. We do have a couple small things. Um, we do have we did not commit to every uh part of the um uh excess levy and um and I was telling Jim I I don't know if it's um the kind of like this year the interest rates um give us a boost we didn't know we were going to have last year and it doesn't look like that's going to fall off this year. It's not a sustainable scenario, but I don't think the interest rates on our investments are going to drop this year. Uh because they haven't even they haven't they haven't lowered interest rates. They're not even talking about lowering interest rates. We're already halfway through the year. And even some of those investments are as high or higher than they were last year. That's probably going to give us um a safety net next year if we don't end up balancing this. We have we haven't balanced it in the past because we do carry balances and remember uh none of our uh estimates here uh include the uh pennies from heaven, right? Still have that

back. But on the negative side, we've got the uh level six thing that is uh we we may have underestimated that loss. We got we got enough negatives coming down the road that all those safety nets are probably going to get spped up. Um, and when we get to the budget meeting part on the uh it lit stuff, there's a a suggestion there. So, well, and something we've not done much of that is an option is let's say we want to get this these requests down 1.1 million and we only find 700,000. We don't have to levy that additional 400,000. We could still levy on this 1.1 million and say we're going to make up this $400,000 difference from our cash balance in general fund. I mean, rainy day, wherever, but we would just use general fund and and that would be my preference rather than levy more is to spend down cash. The only thing to be careful about there is when you're talking about perpetual expenses, right, they go, we plan on paying them indefinitely. And with inflation, it does compound against you, right? So, we are agreeing to pay it in in perpetuity and sustainability would show how many years we expect income or revenue to make up for that 400,000. But it is an option without levying it as next year's tax. And and I think there may be some other places in the in the budget and Robin you you've gone through it too that as we go through I think there are

some places that I haven't taken into account where people have put in the same number from last year and I question I remember the maintenance department equipment line has exactly the same number for equipment as last year like 187,000 and I think we bought all of their equipment. So I'm not so I think maybe he just carried the and there may be some other there probably a lot of those examples cuz people do the budget oh they just put the same number in because they know they have never went over it. Um and I I think my suggestion and yours is the same really spend down the excess that we have. Um mine just has a little bit more maybe of identifying what those are. Yeah, agree. Um cuz it's not a perfect world. It's hard to identify all those um things that happen. And the only time you really can identify them if you come up short and we haven't come up short. And we could approach each, you know, it's it's kind of rough the way we do budgets where people come in alphabetical order and the day gets long, right? And by the end, you're trying throughout the day to keep track of on the fly where you cut all this. But if we went into the process with the idea that we were going to try to find line items to reduce by x% on each budget and talked to each department head about, like you said, we usually don't try to split hairs on a,000 or $2,000 of requests. But maybe if you do that, like you said, on a few line items across every budget, it does add up. It does add up and it'll get us closer to those excesses. You know what I mean? That that we don't know we have until the end of the year. And we've done that before when we go through with the departments, you know,

ask them to cut some things when we can actually talk to them. Yeah. Uh now may maybe a a process there would be to first with each department take out the things that we know I mean some departments have put people in right so right if you bring that department head in and say okay we're cut we want you to identify 10% well they could easily identify 20%. So I think we we would with each one want to first take out the obvious right and then so this this request of additional million that we don't have right now we're trying to work that's not a lot of that doesn't have anything to do with CCD that general fund only right general fund general fund only okay CCD is yeah I know We've been able to cut we've been able to move money around at different sources with CCD, but it doesn't help our general fund. But you're saying there is some things in general fund that equipment and stuff that were supposed to be paid with general fund. They weren't. They were paid with their dollars and we need could be pull them out. Okay. If they put that same amount back in. Yeah. The issue this year with the CCD, if you look at it, their requests are like for 4.7 million. There's only 2 million per year going in there. So, we're going to have to I don't think the commissioners really went through the CCD stuff at all like they are supposed to do. Yeah. That CCD's grown the request, right? Doubled. The IT department. There's got to be a reason. Yeah. the IT department itself and CCD is 1.2 million.

So I do remember last year trying to you know could this go in CCD could this go in CCD and a lot of purchases equipment things got went there. Um, and the whole idea with the 23 bond was to move almost everything, at least all we could into the bond to let CCD, it's a fund, right? To let it begin to add up, but that hasn't happened. Yeah. Yeah. So, we need to make sure that have used the geo bond money for buildings. Yeah. So, well, we So, skipping to the CCD for a minute, uh there's a lot we're going to have to do there. I think each department that comes in since the commissioners didn't interrogate them, we're going to have to because there's a lot of stuff in there. And there there are already some big items that that we can put in a geo bond. like if we want the the drones for the uh sheriff, he's got 407,000 in CCD, which we said we would put that in. I haven't I haven't seen any fluff. I haven't seen something brought to us that was not important. You know what I mean? You got to understand, too, we're still the fastest growing county. We're still growing 15% plus. Um, and uh, so we're going to be faced with this until our growth slows down enough that we're not taxing our our units, our our current status we have for our jail, for our for our jurisdiction or for our, you know, for for our courthouse, for everything. I don't see that stopping for a while. Um, but our our departments and stuff like that, it is hard when we're going

this fast to cut things back. But I I think we're going to have to start with this five or 10% or start with this bounce to get closer back to Would would you agree though we'll start that after after we take out the additional people that have been put? Yes. Yeah. No, that the things that we've told them that because I think we've already talked about everybody. We were forced to increase already, haven't we? I mean, I I don't know of any because we asked them to come to us. They did. You know, we've got a couple things we have to do, the junior magistrate, juvenile magistrate, and some things like that. And I and um we're just going to have to do that stuff. But um well I think it was the just to to review that the magistrate and what else help me there Rowan. Um yeah I was going to ask if you were prepared to briefly cover what positions uh are in there that you thought juvenile court magistrate. Um the cost was only like 41,000 though. 41,000 part of the money, but there was another. Is that on your whacket list or no? No, no, no. Oh, it's not. Yeah. The juvenile magistrate made it into the budget. It's not in there. Oh, it's not even in there. Not even in there. Juvenile magistrate. That's right. They said that last week because they weren't sure which court to put it under. Right. Because they may not The juvenile magistrate is not in the budget book even though they're asking for it. Oh, they didn't put it in there. Nope. They didn't know where to put. Yeah, they did say that. But it's 41 and change. We don't pay the benefits. We don't pay the rest of the salary. Yep. Now, there was the corners, I think. Didn't we decide that we would not go with the full we would have them

do a more part-time? I don't remember coming to a consensus on that. I don't think I either. I'm not necessarily supportive of that. It hasn't been I feel like the information I have is too vague and we've increased that budget too much over the last several years to say need a whole another full-time person with benefits without better understanding it. I'm not supportive. And that's the thing we have to look at though. Yes, we would have to pay benefits, but they have the money to pay the salary. So that is a plus and that is in their 2026 budget. So there there was another person that the judges had requested from us and I think they're being h they're going to be housed in the clerk's office. I'm hoping that's in that budget number because they already hired that deputy and other salary that is in the budget number for 2026. But that was one of them I think we agreed on from the judges that come in and asked for for that. not just the magistrate that was in the later scenario and I think that's it the only time person I think I think it's worth mentioning so the county farm planning committee um met after budget and Jim invited all three judges who all three attended which is very or four correct with Cody which is very hard to get them together and the purpose of that was to ask them about you know 10 or 15 years from now How much space do you see us needing? How many judges do you see us needing? And so forth. And unless I misinterpreted it, I think they said that after we add the juvenile magistrate, they other than that person eventually needing an admin, they don't see needing right more for many many many years. And once we hit a 100,000 in population

I don't know if there I wish there was some attorney they're required to have a administrator once we hit000. So that would be the only other thing but I think half of that salary at least is paid by the state. Okay. And that's probably we're probably another census away from that. So that would be good news. Well, except for the except for the fact that at some point we're going to have to we're going to have to build a court out. Well, that's what we talked extensively about that. I don't know. And I know I know some of the thing on that. I mean, I'm not going to be here when those final decisions are made because it took us it takes us years to do anything. Um, say that, you know, I I don't know. I'm not 100% in agreement with vacating this building. I mean, talked about that as well. I think that if nothing else, civil cases or something that's not criminal could still be housed here. Um, but cuz you you have to take probation when you when you take the criminal courts out, you have to take probation with them and then that that really vacates a lot of that building. Kent, the the the judges were were they they have uh historic um I guess u reflections on the building, but they said uh all the courts should be moved together. You know, the judges also told us and all that was going to be hundreds of people. They said if you wanted to keep Judge Cir's courtroom for the sake of ceremonial purposes that it could also be used for civil cases, but it doesn't have to be. They were they did like, you know, having it preserved in some way, but said as far as business goes, it would be totally unnecessary.

But that's so far that's so far in the thing. I'm not but I I don't think the judges have the final say in everything either. I I've learned since I've been here, some of the decisions the judges have made that they've come to me for, I'm still not in agreement of, you know, but this was just this was an idea session. It was it was it was brainstorming. Yeah. Well, and it took us a long time. It takes a very long time with the courts before they would even entertain possibly doing this juvenile magistrate. I mean, we've been trying to get that for a while and they're only considering it. They haven't committed to it. Well, we haven't committed to paying for it as what that means. And but I I'm not opposed because so the state picks up so much of that. I don't know if juvenile magistrate was part of your 644,000. You were talking about not funding. Is that in that number or No, it's to be funded. It's to be funded. And so the others were corner. It's just that they didn't put it in their budget. I assumed it was in there. So for 2026, we talked we mentioned coroner. Who were the other new positions that you HR asked for? Oh, HR. They asked for two people. They've got two people in there. I definitely can't support that. That department's new. We already have a full person. Prosecutor has a new prosecutor and a legal person. Yeah, but I've got we've already got that listed here as zero. Yeah, right there. This is a prosecutor vehicle assistant. But it's in the request. Okay, that's any other new employees. uh we have to consider that that excess levy may play into that what we have to do with some of the requests that they make because my understanding is we have to increases make sure that money goes to where we ask yes for the different that's why I said we have some excess levy in our pocket that we were hoping

we could save it for future prospect we may have to spend that we don't want to get Debbie in trouble you got to use it for what you asked for and what they granted it for. That's right. We so have to go what it was requested for. Okay. I think we start off by by just uh first eliminating the the ones that we didn't approve the people thing and then like you're saying challenge each uh department to come up with 10% or whatever. So when is the budget meeting? the 9th, I believe, at 8 a.m. 8 a.m. 8 a.m. And there is no budget meeting, right? And this is July 9th. Mhm. Yes. And it's all day. Buckle down. And they're done that many times. Um Okay. And we are going to recess in that meeting to take lunch. Or are we going to do something different? back. It was kind of disaster. I would suggest you just bring something in myself. Well, I I mean, I'd rather work through lunch and eat than go till 6:00 or something, you know? So, it's a long day. Somebody with more time than me is going to have to set that up. So, by yol bring your own lunch and we'll work through it. Oh, no. Jimmy John, he loves Jimmy John. Or Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A. That might be a good deal. Just buy a semi load of those nuggets. Hey, we have an expense line item of $2,000. Oh, well. Oh, well, I can chip it on mine. However that works out. Somebody might say we don't need it if we don't. Occasionally we do. We don't always

We'll have to drop 10%. Um, but we can do we can do that. So Jim, if this is the budget issues, is is there um a budget update from the meeting that you can do? Also, number one, we reviewed all of the fund balances and we found that they were okay. Then we went through the 25 and 26 GO bond um needs and we asked for a capital five-year capital plan. And I guess it's still in the offing. Um, Scott, you've got prepared resivit and also the letter of intent opioid. That's done. I think you talked about that earlier. Turn that over to Deb. So that's right as well. And then do would you mind reading the uh from the 25 geo bond what the um needs are, but I think we're going to have to be a little more specific with the commissioners. All right, I can read it out. So cost of the projects all capital expenses first one is Hancock County Fair remoding and supports and also through tour that's where we made the uh loan up to a hund 1.5 million from food and beverage. I think they're spending

about a million of it. They're putting together I did talk to them and um they just reached out and let me know that they're working on getting some really rough numbers on what they think phase two would and that will have to go out to public bid. So, it's going to be a very rough number, but they're trying to get some options together durate this thing or replace it. You know, are you spending almost as much to fix this old thing as you are to just get a new one? They're trying to compare some of those options to bring us and that's probably about another million probably according to the first numbers. Any rate quite possibly. Yeah. So that would be an item for the 26 bond remember 6.5 million for this right five right okay number two H county needs to upgrade critical E911 equipment including glucas devices radio system tuneration systems placing two aging emergency response vehicles And this is all for the purpose of ensuring faster, safer, and more reliable. What are the emergency response vehicles? The county emergency response vehicles. They have to be. Cuz I don't know what emergency response vehicles the county has. Brad, are those the ones we talked about in our meeting that are coming from Fortville? No, I think they're replacing the ones they had from Fortville. It's a 91 It's 911 center. So it's Fortville has they got two from Ford two like emergency response vehicles

meaning like emergency response vehicles. I mean they're they're just vehicles that they utilize for the 911 center to do their thing. Okay. It's not like an ambulance hot runs and things like that. It's just for their purpose. Okay. two regular vehicles for E911. And that's supposed to be about I could see where that'd be confusing. 750,000 for all that. Did you put numbers to these? No, I don't think you want to do that. Yeah, you don't know exactly. I do, but go ahead. Well, you know what I mean. You can do that internally, but this Well, yeah, can be spent on something else and there's not enough money for 4. This is going to be it. Yeah. Number three is uh essential equipment for Hancock County Sheriff's Department to include patrol vehicles maintain 800,000 last is Hancock County government buildings funds are required to build renovateing but not limited to a new truck facility for the highway to improve operational efficiency, safety, and long-term. So that's about 3.8 million for the highway. For buildings for for those things that Bill were discussed, I think is that could we get a copy of that? But to your point, Jim, once the geo bond is approved, Deb, if you'd send that out, we lose control. We don't have any further input on how much of those dollars get spent on each of those

things. That is true. Unless we put it in there and then it wouldn't wouldn't make any difference anyway. But we need to keep those as we're talking to the commissioners, I think, mind them. Right. What you're you're I know you're suggesting that the commissioners would not take our suggestion if something needed funded out of there that they were going to cut or move to a different line item in that. And remember, we've made a commitment on the radios for the whole county through 911 of the 750,000, right? I was told 400 of it is for that commitment. 400,000 every year. Six bond to right do it again. We're spending money on the buildings that we didn't anticipate cuz we were going to do two years of the radio, right? Probably two years of the cars for the sheriff. Yeah. And more for the 4, but that's being hard back. It's being moved to 26. What is being moved to 26? uh uh some of the 4 uh some of the radios u being used up. Well, we had we had talked about the drone expense coming out of the by bond to being used for buildings that was not

anticipated. Uh, in fact, they're talking about maybe the reason we're pushing for a fiveyear capital plan is because they are talking about major renovations needed. I mean 810 million which would take a probably a dedicated bond which which would really get you started on the new place. Exactly. Um one thing I don't want to get in the weeds on but we had talked here last year quite a bit about whether what what is our vehicle situation right? All these departments have all these vehicles. Do they all really need a vehicle? Should we not carry so many vehicles to exclude the sheriff's department? Obviously, I'm not talking about sheriff's department vehicles, but Deb, do you I know you were you were a participant in those discussions. Was there any findings as we talk about buying new vehicles? Um I don't know that there were any findings all the but obviously they not going to make that ask this year. Um but they have pulled back on take-home vehicles. I know that. So vehicles that we do have might be pole cars in case someone go do their job and come back. But I don't know that there's been any no one has no cuts been made to any department head or elected official that has one. I know the assessor's office they have to have theirs for their field work. Surveyors need theirs. I don't I don't know that anybody hasn't been told that they had to give up being able to

drive a vehicle from their work. And these 911 vehicles, Brad, did you say they're replacements or they're new vehicles? I think they're they're going to be new vehicles that are replacing some old vehicles from Fortville. They'll be surplus to old vehicles. Yeah, they'll be they surplus the old ones. Okay. Uh number three, we talked about lit changes, changes to lit. We talked about and had numbers on um uh reducing the um library um uh lit by five basis points. Um, and the discussion was about perhaps increasing the E911 lit by two basis points. And in discussions with FSG a couple of days ago, uh, they're probably going to recommend that we think about the balance at three basis points. uh doing a new what's called new lead, but it's going to be new lead. So, is that going to be additional cost? That would be that would be to cover our losses due to the state law uh giving uh the homestead uh credits, right? But it's not increasing income tax. It's just changing which funds how it's distributed amongst the funds. reduce the the lead which right now the library lit is just going into a bank account is just going in there. I think it would be an excellent idea to do but in order to do that we have to apply

for the right to do that in this year. Right. And so that brings then we talked about this in the budget meeting but that brings us up to we have a deadline on applying for the right to do that. Yeah. and uh just passed out um the recommendation from FSG. This is what they did in Hendricks County. This is the wording um that uh probably is applicable. I kind of marked it up and at the carrot you would you would um uh insert by reducing five basis points from library special purpose lit and raising by two basis points the uh lit uh PSAP that's 911 and raising the new lit by three basis points as indicated in the following chart and then we would have to fill in that chart part when can we I'm sorry when we talk about new lit somebody's have to tell me what new lit means a local option income taxes what lit means and it would be a separate lip from the the one we currently have or let me rephrase my question what are all the allowable uses of new lit if we reappropriate it from anything uh are we allowed to spend it on anything I think so I think so we can clarify That's like the lit that we This replaces the cadget lit as our basic lead. But um uh and right now all that we're seeking is the ability to do this this year if we want to. So we can always but we have to instruct Scott or somebody to create this, right? You have to make the request. We had to make a request for

you to create this letter to submit to the state, right? By August 1st is what? Yeah. And I'll talk to Greg about it too. Make sure. Yeah. So I I mean I I assume we would need a motion to advance this to the point that we are going to create a letter and Okay. I'll make a motion that we proceed um doing any necessary paperwork with the state by August 1st to provide notice that we are evaluating modifications to right our lit distribution amongst funds. Second. All right. Any Tammy, any further discussion? I've got my back to you. I'm sorry. That's all right. Um I'll jump in when I need. Okay. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same. Okay, I'll give this to Scott. Oh, very good. Okay. [Applause] Uh we uh gave the landing 110,000 some odd dollars from food and beverage. Yeah, we discussed the opioid distribution and a committee was formed to do that. Uh we had the um print out uh from FSG for different tax abatement uh scenarios for the Walmart uh request for uh personal property addition to the current building. Uh the total was 440 million uh investment and uh uh FSG worked out the scenario for a threeyear, 5year, 7-year and 10-year abatement.

and um they have uh filed their uh paperwork for requesting that. And so the next step would be for us to uh do a declaratory which is just the initial we the council are looking at it uh favorably and that would then pass on the uh gauntlet to the commissioners who work with Walmart uh on the um uh conditions of the abatement. So, I would I would uh propose that we maybe do a declaratory so we could get the process moving. So, it would throw it in the commissioner's uh um Bailey Wick to negotiate with Walmart. I don't know is that something that we necessarily want to do because I there are two board members here that I think that's still needs to be a bigger discussion in my opinion because I can't say for certain that they're in agreement to move forward with agreeing for an abatement. I don't feel at this point that I am necessarily. So I think that needs to be a bigger discussion. Well, the declaratory is just an initial uh there's nothing final about it. You just get it moving. Pardon me. How how But I'm not sure we should do that since it's not on the agenda. Could we do it like um our first meeting in July that maybe squeeze it in? Well, there's only one meeting in July and it's the budget and we've already

squeezed some other things in. So, we do have time. You have time in the second week of July. Yes. But, once again, save a little time. This is just the initial, you know, it doesn't define anything except that it moves it. I mean, I heard Mary say, "Well, Walmart hasn't done anything." Well, we do not do the negotiations of that kind of stuff with any of the developers. The commissioners are supposed to do that. So, until we move it to them, there's not going to be anything done. If we do do that, then does that mean, let's say the board votes and they say no abatement on the personal property, does that allow that or we've already moved it forward too far? No, you don't vote on the personal property tax till after the hearing. You can't have the hearing. You can't set the hearing in the future until you have the the declaratory. Well, another thing about a declaratory is, you know, usually when it's on the agenda, it's in the packet. It could have been provided previously because I know this came up a few months ago, but I um it's important to me to see that verbiage because you're often making very certain statements like we are considering this because of lack of economic development in this area, blah blah blah. I mean, we don't have the verbiage here that we'd be voting on, which I don't really like to say I'm voting on a declaratory resolution that I haven't read. Well, we have seen it. I didn't Well, without it being on the agenda, that was many months ago, and I have not refreshed. So, can and I'll tell you, I would not even consider

anything longer than probably three years. Can can we agree to put the declaratory on next month's agenda? We're talking we're talking months and months out. Even if we do the decoratory next month, then it's August before before we would have any decision. So that's another month away before we have any decisions whether we would agree to whatever. You know, I mean, you you get the declaratory and it and it's not going to say a specific even on that. I think you can put a range, you know. Well, she says there is room at the July meeting. I would expect everyone to be here absent any emergencies. And well, there as one of the uh gentlemen that stood up here and said, there's um probably something happening with one of the big buildings. uh does have something to do with this that may get held up if we don't act. Tammy loves being backed in a corner. How you feel about that? I'm not I'm not going to be back in a corn to a corner because I don't even I think we need to wait and talk about it when we have everybody here because it's obviously been a big topic and yeah I mean if it was on the agenda I'd make a motion to table it to the next meeting. I don't even know if that's necessarily appropriate it's not an agenda item. So, I'm certainly not ready to vote vote yes to anything. And I don't think we necessarily talked about it last week at the budget meeting either. So, definitely not in any So, I don't know why we're talking about it. I got this information last meeting. I got this information a week ago. Yeah, we talked about it. So, for you to say we

didn't talk about it, somebody gave me a whole bunch of information during the meeting last month. Last week, budget meeting FSG handed out. Oh, that's one SG hand. That's what this whole thing is. So, yeah, we we did I mean I I understand the thing um on that. But I I do think it's disingenuous for us say to Walmart um that no, we're not going to accept any of these millions of dollars um for the school systems and for everything else because this money doesn't come back to us. It goes to all the taxing units. So, we need to come up with uh something rather than just try to punish Walmart for wanting to uh um you know to ex expand into the rest of their building. But I think that's what I said is if u we'll put it on next month's agenda and then we'll y then that gives us 60 days before any decision would have we would have to vote on because the to 30 days just to vote to come back 30 days later and that would give the commissioners 60 days to figure out um because I the negotiations for these is going to involve other buildings and stuff. Okay, there's going to be more happen. Walmart is not just thinking about this. They're thinking about other things in our area. And you know, at 3 years, maybe I could be negotiable. At 5 years, um, that still leaves them paying more than they're abated. you get into seven and 10 years and you're talking about more than a 50% break which is where those real I don't think you're unreasonable yeah in saying that I don't think you're unreasonable to say but I think there's a negotiation that needs to happen um because there is a it's not pennies that's involved

and we did uh a 10-year abatement to come here. So, if you don't follow up with the same thing, sort of like a bait and switch. Well, well, that was an exception you guys made before I was here, before Tammy was here, before Scott was here. None of us were here. But on on that note though, Jim, too, we did a 10-year abatement, but they they they also agreed to 2,000 employees. And this abatement, there's no employees. So, it isn't the same incentive. You know what I'm saying? Well, we have to remember how important the lit is going to be. Now, but but if we give the commissioners the the ability to negotiate, they might be able to negotiate a different abatement based on Walmart doing some other things. Anyway, we we all we want them to win as well as we want to win. You know what I mean? we want to to be be compensated also um for for that. So that it it's just going to take a negotiation. Well, and if we had the declaratory resolution in front of us, I do believe it specifies it would say 10-year abatement. Scott, am I wrong? Because they doesn't leave it in there arbitrary how many years it's going to be. That declaratory resolution would say 10-year abatement. I'm almost sure if it was sitting here and so I'm definitely a no or a table. You can change it to whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah, we would change it to where before we would pass it. But yeah, absolutely. We write the elements in the declaratory um um statement statement. Yep. Okay. Okay. So, I would be good. You got that, Mary?

Thank you. Uh seventh was uh food and beverage sunset and Scott has come up with a it's an amended ordinance which changes that particular pro makes it you know something you would have to vote on. Could you answer a question for me? If we decide not to go forward with the food and beverage, then that money would still be collected and the portion that we get now goes to the state. Is that how it works? Oh, but the Yeah, the state gets I mean that was my impression, but I didn't really know for sure. No, that doesn't collected from all the counties. We we have voted uh for it to be collected for the um until the uh Lucas Oil Stadium bond is satisfied. So, it will be collected um and half of it sent to us until that happens. When that happens, the state law says that the counties that participated would then be able to keep the entire 1%. Right. And what that's in this that's the council did years ago was just say that it would the it would just die at that time. Yes. It wouldn't be collected at all. Exactly. In 2005. Well, so you're suggesting that when the state's uh obligation sunsets Yes. that if we were to reduce if we were to not sunset ours but reduce the total tax by half, we would end up exactly where we are now

and it would cut the tax in half on the food and beverage. Is that how that pencils out? And it's in what year? 20 about 35. Would that cut the collections in half or would the state get that other portion? No. Uhuh. No. It would basically be passing the state portion when they're done paying off Lucas Oil, passing that back to the consumer and retaining the portion that we are used to taking. And the that's not what will happen automatically, but that's what I'm asking that I think is being said is an option. What would happen automatically is the whole thing will just go away and we won't have any more. I I don't I I don't um think it's prudent for us to say it's just going to all go away. Um and I don't know. I mean um we're making we're making decisions for people. Oh yeah. Long from now. They made a decision for people long from now. We're we're we're trying to make it so they can decide later on if they need the tax or not. Um everyone here would have to campaign two more times and do two more terms to even come to the point of calling that. You realize too that probably half of that tax or 45 I think at one time we did a study 45% of that tax is um is not paid from Hancock County taxpayers, locals, right? Yes, it's passer throughs off the interstate. Yeah. Yeah. And but it does, like I said earlier, it supplements our property tax quite a bit. Agreed. Um so it is a benefit to everybody. Um and you never know when that would really be needed because we we had that position, right? We've been fortunate that we haven't had another 2009. Yes.

Because then um that's what kept our lights on. um you everything this building would have had to have closed down because we couldn't pay our bills because of the recession, right? Um and food and beverage got us through that. I I realized Jim's effort to try to un to just let it be like everybody else's. When the bond pays off, then it just all comes to here and then let future councils decide if they need the money or not because they're going to have the money. I don't want to kill it and then them to have to have it to bring it back. We've found out it's very hard to get the state to allow you to have a right. So, are you suggesting that we amend the decision that was made at the origin sooner than later or why not before we forget what hap has to happen, Scott? Is that a resolution? Yeah. No, that's a it's an amended and so it would be suspend the rules and adopt it today. If you want to have hearing set commissioners sign off on this, too. So, and it's an amendment of the 2005 ordinance. Sunset provision was the but we're we're changing that. That was 2005 ordinance. Has it been that long? 15 years. Wow. So maybe red discussing it after we get past budgets. Does that make more sense? Surely we don't want to talk about it next month again at the budget hearing. This is ready to get on the plate. Okay. Yeah. I wanted to make sure I got it

done. Okay. And then maybe the commissioners can weigh in on it also. Um I'll I'll bring it up with them on Tuesday, right? Because it I we probably ought to clarify it this summer. You know what I mean? And get it off because every time every year goes by, someone says, "Well, how long is that going to last?" Or, "What's this and that?" or you know what I mean? there's some discussion going on right now at the state level for food and beverage. So, it might be something that you want to kind of wait and see what they're discussing as well because I know that they talk I've talked to several auditors in the doughnut area that received the food and beverage tax and and they're diving in and looking at everybody's food and beverage that's going on right now. I remember Greg Geratas mentioning that is that for the sake of eliminating it. I don't know if it's eliminating auditing it, you know, deciding what they want to do. I don't I don't want to wait on the state more time to find out. Yeah. But I don't want to wait on the state for our stuff because what happens is, oh, we're going to get this revision in property tax and and then it and it you really don't know what you're going to get until the day before the very last day of the session. So if they're going to do something on food and beverage, that could be at any year in the future, the very last day before the end of and and they can't do anything with this food and beverage tax because it's paying a bond. Yes. State's not going to screw with it. Yeah, it's paying a bond at this time. Okay. So, how do we introduce it? Fishers need to sign. could let them review back to you.

It's going to be come from you though. Yeah. Well, let's let them review it. Please give us their thumbs up, you know, before we I don't think it's going to be an issue. Yeah, I don't think it's controversial then. Shall we put it back on the agenda for the first week of August meeting? That's fine because the commissioners will be meeting. Although they're both regular meetings. They're both regular meetings and the commissioners are here on August on Yeah, that's fine. At the budget meeting. So maybe the budget is I going to say maybe we could discuss it on the 1st and then the following week. That's a good point. I like those things that actual council. This is okay. Last thing I had was target balances. Uh we uh did come up with a draft. I don't know whether you want to vote for it, vote on it or not. Uh there didn't look like many changes to me. Right. We did get that correction in there that we'd already talked about, but I don't think it had made it into writing on uh the the rainy day should be a $7 million target. So, I saw that modification. And I know that um not all that long ago, we added some of those health claims lines. Oh, there it is. Because the three changes that were made three changes. Go ahead. I can list the three changes. So, um, fund 1186, rainy day, it was at 6 million and that was changed to 7 million. Um, fund 5902, the health claims reserve fund, that was changed from 1 million to 1.5 million. And then a new fund was added, fund 4700,

self insurance, and that was for 500,000. Those were that were discussed last month budget meeting. I I think that's capable for us. I I I um uh I would entertain a motion. Um and it's 2025-6- What? I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2025-6-2 as presented for target balances. Second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve um resolution 2025-6-2. See no further discussion. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same. And motion passes. Thank you. That was it from the budget meeting. Okay. Super. We might get out of here yet. Um next month we won't. We'll be here all day and all night. Um, I'd make a or I accept a motion approve the minutes from May 14th. I make a motion to approve the minutes from May 14th, 2025 meeting. [Applause] I normally second these, but I Oh, I'll second. All those in favor say I. I post the same. All right. Um, uh, auditor business. I sent out an email that the judge was wanting to the um summer intern program. And so we would need um a salary amendment um for the summer intern um at circuit court. Also, I don't know if you want to do an additional appropriation for the three 3000 now or if you want us to wait

because he does have 72% of his budget. um left that we could do a budget transfer with. So I agree with Deb. I put that in my response that you know because if they end up not needing that much then it will stay in their part-time. So that'd be a way for us to control how much. [Applause] So I mean what what action do would you like us have to do a we do need salary amendments so this can start and and I do have one in your packet should be attached to the auditor business does anyone have any opposition to funding at $10 per hour this summer intern what's the uh ordinance number 2025-6A A I'll make a motion to approve ordinance number 2025-6A for circuit court summer intern at $10 an hour. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve um salary ordinance 2025-6A. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same. Motion passes. And we're going to hold on doing an additional appropriation. Is that correct? Let's do let's do and we'll try to just a little bit later. He's only it's going to be between now and September. So, we'll know way before the end of the year. We don't want to appropriate more or less. Yeah. Okay. So the only other thing that I have and I don't even know if you know how far you want us to get into this if you even really want to do it but you had mentioned at your last budget meeting that you wanted to go over the process for the application um the application and the process for opioid funds. I feel I can go through my whole

process to tell you what we can do. I did have this brought in. This is kind of where we're at right now. Um, basically this is how we track everything just that and it's hyperl to all the documents. So I just thought I'd give you an example of kind of how we're doing that. I don't know that we really want to get into the whole application process till the committee meets and they decide on who their target audience is for, you know, is it capital projects, is it programs, you know, so I don't know what you really want from me, but I do have my full process if you'd like to hear it. It's only five pages long. Oh, the committee. Personally, I think um it would be helpful and I think you need to hear it anyways when we meet as a committee for you to be there. Um and Scott, probably also for you to be there to make sure we're following the guidelines of how how the money can and cannot be spent and we could go through this process then to help us lay out the process moving forward for the OP. And then you the committee can come back to the full board with Right. The committee hasn't even met yet, right? No, we were just formed last week. Yeah. So, let let's let's don't um try to circumvent the committees because they're going to streamline some stuff for us. Yeah. Well, that's fine. I just you had asked me to go over that and I was like, I don't know if we're ready for that. Wow. Yeah, that is quite intense. I I would kind of hope that it's not as intense. Yeah. Okay. There's definitely not as many people that qualify as the AR. No, there's not. But there's definitely it's very intense when I get audited by state board of accounts for all this free money. Right. Well, that's why you make the big bucks, dear. Yeah, I don't really compared to these people that's getting this money. Okay. Is that all for the auditor business? That's Is there anything else you can think of? I think that's it for all. All right. We have a budget transfer for solid waste for $1,000. I

would entertain a motion to accept that. So moved. Second. Although it's comes out of the same fund to their same fund. So it's not any additional expense. They just got a got more in one fund than they have the other category. Right. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same. Very good. Um okay. So we've had a request from the uh Green Township Fire Department, I believe is where Bob's at, um to replace the leaky water apparatus for $10,000. Um, so I'm interested in I I the only thing I can say generally about our our volunteer fire departments is that we've always tried to support them because we don't have a fire district that covers the whole county. And I and I'm not in favor at this time of a fire district um covering the whole county because the fire protection we have in a lot of the county that is volunteer is very adequate. And it would, if you go to a fire district in some of those areas, you necessarily would add million-doll buildings and required full-time individuals and um and that type of green township is very uh limited in their financial things. So, I move that we um pass this uh and um finance it from food and second. Super. We have a motion and we This is another one of those funds from food and be or things that I'm proud to fund. Absolutely. Okay. Because it does I

believe it saves us millions of dollars in the long run u by us still having people willing to do this. Um all those in favor say I. I I oppose the same. Motion passes. One quick side note on that too. Green Township had asked a couple years ago. You remember we would tell everybody go talk to the RDC. Go talk to the RDC. Yeah. And Green Township I know at least when I was involved um a couple years ago on the RDC you we could not justify right the end in serving. They do serve through mutual aid, but we couldn't justify giving them tiff money because we weren't even giving Buck Creek TIF money yet and all that. So, they have asked many times and been declined in other forms. Well, they were needing new vehicles and stuff like that and we weren't able to fund them or our council the RDC's council lease Lisa Lee Ice Mill and all them said no, it was too much of a stretch to try to say that they're um eligible for those funds at this time. Yeah. So, helping them here is our only option, right? Okay. Super. um the salary amendment for the public information officer that um uh Commissioner Spalding had requested at the budget meeting. Um I'll make a motion. I know it's in here. Where'd it go? It's not a new hire. It's a um adding a level onto somebody that's already doing something. Wait, and what ordinance would this be? It's it will be 25-6B. Uh so I'll make a motion to approve ordinance number 2025-6B as presented for the public information officer. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to um um have somebody add on

to the duties of being a public information officer for us. And um see no further discussion. All those in favor say I. I. I opposed the same. So motion passes. Um seeing no further um items I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. I have a second. Second. All those in favor? I thank you. Sorry I got boring here at the end. I'm about wore out. People are not wanting to go over my process. No, no, no. [Music] Oh, way we go. Been processed enough. I was like, oh, I have if you chance take a look at this picture that we've got on the opioid and the um we have that the blue is like a hyper department chief always. You looked out. I think it's because they're afraid you might do something.