County Council - Regular Meeting

We're gonna start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance 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.

All right, we'll now have a moment of silence. Okay, starting at the 830 public hearing, the first item we have up is 2027 budget for Hancock County. I'm going to open the public hearing. Does anybody in the audience have any comment about the most important part of our job, which is the budget?

right does anybody on the council have any comments about the 2020 budget uh just comment if you uh use the uh summary sheet it was changed just a little bit from the last one that you got but it didn't change it significantly so i move we approve there's there's no vote today on the choice it's next month this is just a public hearing just public hearing all right

If that's all the comments, then I'll close the public hearing and I'll move on to the next public hearing item. The next public hearing item is the Hancock County Solid Waste Management District. I opened the public meeting. Does anyone have any comments about the budget for the Solid Waste Management District? Anyone on the council have any comments? All right, I close the Solid Waste Management District budget meeting and we'll have a vote next month on it. The last one for the budget is the Hancock County Public Library. I open the public hearing for any comments from the audience about the budget for the Hancock County Public Library. Anyone from the council have any comments? All right, I will close the public hearing for the public library budget and we will vote on that I believe next month. Alright, the next ones do have we will be voting on which is the public here additional appropriations. The first one which we've discussed before is fund 7201 food and beverage to appropriate $150,000. I'll open the public hearing for any comments from the audience or anybody in the public. Anybody from the council have any comments? Not hearing any, I'll close the public hearing to entertain a motion.

I'll entertain them or I'll make the motion for Fund 7201 Food and Beverage for $150,000. So moved.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any comments? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. All right. The final item for the public hearing is Fund 8892 Title IV-E Foster Care in the amount of $6,400. I open the public hearing. Ready comments? Anything from the council? Not hearing any, I close the public hearing and will entertain a motion.

Motion to approve the public defender juvenile poverty expense for $6,400. Second.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, name signed. Motion carries. That concludes our public hearing items for 8.30. Next up, 845, we have Fortville Area Resource Mission Farm Update, Kelly Griffey. Come on forward.

Thank you.

Hi. Ready to go? Okay. Hi, my name is Kelly Griffey. I'm the board president of the Fortville Area Resource Mission, and this is Erin Flick. She's on the board, and she's also our daytime pantry coordinator. We're here today just to talk to you guys about what impact farm is having on our community and what our future plans are. So our mission is simple. It's to enrich our community physically, mentally, and spiritually. We want to help the community build a future of hope, dignity, and nourishment. So we exist to ensure that families in Hancock County, Ingalls, and Pendleton have reliable access to nutritious food, compassionate support, and the love of Christ. We believe that addressing hunger is only the beginning. We want to do more than just hand out a bag of food. We want to provide that physical support by giving the food, but also emotional support by having various support groups, like mental health support groups, grief support, and help with that resource navigation, helping them getting . organizations that can help them with other needs that they have. And then spiritual support. We want to make sure that we're showing the love of Christ in everything that we do through the prayer and just that connection that we have with our guests that come in. And during our social hour, we have people that come in and give testimonials or devotions, that kind of thing. And then we have Bible studies that people can join. So where we've been, we've come a long way, and I guess now it's six years. We were started by Flory May, our Vernon Township trustee, and five area churches got together to form a joint food pantry. And during COVID, we were outside at Florida Christian Church, providing lots of food there. And then along the way we had our board, we got our board together, we hired executive director, we got all of our policies and procedures into place, developed a leadership team, started hosting Treats on Main in Fortville. You know, lots of different things that we've done through the years. And then last year we had our first annual farm banquet. And then at the beginning of the year we became our own 501 3C nonprofit organization. We were a DBA under Fort Will Christian Church, but now we're our own organization. And then our executive director decided she wanted to work more in a voluntary position, so then I stepped in to take on her responsibilities. Some farm facts, we were talking to people, a lot of people were like, we didn't know you did that, or we don't know what you do. So we just put some things together. We are a free choice food pantry, so folks can come in and pick what they want. We have a meal before each distribution, which is Tuesday lunch and then Thursday dinner. And we provide that social interaction and presentations from other nonprofits during that social hour. We help with the resource navigation. We provide and deliver prepack bags to local campground. And then elderly or other folks that can't get out, we deliver food to them. We provide weekend food bags to Mount Vernon school corporations to students in need. Right now, I think we're doing 61 bags a week that we're giving out. We host various volunteer groups for service projects, Girl Scout troops, school groups, you know, that kind of thing. And then we receive a lot of fresh produce from Fortville Community Garden and local farmers. That's been really great lately. And then again, we host Treats on Main downtown Fortville. And we're by no means doing this alone. We have a lot of community support, which is great. Now we have nine partner churches that help, and they provide volunteers. They provide monetary and in-kind donations. We have a lot of great community partners that we work with, Gleaners, Midwest Food Bank, Town of Fortville, Vernon Township Trustees, and the Community Foundation of Hancock County has really played a very important role in what we've been able to do. And then we have a lot of nonprofit collaboration. We have nonprofits that come in and talk during social hour, and then we refer folks to them throughout Hancock County. And then we have our oversight. We have our board of directors, and then we have a capital campaign team that I'll talk to you about.

All right. So I'm going to share with you kind of the impact of this partnership with so many community partners. And Kelly and I did want to say, feel free to ask us questions. And this slide is probably one where you might have some questions. So yeah, don't worry about interrupting. We're happy to answer anything. So, we've been tracking data since 2021. Like Kelly said, in 2020, we became kind of like a COVID relief site and then realized like, oh, we need to be, you know, tracking who's coming and going and especially for grants and that kind of thing, knowing numbers. So, we had a full year of data for 2021. So, that's where this starts. And you can see in 2025 alone here on this side, we impacted over 7,000 children, 3,400 seniors, and over 1,000 veterans that we were able to reach. Excuse me, our numbers are really, really growing. Our total number of individuals served in 2025 was 19,262. So that's a lot of people that we are able to touch, and most of those just right here in Hancock County. As you look through our chart of, you know, across the years, how many people we've impacted, you'll see in 2024, we definitely had a dip in numbers. And what we realized is we needed to set some limits on who could come and visit our pantry. Where we sit, we're very close to the Madison County line. And we had been... just you know if if a person came we served them but we realized like we want to focus mainly on hancock county so we put in our service restrictions of hancock county and then they can also come to us if they live in ingles and pendleton because that's very close to where we are and so once we put in that service area our numbers did dip um but we were we were okay with that because we feel like that's more the people were wanting to impact and wanting to serve. And then in 2025, so we operate currently out of Fortville Christian Church, and they had let us use their worship center for food distribution. And we distribute on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That was becoming a lot. So they were very generous and said, well, you can have our fellowship hall. So then we moved back to the fellowship hall at the end of 2024. And you can see in 2025, that was a smaller space. And so we also can see some numbers dip because we're just a little more crowded. And we have long lines. People like coming to us. They like the food that we give out. But sometimes standing in those lines are hard. So that's the explanation of why some of those numbers are a little lower. But we know with eventually a bigger space, we will have capacity to serve quite a bit. But we have noted the amount, the value of the groceries each household is getting has gone up significantly each year. And really, honestly, so 2025 was 155 a week is kind of what we estimate. We're giving fresh meat, fresh produce, milk, eggs. I think this year it's probably almost even close to $200 a week worth of food that they're getting. And our guests are allowed to come once a week. So that's impactful. Our in-kind donations have gone up significantly. As we've added partners, we have more volunteers, more partner churches. Now we partner with Gleaners in Midwest, so we're able to get a lot more free items. So last year we had over a half million dollars of in-kind donations of food, hygiene, cleaning products, that kind of thing. And then our number of volunteers has gone up significantly, too. But these aren't just numbers. They're families that are trying to make ends meet, children who need consistent meals, seniors choosing between food and medication. And every week, we have the opportunity to step inside those stories. Our programs are continuing to expand as we meet those needs. We'll talk a little more. We serve a meal before every distribution so they can come and have fellowship time, hear our speakers during fellowship time and have that meal. And like Kelly said, we partner with local schools. We're providing, we call them backpack sacks, the food bags that go over the weekend home with the kids. So Farm is becoming more than a food pantry. It's becoming a central hub of support and connection. So here are just some kind of fun pictures. The first picture there with the wooden backdrop, that is where we do our fellowship hour. Again, that's in the multipurpose room at Fortville Christian Church. They've given us that space. But we can have up to, I mean, 80, maybe even 100 people if we really squeeze in there. And so I think this picture was a, we do a Christmas in July event. And so that's what was happening in that. And then just some of our guests. We also have pictured some volunteers. We have Girl Scout groups, a lot of local church groups, all sorts of people that come. The Mount Vernon Honor Society, they are often, their kids are coming and helping us with things. And then again, just some guests and volunteers. So a lot of fun things happen. And I'm just going to read to you a couple quotes. We asked some guests and volunteers just, hey, what do you think of Farm? And I have two guest quotes. A female says, Farm helps me with food for my family, but being here with other people, my friends, and feeling closer to God is what means the most. I'm in such a better place here. I've learned so much with the guest speakers and Bible studies. And then one of our male guests says, it's supplemented my groceries and helped me out so much. The people here are very friendly, and that has ultimately kept me coming back. This is above and beyond a food pantry with social hour, food, and devotionals. So that's what means the most to us is that people are coming. They're lonely. They need social interaction. And they're coming, and they're finding that here. So we know the demand is rising. I'm sure you have heard that too. Pantry visits have increased over the years, but also so has our community support. So the numbers are telling this story of incredible community support and trust in farm. Since 2021, our in-kind donations have increased tremendously. drastically. Our volunteer base has tripled, and this growth isn't just data. It represents thousands of bags of food, of groceries, hundreds of prayers, and a community that really says we care. But we know there's a growing need. We work very closely with the Vernon Township trustee, and that's currently Florie May. And so Vernon Township is McCordsville and Fortville. And they've identified that They have 1,870 people that rely on SNAP just in Vernon Township. And these were 2025 numbers. So I imagine that went up. The Mount Vernon schools, we work closely with their counselors, too. And they're telling us so many families in need. And so just the need is rising. And then food costs are rising, housing costs are rising, cost of medication is rising, all of that. And it's really making it hard for people to make ends meet. So the Vernon Township trustees reported that in 2025, they helped with like household assistance or they helped assistance with 70 households in Fortville and 88 in McCordsville. And that was really interesting. They're seeing their McCordsville need increase greatly. So food insecurity leads to all sorts of other problems. They're feeling, you know, alone. Isolation, anxiety, but PHARM is there along with the other nonprofits that partner with us and just providing a really comprehensive safety net to meet that need.

So we want to be able to address the increase and be there and have that capacity so we know we have a bottleneck. So our current space, you know, the Four Wheel Christian Church has been very generous but we've outgrown that space. So it limits how much food we can safely receive, unpack, sort and distribute. We have a lot of older volunteers and it's really hard for them to, you know, get everything where it needs to be. It limits our service area. We would like to not have to have any limits. It creates long wait times in crowded areas. We have a lot of folks that will wait outside because they can't be in a crowded area or maybe not even come. And we like that private space for any confidential kind of conversations and that prayer in the quiet areas. And then it limits space for other nonprofits to come and provide their services on a routine basis. And just recently, we had a community needs assessment done. We had a college student reach out that they need to do a project. And so she did this for us, and it was really awesome. She did two things. One thing was just looked at all the zip codes of all of our guests and kind of analyzed who was coming. So we serve Fortville, McCordsville, Pendleton, and Greenfield are the biggest areas where people come. And then she asked all of her guests that came three questions. We had a survey. One, what are some positive ways the farm pantry serves you that would be important to include in the new building? And then what are some areas we could improve on? And then just anything in general. So what do the guests value most? A lot of them just said you're doing a great job, don't need to change things. Our volunteers are very friendly and welcoming, ability to choose their own food. They had a lot of gratitude and appreciation. They like the guest speakers and the testimonials and the social hour. Some areas for improvement, sound system, we're going to work on that. We have long wait times, live improvements, more space. They would like some additional items like pet food. We don't get that very often so we're working on ways to maybe get some pet food in there. Accessibility, we do have some folks that are in wheelchairs and it's really hard for them to get around. and more specialty items like for diabetics and gluten-free kind of things. So we're trying to figure out where we can get those kind of things. So it was really good that this aligns what we were feeling as the volunteers and staff, but then also we see that our guests are feeling it too. So, you know, our needs align there. So this was just a really good exercise for us to make sure we are meeting the community needs. So we have a vision, a new home for farm. Fortville Christian Church has graciously given us the land, and we envision this new building. We'll have expanded storage. We'll have refrigeration and freezer capacity. It will increase, as well as other storage. Dignity-first design. We want it to have easy navigation. We want to make sure it includes those warm gathering spaces that fosters that connection and community. And it's going to be more than a warehouse. It's going to be a community hub. We want to have space for other nonprofits to come and provide their services. It's sometimes hard for people in Fortville and McCordsville to get all the way to Greenfield, and that's where most of the nonprofits are. So they will come to us. So we already have seven letter of intents that if they have the space, they will bring their services to the building. And just recently, actually right before the floods happened, we were working with Hancock County COAD to figure out what we can do when there's an emergency. Unfortunately, we were a little bit late because we had the meeting like right before the floods. So we didn't really have a good plan, but we were able to provide donations to Anderson and then to our surrounding trustees. But we want to have a better plan. We want to have a plan for now, how we can serve the community and then how this building could be of use when there's an emergency like that or some other emergencies. So we're working on that. So where we're going in 2026, we started our capital campaign and we've hired an architect. We're working with them right now. Our plans are actually pretty, pretty final. And we're going to be started looking at builders and hopefully decide, decide on a builder this year. And then in 2027, we'll continue our capital campaign. And then we'd like to break ground sometime next year.

OK, so in order to make this new building happen, we are in the process of raising $2.5 million. And we're really excited about that. This building that you saw the picture, I don't know, just looking at that, we were fearful it would be a whole lot more but two and a half million is is reasonable and we can do that so um to build this future we've already launched our campaign and um just kind of the breakdown of where this money is going two million is the construction cost so um that is you know the entire building Then we've been working with the Hancock County Community Foundation, and they suggested we build in operating cost into our capital campaign, which is really nice right now. Fortville Christian Church hasn't really charged us much. They don't charge us rent. We help with some electric costs and that kind of thing. But we realized, oh, well, it probably is going to be a big chunk, that operating cost. So we appreciated that advice, and we've put that into our campaign. And then $250,000 is for additional equipment. All the equipment we currently have will move into the new building, but we would like a walk-in freezer. We're going to need, you know, different forklifts, just all sorts of things. The kitchen there will look different. We have plans to make that a spot where we can do cooking classes and people can come in and learn canning or whatever. So, you know, just it'll cause a lot more equipment. And our goal is to do all of this totally debt-free. We believe that's biblical, and we don't want to be paying interest on a loan. So we're waiting. As the money comes in, we're not going to build until we know we have this funded.

So in closing, we just want to reiterate that FARM is serving families in Hancock County. We're already collecting and distributing hundreds of thousands of pounds of food every year and working with businesses and organizations and stepping in and helping families with unexpected hardships. And like I said, the recent flooding really reminded us that needs aren't always predictable and we need to be ready. When a disaster happens, people can't wait. They need help. And so we want to build that capacity and be able to step in and help. So we are asking the Hancock County Council to partner with us and invest in this project. And it's not just an investment in a building. It's an investment in Hancock County, you know, in Hancock County families. Our request to the Hancock County Council is $250,000. We recognize that this is a significant investment, but we believe it reflects a significant role this facility can play in serving Hancock County. and help respond to these unexpected hardships and also community emergencies. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the council on how that investment could be structured, but we would be really honored to have Hancock County stand alongside FARM as a partner in making that happen. So we really thank you today for taking the time to listen to us and considering this investment in the people of Hancock County. If you have any questions, we welcome those. And then also in your packet, we attached a letter of support from the commissioners and the town of Fortville and Florie Mae, Vernon Township.

I do have a question and it may have been in here a lot of information. Yeah, it's a lot. Sorry. Where is the location of the land?

Fortville Christian Church, which is on 200. Right.

Yeah.

So right behind, there's two parsonages there. The back one's going to be torn down soon. So it'll be right there. So it'll be in Fortville? Yeah, it's Fortville.

That's very close to Mount Vernon schools. Yeah, just down the road.

I

How much have you raised so far and then how much has been given by Fortville Town, McCordsville Town and Vernon Township?

So far we're at $400,000, and that is mostly from the board and volunteers, and we had some anonymous donors that gave. Currently we are working with Fortville to look into the OCRA funds that are available. They said they would sponsor us in that. So right now they have not actually given us any money for it, but working with them on that.

WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE?

WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCCORDSVILLE? WHAT ABOUT MCC ANYTHING PLEDGED. AND THE WAY THE TOWNSHIP TRUSTEES WORK, WE HAVE A CONTRACT WITH VERNON TOWNSHIP TRUSTEES WHERE THEN THEY CAN GIVE US CONTRACTED FUNDS FOR FOOD, BUT NOT TOWARDS THE CAPITOL CAMPAIGN. AND WE'RE ALSO BEEN WORKING WITH THOMAS LOPEZ FROM CENTER TOWNSHIP HERE IN GREENFIELD, SIMILAR. We go out to Mohawk campgrounds. There are people living there. And we deliver there every week. And that's in Center Township. And so Thomas Lopez was very interested in helping support us. But again, that would be like a contract for food.

Right, right. It has to be.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I'm assuming that you said you have a lot of the Mount Vernon school children that you're servicing that live in McCordsville. So you're not getting any participation from Accordsville in the project?

Not yet. Not yet. They've been really good to try to connect us to some of the new businesses going in. And that's really nice. There's, you know, rumored of some new grocery stores going in and that kind of thing. And they're getting us connected with that.

They also have Meijer and IU Health and Nine star. Nine star. And I mean, so I see nine stars probably already participating. But yeah, you're probably going to have to tap the really big ones that are, I know I use new there.

Yeah, they did give us contact there that we've been trying to get with someone.

If any of you know, like, hey, talk to this person at IU Health, we'd be happy to have that content.

You can ask Walmart, too.

Yeah.

Yes, there's a Walmart going in. I think it's kind of slow going, but it's actually in Ingalls. There is a Walmart going in real close to you. That is our service area.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

Have you talked to any township trustees over the county line? I saw you serve zip codes that go outside Hancock County. Have they been supportive?

Yeah. So Greg Valentine is the township trustee for Green Township in Madison County, which is Ingalls and a portion of Pendleton. And we serve a lot of his people. And we share data with him. But as far as like a contract, we haven't done that with him. He knows to reach out to us when he has people in need. So, but yeah, they're definitely aware.

Do the senior services service quite a number of the PI? I noticed you've got them down as a supporting or a participating PI.

We will refer people to them, and I think we have some folks in Fortville that use their transportation system, but is that what you mean?

Well, we finance that for the county, and most of the people that use it now are in Greenfield, but some are outside. I just wonder if you do this, is that going to, increase the amount of service that the senior services will be, which will be coming back to us to finance.

We've talked to them, and I think Kelly can speak to that, but we've even said, you know, hey, we could be a hub in this new building. They could park cars out there, because it's my understanding that some of their volunteers, like, live out, say, Fortville and McCordsville, but then have to drive all the way into Greenfield to pick up the vans and that kind of thing, and so we've said, well... they'd be welcome to keep them you know there and that would be a shorter drive for their volunteers would probably end up expanding senior services probably

Their comment, maybe a reminder to us and to the public, is that I know you have an ask of $250,000, but to let you know that we did help in the past the food pantry here for $100,000. So that's kind of our, I think, the max we've ever gone. So just to put it in perspective so you know $250,000 is pretty high up there for us to do. And I understand that's how you ask. That's how you ask. That's how we do as politicians. We ask for a larger number than you get. So I get it.

We share notes quite a bit with the Hancock County Food Pantry. Really, all the food pantries in Hancock County are good. We do a food rescue provider call every other month with all of them. I did kind of mean to point out, and I know Kelly noted, But we are also a free choice pantry, which is something that so many of our guests say they appreciate, and that's different than many of the other food pantries, is they can come and do their own grocery shopping, basically. Not a pre-packed bag, you know. They get that free choice. So that's important. Is it income restricted? Nope.

Okay, you don't verify income.

The only thing is Hancock County, Pendleton, are only restrictions.

Oh, okay, for residency?

Correct, but no income.

They don't have to verify income at all.

And then if someone comes that's outside of our service area, we'll let them go through once, and then we give them information about other pantries in their area.

The four-bill has its own RDC, Redevelopment Commission, and the restrictions on Redevelopment Commission TIF money has to be in using it in the area to support the area of the TIF. And I would assume that the TIF money for Fortville is capable of providing capital funding for something like this too. So if you haven't went to the Redevelopment Commission in Fortville yet, ours is too far away, probably too close to Fortville. to make that jump for the local government finance, but Fortville probably is not.

Okay. Okay. We'll check into that. Thank you.

Yeah, because that's where any of the new factories or any of the commercial stuff that's going in up there, around there, that's where their tax revenue gets held up.

And that's something we would talk to the town of Fort Phillip?

There's a redevelopment commission. They have their own TIF districts.

They have their own meetings.

They have their own meetings and everything. So yeah, you would approach them. But if you see a new warehouse go up somewhere, that's where that tax revenue goes into that fund. Okay.

Your location would be in or serving that TIF district.

Right. And you're right close. We've had to turn down volunteer fire departments that were east side of county because they weren't you know, close enough to say that they were priority for that. I mean, because it's Mount Comfort is where, and Maxwell's where our TIF districts are. And so it has to prove that it's serving to that. But capital funds are one of the big things that they can use money for, not operational stuff.

Okay. Awesome.

Thank you. Does your TIF cover Mohawk?

The budget, the money derived from the commerce within the TIF district, that budget is managed by the redevelopment commission, not the town council. Okay. So that's a separate, it's going to be a separate. Okay. They probably appoint someone, but they don't control that budget.

Okay, awesome. Yeah.

Are you seeking another letter of recommendation or did the commissioner's letter suffice for the county or were you requesting another letter of recommendation?

Another one would be great, but I don't know. I don't I guess I don't know for sure if that commissioners one would cover that or there's two separate entities or how that works.

But I think they're coming up with money versus. Yeah, I didn't know if they were wanting another letter.

I mean, if you guys think it would be helpful.

Well, I mean, I think the only time our letter would be helpful would be is if we want to do a letter, if we want to make an offer in the future, we don't want to decide today, but to say that we'll match up to a certain amount whatever Fortville town gives and McCordsville town gives. Mm-hmm. Up to a certain amount. Yeah.

We can do something like that to try to push them to donate. Right, because we have an issue where we provide a lot of services for the whole county and we're not getting any support like from 911 or from anything else from the towns or the cities. And so that's a... Animal control. Animal control. That's a tough deal for us.

Senior services.

Yeah, because Wardville pays nothing for animal control. They don't pay anything for 911. They don't pay anything. And the county picks all that up. And we've struggled to get the Cordsville to participate. And senior services is the big one right now. It's costing us hundreds of thousands a year to provide that transportation service for the whole county. And the unincorporated areas that we get our money from, it's only a small portion of what they do. You know, they get mostly out of the towns. And so...

If the county council did... ponder this and decide to pledge any amount, since they have a lot of fundraising left to do, would we retain the funds in-house up to the point that they had their other funding secured?

You could set it however we want. That's why I say we don't have to decide today. We can think about it. Because it just got presented, all this information today.

Yeah, I'll probably need to digest it. We can come back and answer more questions.

And I can help you all. Last week was the Indiana Hunger Summit, and Rachel Brandenburg from ISDA is the food distribution leader, so she can probably help connect with others that have done what you're doing or trying to do to get some best practices. And then Okra, I'm on the ISDA, Department of Ag is on the same floor as Okra, so I can certainly walk across the floor and help connect there. But I think Rachel would be really good, just not only with what she knows about other food banks but being very involved with the indiana hunger summit that was just last week that there may be some people that know a lot more about this than i do but that i can help connect you with and she can to help get this to gain some steam because i i just know a lot of people struggling to raise money i mean just looking at that growth of the in-kind donation that shows that you've got something going here and there's obviously a need and so i want to be able to help out where i can Do you have Clark's information?

No, yeah.

I've got your name. I can reach out to you, or if you have a card.

Yeah, I have one in my place back there. I can get to that. I just want to commend you. This is a wonderful program, and it's the basic feeding people. You can't get any better than that. So, you know, you all have done a great job. Very impressed. Yes, you have.

All right, thank you for coming. Thank you. And make sure you get your information to Clark so he can help you out.

Yeah, I'll go get that real quick. All right. Thank you.

You're welcome. All right, next up for the 9 a.m. time slot was request for additional appropriations, John Giacontis. And he's not wearing a tie.

No.

You let me down, John.

Don't let that fool you.

He's probably asking for six figures to put the tie on.

I mean, it is. It actually is, so... have some shortages that are coming up before the end of the year and so i have five line items from fund 1235 which is our 911 lit which is very healthy ask for the approval to advertise for the additional appropriations

Is 1235 the fund where we raise the basis points so it will be covered?

Oh yeah, yeah, there's plenty. It's well, that was part of that's actually three of the line items were because we moved to position from 1222 to protect it into 1235. We've been bouncing back and forth between those two in order to protect 1222.

And is your group insurance request of $138,000 in addition to the $650,000? No.

No, no, no. That's what it gets up to. But it's $650,000 now. It was $500,000. We left the original amount in for the 2025 budget for some reason.

But I mean, you're asking this for the 27 budget, right? No, this is for this year. Otherwise, I'm not going to get through this. Right now, your budget's $650,000. for medical. It is? Yeah. For 12?

That's a 27.

For 27? No, no, this is for now.

He's saying 26.

Yeah, 2026. There's only 500,000. To make it through 26? What's that? To make it through 26?

Yeah, correct. Yeah, these are all for 2026 to get through.

And we knew he would probably come up short.

what's that i said we knew you would probably come yeah and i i we knew this from after the budget was approved but i wanted to wait question i wanted to wait to ask for the additional because of the fact we did close the gap by about forty thousand dollars because of we're still have two open spots so that we haven't been able to fill unfortunately for seven eight months now so um you're looking for a thumbs up to advertise

Do we have a thumbs up to advertise for the appropriations?

All right. Before you leave, I have a question. I know you're going to come to the RDC tomorrow. Yes, I am. If everybody remembers, we talked about funding, eventually funding a person out of the RDC 4911 because we had, had these vacancies you had to move people around and stuff like that and right and uh can you update us on that because we'll be making hopefully we'll be making a decision i know that the commissioners have already heard it i think and and everything and we'll make a decision tomorrow and i don't want everybody to be comfortable with it this one this one is actually for the new position the program or the public safety program manager um we

Like I said, and that's the only position we're asking for out of RDC. But I know Gary had programmed in about 110,000, I think, into the RDC budget and it fits. We have a little bit of a shortfall with the group insurance that we'll make up out of the 1235 fund, so.

What else is the RDC funding, 911 on? Anything? Nothing. Okay.

If you want to give me more money.

No, no, no, no. I'm just always cognizant of the percentages and everything that we have to live under and all.

And we checked this out with Lisa, if it was.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think the way the job description was written, it fits within the within the RDC budget. So and then we still have the one person that's on medical leave, but we're also going to have three others on long term leaves here shortly. So well, my overtime is going to go from here to here. So but we're good there. Anything else?

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. The 915, which is Magistrate Coombs, he is on the bench till 945. So we will interrupt at 945 once he gets here to have him come on because he's on the bench from 830 to noon today. So he's going to take a break to come here for that. So we will skip to the 930 environmental pollution policy. Brian Breeze, come on up.

Good morning, everyone. Morning. I'd like to discuss an environmental policy for the county. I've presented it to the commissioners, and they gave a favorable 3-0 vote to go ahead and come to the council. And in the packet, what the proposal's for, we moved to a self-insured retention program on the county's insurance. And so we just got high deductibles and there was limited pollution in the last one. When I ran a search on the county for underground storage tanks, it showed zero. Through the research of putting this together, there is one that was newly installed at the, and that's the IDEM database, but we have one, it's a water oil separator at the highway. And then we have one for a diesel tank at the, the old jail, the community correction building now over here. And then we were in the process of purchasing Jack and Son's property, and with that, That just brought up some more flags. We do have through the solid waste management district, the collection events. And although we've required all of the vendors to provide insurance, which includes pollution coverage, I just thought the County overall, we should just go ahead and put in a most, most policies exclude pollution. So it's always going to be a standalone. And what you have in front of you is what they call site pollution proposal. And at the time of the last meeting that I proposed, I didn't have all the county data as far as how much ground. And so what you see is a proposal for the locations that we have. The very bottom one where it says not offered, that's the vacant farmhouse on 40 by the gun range or across from the sheriff's department. And so that one, because it's a vacant building and not utilized, there's no coverage for that right now. There is a lead exclusion for the gun range on the policy, and that's just due to obviously the ammunition that's fired there. But on the proposal and what the commissioners approved, it was for 5 million. The carrier offers two types of payment structure. If you do it annually, the pricing was a little higher at 38,478. Whereas if we do a three-year policy, it's 67,574.15. That's what they favored and voted for in the meeting. And kind of the reason behind that was The cost per year is lower. And the only caveat in going with the three-year policy is that if there is an event first year, that would lower that 5 million. And if it were totally exhausted, we would have to buy a new policy. But the annual, you would be reloading, even if there wasn't an event, 38478, 38478, 38478. So there's quite a bit of savings with the three-year proposal. On another note, when you talk about claims, a lot of times your defense costs, your attorney fees are inside the limit. These are actually outside. So there's a 1.25 million of coverage that is outside of the policy. So really you're getting 6.25 million of coverage, including defense costs. Underwriter and I went through, you know, kind of all the county angles and I brought up, we own a lot of parcels, which are just like strips of ground in front of different property right away sections. And the auditor's office was able to help me and they gave me 630 acres is the total amount. I didn't have that at the time of presenting this and giving the presentation to the commissioners. So I did get that number back and we can add all of that additional ground. It would go up to 86,139 for the three-year 5 million limit. But I just haven't been able to get back in front of them and present. When I presented this to them, they said, did you talk to the council first? And I said, well, no, I thought I needed to come here first. Kind of in that mindset, I'm gonna let you know what I'm presenting today. They said, well, this would be outside of our normal budget, so if you can present to the council. Jim, I know you're familiar with the Jack and Sons, because the Jackson Oil is next to it. And I hit that hard because I said, all right, if that's not included on here yet, because number one, we don't own it, but if we do buy it, they wanna see the phase one and if there's a phase two, I'm not sure which of those are, if there's just a phase one, it's easier to add if there's a phase two. And I even showed the lady through street view and aerial views, the Jackson Oil, because those are above ground storage tanks, there's less worry on that property having leaks because they would be, if they're leaking above ground, they're gonna be caught quicker. So if they were all underground storage tanks, there might be some worry about bleed off of on that, We could add those once we, or any property for that matter, if we had one that we were trying to add at a later date that had any kind of pollution issue as long as it was cleaned up. And so the policy, again, is a site pollution. With Dee Dee, I've worked with her a lot lately on the collection events. This policy would also include, so if we have one at the church or if we have one at the junior high, it'll give us, it'll extend coverage for the county there in transportation. So as the vendors leave and haul it away, if there was an accident or something, And it was our event that was involved. It would provide protection for the county there. And then also at the end use or end location, we would have coverage for that as well. with the pricing the carrier I worked with shop multiple companies and this one came back most favorable on all the above and I've even included the two underground storage tanks in this with the highway department and the jail so those are factored in and then the property on Jack and Sons, whenever that's added, they just have to review the phase one data. And if there is a phase two, they have to review that.

But does anyone have any questions for me on?

Well, Brian, now the way I understand it is this is just insurance for pollution.

Yeah.

Like you talked about.

Transportation it wouldn't cover anything, but the pollution caused by the auto accident would not be covered like the vehicle Damaged, but if there was pollution per se we the county has Risk transfer practices in place where any vendor we use should have 1099. If they file a 1099, they should have a COI on file with this. And I've worked with DD to make sure every vendor, whether it's the tire person, the household hazardous waste, the paint, we make sure we have all their certificates on file. And we do require pollution for those vendors, as well as automobile, general liability, workers comp. um did our old insurance it was limited coverage and with the county because the solid waste management district is so small like if you look across the county our budget for the size of the county and the and the she she's really more of a educator she goes out and teaches she does 128 presentations a year to schools so um but we don't have a landfill we really outside of again outside of a couple of underground storage tanks and then collection events we don't have a lot of exposure but if we ever had somebody dump on a property, that's where I just felt adding the 630 acres, we have a complete coverage. And then the other thing I like about this company is that any property can be added, even though I had concerns about Jack's bringing it on, what's there, it's been a junkyard as long as I could remember, salvage yard. I just thought if we're bringing that on and as the county grows, DeeDee's mentioned Republic working with them on adding a collection site where people can drive through and drop stuff off. So I just felt we really need to expand on this. And we did make changes. We monitor a lot of risk within the county and this is just an area we really need to bring up to speed and with the growth and the additional things that we're doing, I think it's just time that we put this in place. Well, I think we need coverage.

Well, I think we need some coverage. I'm not sure if... It makes sense to cover right-of-ways and stuff that in order for us to get a claim from a right-of-way, we would have had to dump our own material on the right-of-way. If there was a traffic accident and fuel or oil or anything is spilled into that right-of-way, then the people involved in the traffic accident have to pay for that. Okay, IDEM goes specifically after those people. I was personally involved in a oil spill at a right-of-way, and I was responsible for that, not the county or the city or anybody else. And there's hundreds of acres, he's saying, of right-of-way and things like that. And then there's a lot of things on here that may not make sense. And I know they charge by the acre. Environmental insurance is not cheap. I've had to have some of it myself in the past. At the shooting range, if lead, is not, if lead contamination to an adjacent property is not covered under the insurance, then why would you have insurance at all at the shooting, because they're not doing anything else out there but shooting. You know, there's not vehicles on that property, there's not anything that would cause you to have a claim. And then if Jackson Sons is not in this, that's going to be a scenario of its own. It's not going to probably pass a phase one or phase two after you say they're done and then they would review it. It's probably not ever going to happen. So that's kind of a mute point to this, but that's in addition to this. So I may think it's just too comprehensive for every single little bitty thing that the county has to have environmental insurance on.

I've just seen it in other cases, not pollution.

the county uh has big pockets and we tend to get drug into uh lawsuits it just hasn't happened since i've been here maybe or i don't i'm not familiar with cases like that um the the waste management district um stuff i i don't think you can blanket all of their issues or all of their stuff through this, I don't think then they would have a blanket coverage. I mean, that almost has to be site-specific to our solid waste management district. And even if we have to increase funding to them to handle all the coverages, because that's going to be a moving target. They do not have a thing set up with Republic, okay? They may never get a thing set up with Republic. for an ongoing thing. We've been trying something like that for years. And their locations that they have their stuff changes also by who allows them to have places there. But I'm not throwing cold water on everything, Brian. I just want us to realize And this is ongoing. This is like hiring another person, okay? Once you start this, you never quit.

So... You're suggesting it might be money better spent to focus more intricately on the things that are of higher risk rather than blanket something... Rather than blanket any piece... Well, there is high-risk scenarios.

There is the county highway building. um and things like that that need to be covered and and the old jail and stuff like that probably but i don't know what i said if we pull in every little bitty piece because i'm sure they're charging us for all those other things that that may not ever have a and haven't had in the past uh a scenario

So will the price be cheaper then if we limit what we cover to the high risk areas?

There is a location based rate. I would have to get, you know, a revised total. But just to kind of counter a little bit of what you said, Kent, what about if you you said if you were able to identify who dumped it, what about if it's somebody that just pulls up dumps in the middle of night and takes off and there is no accident report to move it or if that person if that company or individual that has a loss say it's a farmer with anhydrous and they have a serious accident and that their pollution limit either they didn't have it or it was exceeded and then the county is kind of stuck there will be brought in on it with that because it's our property a majority would fall on the landowner I'm sure in those areas but we're still gonna have our piece. So that's the only thing I disagree respectfully with you on covering everything. And then the difference between the solid waste management district and this, Dee Dee has an office that's technically rented or at the Purdue. So she's more of a contractor. pollution type risk where she's out and on the move. So the solid waste district doesn't have the amount of property or land that the county does and that's where we're talking two different coverages. This is a site pollution policy and then the where Dee Dee's involved that's more of a contractor's pollution type policy because she has her office space and then other than that she's whether she's at Republic, whether she's at the schools, whether she's at the collection event itself. And she does two big ones, April and September. And then she has a couple of smaller ones that bounce between New Powell, Fortville, McCordsville. So there's other locations there that she's at as well. What I put together was just, you could go a million if you wanted. What I would recommend instead of backing off locations would go down in, go from a five million down to a three or one million policy or whatever number, but that's where you could shave premium, but still have the comprehensive piece. There's also coverages within, it does exclude PFAS, which are you have shoes that are waterproof. They have spray on them that's a PFAS. So there's so many things that are PFAS type, but mold or bacteria, things like that. There's things like that that could be in the buildings that could potentially be picked up with this as well. So it's not just the dump of gas or antifreeze or something like that. It's covering the buildings in those areas as well for pollution.

Well, it's gonna be, it's with the things that aren't included in it that we're going to have to add to it you're talking about um it's not 67 it's going to be 80 some thousand if we eventually add um jacks to it we're talking a hundred thousand dollars every three years um i don't think it would be that much because the the 630 acres was the 20. that was a big 630 acres is a big number

over just the buildings and the, and the property they sit on.

So, um, that covers all of the, the Hancock County farm, right? Both sides.

Well, and we have the new park, um, off a hundred South between 40 and a hundred South, um, the nine star park we have. Yeah. The, the farm, when I talked to the assessor's office, I said, I need all of the ground that's owned by the county. And they gave me 630 acres. Right. And,

The 100 acres that's not been utilized right now, as far as I know, we've never had environmental insurance on the farm ground.

The county's owned it and had it farmed for 100 some years?

Almost 200 years or 1850.

So what are we asking of Brian? Are we asking him to show us premium prices for one and three year? Are we asking him to... You mean one or three million? Or I'm sorry, one in three million, are we asking him to change that?

Right now it's five million, right? That's the... Quote presented, and that's what, again, I'm presenting what was favorable. I gave the commissioners the one in five, and they voted 3-0 with a favorable recommendation to come to you guys with that. So they were... Three is not an option. They were wanting the five million from that meeting. I can tell you one other thing that's a quick example. You just had water come in over here and there was silica exposure that happened right out here in front of the building. And that's just on a simple back from excavating. So there's another type of coverage where, another time where you're lucky that the contractor stepped up and paid it, but that could have gotten into where we would have had a $65,000 bill.

So that, you know, it's not- We have a deductible of 50,000 though.

We do. Okay. But I'm just giving another quick example of where it comes into areas you just don't think of. It can happen in areas where we don't think of. And with the new policy, the self-insured, I just felt the pollution piece, we were limited before and kind of like you're saying in the mindset, I kind of saw it the same way, like, well, we don't have a landfill. We don't have all these different things. We're getting the certificates of insurance, but looking into it, and I talked to many people, I've talked to many people on this in different departments to get a picture in my head of what all do we have. So that's why I presented this. And I presented the one million in the meeting, but they felt the five was, the premium, if you look at it, I know you're saying, oh, it's gonna be 20 more if we go with the other one. It's really divided by three years. So we're talking about 22, 23,000 a year, 67, 69 would be 23,000 a year. the current proposal and then if you go to the 86, it's still under 30,000 a year. And that would encompass, again, As of today, all the property that we own, if we add jacks, it's not going to be a significant amount. It just, it's not going to be another 30,000.

Well, they wouldn't pick it up unless it was clean.

It's kind of like bringing a wrecked car. I use this example in the commissioner meeting. You bring a wrecked car to somebody and say, hey, give me full coverage on it.

Well, the county will do phase one, phase two, whatever on that property and then whatever's located. then the county will be responsible for cleaning that up prior to the insurance company taking it over. So you're right, it may not be that big of an addition, but we're gonna have initial outlay of stuff to get it to the point.

But- I thought there was an initial assessment that led us to believe that the property was not of significant concern regarding contaminants.

I can't, Gary could speak on that, but I can't.

You also have funds from the Brownfield Act. It's up to 400,000 for that location that the city I think was awarded, but in the purchase was going to be shared towards that. And that included the phase one, phase two. I reached out to our district five IDEM rep and didn't get a call back, but I just was going to inquire on that a little more, but the, there are, That's outside of county funds. Gary, am I misspeaking on that with the Brownfield Act?

Is it Brownfield money? Brownfield grant. Are we capable of getting any of that grant money?

We got grant money and we removed a leaky underground storage tank from the part by me. So we had the state pay for that. And we have a grant through Greenfield to clean up jacks. We also have anhydrous spills every year. We clean them up. Or the farmer cleans them up. That's kind of common in farming. So yeah, the feds, I apply for grants to get those brownfield stuff and we get them.

So you wouldn't have, on the anhydrous spills though you're talking about, would we ever use the insurance? We have a $50,000 deductible. Well, generally the farmer cleans them up.

If we do them, usually it takes a couple thousand dollars of a spill kit. We've been doing them.

Well, I mean, I'm just, then I need to know where the money's going to come from too, you know what I mean? It's outside the purview of everything we've got.

But to answer your question, yes, we get the grants from the feds for the large stuff and then local stuff is not, it does cost money if we have something come up.

But you're thinking that JAX is not going to be a, you're not going to come to us and say we need a half a million dollars out of food and beverage to fix JAX? I don't believe so. Okay.

I'm asking other people for that money.

Brian, was there an option of a greater than $50,000 deductible that made sense?

Yeah, that was what they, I didn't get any number on that. Again, that's just where they said typically the policies are for county. municipalities are at 50. So I was trying, what I was trying to do is we have a 300,000. I was trying and I was trying to keep it down to where if we did have an event, we're not getting hit with the 300. We've done really well with claims being lower after we went to that program. And so we're trying to keep that money in that coffer. So part of it was in thought of if we did have any kind of event. have a lower out-of-pocket.

As far as paying for it, if we do the three-year, I think we'd just take it from food and beverage. I mean, it would become, in the long term, would become part of general fund expenditure.

Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. This is like, once you start, you never... You never stop. There is something in the back of my mind saying we've owned 150 acres out there for 200 years and never had it on it. And I don't see the change for us to cover that much ground for more reason. But that's why I was trying to figure out how to make this less punitive to us. When you're talking $80,000, $90,000 over three years, is there a way we could take the deductible up? Because there is a chance somebody could dump something to do it. It's never happened. Okay, it's never happened so, but there is a chance, there's a chance of a lot of things, I suppose. So is there a way that the deductible can increase to bring the premium down? Is there a way that we could go to three million instead of five million and bring the premium down? I don't, I think common sense tells us we're not gonna have a five million dollar thing we've never had before.

That's what I could ask him is, you know, what's the typical claim in this area? What's the average claim amount? Or paid amount, I should say, not just claim.

I guess, I mean, it takes one. I don't have data on the average claim for pollution, but, I mean, there are cases that can be laser claims, too. I mean, for... i just would have to go back and get that number for you but you know the limits we carry on our liability i think regardless if it's five million or less the county's in a we're growing to a point we need it and um as the solid waste management district goes on its own and kind of grows from there they'll have their coverage for their events, but that protects that individual governmental unit at that point. We can put them on as an additional named insured right now because they're still part of the county. So I'm gonna have them as an additional insured on this policy through they're getting their own legs and walking on their own. But again, that's a different type of risk because it's a contractor risk point versus the site pollution. I thought the premium was reasonable because 630 acres is a lot of ground to expand coverage across all of it. And in my mind, I just don't want to be the one that pinpoints and says, well, we're probably not going to have anything here, here, here. The difference between 200 acres and the additional 630, it was 76,000 for 200 acres. and to get up to the 630, it added 86,000. It went up to 86,139. So it was less than $10,000 to add that many acres. I know you say that, hey, it's gonna continue to add, add, add. I don't think it's gonna be that bad. We're moving it a long way down the road to cover everything now, the incidental things that we bring on, whether it's salvage art or whatever. they have the right to say no if you bring on a property that they don't feel, because they're gonna review the reports and make sure they meet underwriting criteria. But I still, with the limit and the county does 90, over 90 million in revenue, I mean, we're a big county. So I felt like the pricing was favorable.

Uh, you know, I'm not against generally speaking, ensuring against pollutants. My biggest concern is that someday something we have something in Hancock County that we feel the county is to address that is not necessarily specific to our. Owned parcels and you know with what's provided here, I I don't. I can't say I have a really clear view on what we are and aren't covering. I don't know, for the sake of today, do you guys want to ask Brian to produce some of these things you're asking about, some of these variations, higher deductibles, different properties? Do we want to take this under advisement and move it to the next agenda?

Yeah, I was thinking we can, I mean, unless there's a deadline, we can move it to the September 29th joint meeting.

And that gives everyone time to inquire on variations.

I don't know if any of you out. I know I talked to Brian for quite a while about it, but I didn't know if any of the rest of you had.

So one thing I'd like to see and the food and beverage is fine maybe for the first payment, but I would like for it to be in its own fund so that those that come after us will be able to track it. That's that's the importance of it being in a fund you can track.

you know that it hasn't gone way up and and none of us are here and um what seems to me people don't realize i do think of solid waste management's its own entity and the risk is different with contract versus county that maybe you are talking about two separate policies i don't know if that's a cost concern and then ultimately it sounds like it belongs in the commissioner's budget to me because the commissioners want the coverage commissioners have a budget a substantial budget and i believe that's where it lives which is funded through the general fund

probably where it would go, wouldn't it, Mary? If we did its own thing, it'd go in the commissioners. Yes.

And I'd like to see the cost of $100,000 deductible.

I would definitely take a higher deductible.

Yeah, a higher deductible. And is $3 million capable, or is it just they don't do that? They don't split it that much? No, you can do one, two, three, four, five. I just said one. Huh? And then you're... My insurance goes up about 15% a year. Maybe because I'm just a dweeb in this scenario. So is this insurance going up like everything else every year to the point, too? Because this locks us in. We don't have increases.

We're locked in for three years.

For three years. But you do have to realize it could be 30% more. Yeah.

I mean, if we're going to do something unfavorable to the three-year commitment based on these numbers, it looks like the discount that provided for three versus one is worth undertaking. I agree.

If you're going to do it, you do it for the three years.

But I would definitely take a higher deductible. I would leave the $5 million and put us on the hook for a six-figure number. It's just catastrophe mitigation.

Jim likes to spend food and beverage because he's going to be gone.

Yeah, we are trying to benefit the community with that.

He's going to be gone, so he can care less what happens.

That's not sustainable. It will always be big. You'll always have enough. People just keep eating.

You call Kent every day, aren't you?

The only thing I'll say on the three years that I want to make sure everybody's clear on it's a three year locked premium, but the benefit, the, uh, uh, liability limit of 5 million, if we have an event and it spins down on any of that, including the, um, 1.25 on the defense costs, whatever spent down on those, we would have the remainder for the time being. So we could get hit right at, right at the time, the policy issued a few months in, and we have a major loss, then we would have to buy a new policy at that point because the renewal, where the policies renew on the annual, not the three year, you're paying that higher amount every year for that full 5 million. So there could be a caveat, like I said, where we have an event and there's any money paid out, then that amount carries forward the remaining period of that first three year term.

Well, what was the per incident limit?

But we have 5 million is the limit with a 50,000 deductible. But say we had an event that was a million and a half that would go down at whatever point that is. And then through the remaining.

So it's 5 million total for three years.

Yeah.

And if you do annual, it's not 5 million a year.

It's renewing at 5 million every.

But if year two, you spend the 5 million, okay, you spent 60, 70 grand, you cashed in on 4 million of coverage, you have to go buy another policy.

Right, right. And I mean, I know you guys are thinking back, some of our exposure could be in the transportation side where we have an event or end use. I mean, I just think it's time to get something in place. And then as we go forward, because we're going to continue the collection events. I'm talking to DD that area is going to expand and whether it's standalone or not the county will still be tied to that because it's a county collection process so and then along with the growth of just the county in general we're going to add buildings and things like that those things would come on in time but to add 200 or yeah to add 430 acres it was

less than ten thousand so i don't think it's going to be a halloween's number if we add jackets the savings are going to come if we add if we increase the deductible yeah i've got a note here for the 100k uh maybe the three million and see and the three mil okay yeah and see what that is and then we'll compare to what the expense is

So the commissioners have a meeting next week. I can have that and present to them. Do I need to go and get that? What should my process be?

The meeting you're talking about, Scott, is joint, right? Joint September 29th. Yeah, September 29th.

That would be the right time to do that.

Yep. That way we don't have to go twice.

And then the only other thing, my question I guess would be then say I come back with whatever that is at the 29th, do you guys approve it at that time or is it still? We can. We can.

It could be approved at the end.

Okay. Yeah. And, Keely, you mentioned something about the exact coverages. I'll get a list of that for you for everybody. And what's the best way to get that to you? Just go to Amber or?

If you send it to the auditor's office, then the requests that be distributed, they'll send it to everybody.

Okay. And then the only other question I have would be the collection events, the 26th. We did a standalone policy for it before. And I don't know if I need to talk to the commissioners on this or not, or you guys, but that's the 26th. And if this meeting's the 29th, it's gonna over it'll be over after we talk right so you need to do another standalone for that one okay yeah okay just same as the last time we go through the solid waste manager yep because we added the county to that policy and it covered uh covered them through that okay thanks brian thank you guys appreciate your time thanks

All right. That went a little longer than I anticipated. Sorry about that. So I'm going to next up, I got to go back to Magistrate Coombs because he's off the bench and he's here right now. So I'll have him come on up and talk about the magistrate administrative assistant.

Thank you. Thanks for changing my time for court. We have a very busy court morning this morning. We have a simple request. We've got the magistrate assistant position that when we set it up, we set it up as a split position between the clerk's office and the court. When we set the position up, we told the council, we let the council know when the position needed to be moved over to the court if we became that busy. And we're at that spot where we need to move the position out of the clerk's office and entirely under the court's umbrella. So we're just looking to reappropriate. I believe the budget is, the position is funded through the clerk's office. We just want to move that over to circuit court sphere two or sphere one. to cover that position. We are overhauling how the courthouse works for next year. We need to create additional docket space. And in order to do that, we need to run four courtrooms at a time. And so that magistrate assistant position, which it took a few months to get that filled, because it is a really hard position. and the way it is currently set up, it is a very boring position, and it's one that we actually for a couple weeks gave up on filling because we couldn't find anybody to fill it. We have been able to fill it, but we need to modify how it works. The assistant position is going to be a reporter position, and that assistant is going to follow the magistrate wherever the magistrate goes, and the magistrate will run the magistrate's own docket for a couple days out of the week. So we'll have four judges taking the bench at a time in order to make the courts more efficient. But that's not going to work if we have an assistant that's only 50% of the time with the courts and can't follow that magistrate assistant around, and we don't have enough reporters with the other courts in order to make that system work. It's kind of a, this is really the move we've got to make in order to get the courthouse more efficient.

So you're wanting to amend the budget for next year?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll refer that to Mary because we've already advertised.

We can't do that until the 1st of January. We're done.

So does the salary ordinance specify that position as being under the clerk? And so the salary ordinance will need amended to move it under? a different department.

You're talking current and then moving forward for next year?

Well, just next year. We'll keep it in the clerk's office. Okay.

So currently it's in county general in the clerk's office. Next year. Which court do you want it?

It doesn't matter. We've been talking about circuit, but I don't think it matters which one.

We would prefer it be in one court just to make it easier for payroll purposes.

Let's just throw it in circuit if that's okay.

As long as Judge Circa's good with that, that's fine. He's okay. That's fine.

Yeah, and Ms. Manship and Judge Circa are all on board on this, and they're insistent that we need it to work. We need this to happen in order to make the courthouse function right.

I'm glad you're asking for the other half of a person you already have and not a whole new person. So tell me where we sign. We're trying to make this easy for y'all. Somebody's losing. I think Mary will. We'll build that later. What is the clerk's office going to say about losing half a person?

Lisa is also insistent. She wants the position moved. We're excusing that employee. It's fine.

It's Dusty's problem next year, so we'll worry about that later. He's shaking his head yes.

I THINK SHE'S AT A CONFERENCE TODAY, I BELIEVE, OTHERWISE SHE'D BE HERE ADAMANTLY ARGUING ON BEHALF OF THIS REQUEST.

I THINK THE AUDITOR PRO TEN UNTIL TONIGHT HAS AN ISSUE THAT SHE NEEDS TO ADDRESS.

NO, ACTUALLY, THAT IS NOT GOING TO BE THAT DIFFICULT OF A PROBLEM BECAUSE IT'S ALREADY IN COUNTY GENERAL. we're just going to be changing from one department to another okay i actually don't see that as being an issue we're not increasing the budget right it's staying the same it's just going to change from one location do you need it formalized in a motion or is this banter i would like a motion i'll make a motion uh that beginning in january 2027 the position shared between the clerk and courts be moved

into the circuit court budget. Second.

All right, I have a motion and a second on the table. Is there any discussion on this? Just as long as the clerk agrees. Okay.

We got a thumbs up back there.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you all. Thanks. You're welcome.

Thank you.

All right, next up from 945, request for additional appropriations, Gary Poole, come on up.

We had a gas tax reduction this year, which you might be aware of.

The state has sent money to the county from the excess, from the state surplus. Of course, that went into a different fund, so I can't use it to replace that gas tax money. So I'm asking for, from the fund, $371,000 to be appropriated, a line 23,000 to be used for road materials.

All right, thumbs up to 371,000. All right, it'll be advertised and then we'll vote next time. Thank you.

Thanks, Gary.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're almost, yeah. Resolutions for noncompliance, Nicole Byerly.

Good morning. Actually, I'm going to kind of collaborate with Scott. So last month we had two CF1s that were denied for 26 pay 27. Well, there needs to be a resolution to terminate those in the way that you want them terminated. So Scott drew up a resolution for termination of abatement. if you could review to see if this is something that you would like to use, and then we can send to the two noncompliant abatements.

Just, I'm no attorney, but the verbiage here says the council decided the abatement will be denied for the year 2026, but the Exeter could return in 2027 and reapply. I mean, is reapply the, I thought we said that they're not going to apply for a new abatement, right? They can come file another CF1 and try to have it reinstated. Is reapply appropriate verbiage?

We can We can work with that a little bit. Exeter, I've been in contact with, and I think they wanted to speak during the public comment period today. Matt Kiffin is here, who's the attorney for Exeter.

Yeah, that's not the proper time. The public comment's about Walmart. It's not about Exeter. Now, is this something we're going to have to bring back and have a resolution on?

Yeah, we're going to have to redo this and have the appropriate procedures implemented. It's the first time we've had to do it. So then we could have him speak before we vote on that correct and he can always yeah I will say that what they are looking at is maybe providing you some more proof that there's going to be a tenant there such as Potentially an executed lease or something like that and they're supposed to be are they two of these or this is just one? This is one that would be used for Exeter, but it's kind of a sample of what we would do going forward if we have to do these. We also have to send a letter preparatory to this that has by statute some other requirements. So Nicole and I are working together to make sure that that process is done the right way. Right. But this is just an example, but it was drafted for Exeter. But we're going to have to go back. But they did, I'm just giving you the information. They did approach me, Matt's here today, about getting reconsideration of that. So I'm just letting you know that. We don't have to do anything today. Right. And I agree, that's not the time we normally entertain those things.

And he can send an email or contact each of us individually. I mean, just like the public can. I mean, he has that right to do that and meet with any of us if he wanted to, if anyone's willing to meet with him.

all true right so you're just here to notify us that there will be further action necessary yes you're notifying us this is a sample we're not voting on anything today not today but we're gonna this is way that all that'll happen going forward we'll actually execute a resolution on the day that you make that kind of yeah i think that's an excellent idea i have to do it

I say I would like to be put on next month's agenda, so I would like to try to get this wrapped up and get letters and information sent out to these two businesses.

Okay. So do you need a motion or anything to go forward? Or just the approval that we're... This is just for information. Okay, that's fine. And then we'll set you, you get on the calendar for next month. And then when you do get on the calendar, do set a time for them to speak. Okay. Before we do a vote, make sure they're included.

Should I send a letter to Red Rock? I have had no contact from Red Rock.

Is that one of the denials?

Yes, it was one of the denials.

Yes, yes. Okay.

Certified mail or something of that sort. Yeah, we have to follow the statute on that, too. We can talk about that.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

I just want to thank you, Nicole. We've kept you busy the last couple months, and this is the least favorite part of my job is drafting these and getting approval since I'm not an attorney, but I have to send several of these out. So thanks for your patience, but thanks for all your work on this.

Thank you.

All right. At this time, I will take a break, and then we'll reconvene and do the public comment and deal with Walmart. All right? We're adjourned for now.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, I'm going to call the meeting back to order. Before we start the public comment, I'm going to have Eric come up briefly here. I went to ask him a question. We had gotten some emails. Obviously, we got a lot of emails on data centers, but I got an email on Walmart, and I was going to want to ask you, because it was a good question we should have asked last week. How many of your associates that work at the warehouse currently are on public assistance?

I don't have a specific number, but I can tell you it's extremely rare in the distribution centers in particular because of the hourly rate. Now, with 2.1 million associates in the United States and across the planet. We do have some rare circumstances where associates choose to manage their hours based on their own specific needs for them, their family, the structure that they have. A number of associates choose not to work additional hours that they're provided. specifically to not trigger some federal thresholds, but those are personal decisions that they make on behalf of themselves and their families. They are very rare circumstances with the 1.7 or so million total associates we have in over 4,500 facilities here in the United States.

I would say if anybody else has any questions before I say that, we're going to do the public, when we do the public comment, then I'll bring Eric back up if there's follow-up questions from what you've heard from the public, unless somebody has another question.

I think there are some questions that got sent over that just clarify before public comments so they knew what they wanted to speak on. But like one is, you know, retail orders. What kind of just quickly elaborate. Will there be public retail orders or is this all kind of fulfillment?

So for Indy 3 in particular, the way that system is set, and again, we invite anyone that wants to come in and see it, council members, we'd love to host you. That facility runs retail orders for the entire country. So those dot com orders that you think of, their place, whether they're here in Indianapolis, here in Indiana, As far away as Utah or West Virginia, where it may come from, that facility processes retail orders. So in that document I shared with you last week about the number of, the total number that we collect and remit, for example, in sales taxes here in Indiana, because of the sales and use tax program that we fought, one of the legislative accomplishments I had in Michigan and Ohio and some of the other states on behalf of the corporation, Now all of us engaged in those online sales collect and remit taxes to the respective states that those sales are generated out of, rather than when I started at Walmart and it was just those of us that had a, quote, physical presence in your state that collect and remitted those sales. So all of those are retail sales, but we are not open to the public for retail sales. You can't just walk into one of our distribution facilities purchase the new whatever Apple might be offering or whatever one of our online platforms might be offering for you.

Another thing on the application was part of the employees were technical and vendor roles. Just kind of explain associates and technical vendor roles.

Trevor alluded to this last week in part of his comments as our general manager. So we've got kind of a three-pronged approach going on currently. We have Indy 1 that's coming online over in Plainfield. That's going to transfer some of the existing associates here in Hancock County back over to the facility that they started from. The second wave is, of course, if holiday season is upon us and we do ramp up with temporary positions during the holiday season. So the application before you does not include those temporary associates. It's specifically for full-time associates that we expect to be as part of the expansion. So I think that number we have listed is at 400. Now, as we hire these temporary associates here in the short term, we certainly hope that those individuals want to stay with us, do well, exceed at their jobs, and are able to roll over then into those full-time positions. but they are completely separate than what we're doing right now. So the application that you have before you is for those full time positions. And then a few of those, of course, are salaried, as Trevor alluded to as well, in addition to the hourly rates that we talked about.

I'm going to try to make these last two into one question but essentially part of the application process is declaring it working with us an economic revitalization area so just comment on Walmart's thoughts of you know why this area why did you think it was an economic revitalization area somewhere to invest and then also you know A lot of, I think of our last one that came before us, small business, they were looking to get an abatement before they built. We all thought it was a great addition to the community. You guys bought a building. I think that's probably why you didn't come before us to get the abatement and then do all this, but I just wanna make sure, I wanna get your thoughts on that.

Yeah, and just from a historical context, again, some of this was before my tenure and role, but as my colleague, as we came online, specifically for the second resolution that you have before you for what we call Indy 6, that's the building that we have purchased So in addition to the half a billion dollar investment we're making in what we call Indy 3 for the expansion and the jobs associated with that facility, we also have Indy 6 coming online as well. And there's a separate resolution for them for a similar abatement structure, the same 50% over five year that we've talked about. That abatement schedule for Indy 6 is for new associates that will be hired into that facility itself. When I talked earlier about how Indy 3 and what we do there with our online and what that provides with retail sales and how that program works, right, whether you've ordered in Utah or West Virginia, how that works. The geography of where we're standing is really, really important to not only to us but to all of the corporations that you see in this space operating here. Greater Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, this kind of center Midwest region provides us, and don't quote me, so forgive me, it's like 80% of the population of the United States is within eight hours of where we're physically standing. I think you're close there. I've heard that same statement. It matters. It really matters to be here. And of course, the opportunity to work in Hancock County we wouldn't be looking at a half a billion dollar expansion if we didn't have a great working relationship with you all, with the county and with our associates. And I said it before, the better the county does, the better we do as a company, the better our associates do, because they live and work here in your community. So we do appreciate you guys having us and considering this today.

I HAVE ONE POINT OF CLARIFICATION. IN MY PACKET, I HAVE THREE VERSIONS OF THE SB1. ONE IS DATED DECEMBER, ONE IS DATED MAY, ONE IS DATED JULY. WHILE THEY ARE VERY SIMILAR, THERE ARE SMALL VARIATIONS.

To get back, as I mentioned this and I kind of, I wandered down a small little rabbit hole and coming in before my tenure, part of withholding after the purchase, you all in the state of Indiana was going through Senate Bill 1, right, which impacted communities, property tax. So as in the spirit of working together with the county, We kind of held back on the initial wave on our initial application, particularly on the Indy six property. and why we had not come before you. So that might be why you're seeing a couple of different dates.

The one dated 7-31 is the correct one, correct?

We're asking, is the last one filed the correct one? It reflects salaries, current employees, 1,805. Salary, $61,300. Number of additional employees, 400. 400. With an asterisk of includes seasonal, technical, and mechanical.

Yeah, exactly. Those seasonal coming on now, and we're not counting the jobs that are currently underway there with the physical construction, installment of equipment, and all the stuff that's there. Let me hold that right here for a second.

So the document drafted, the resolution that should be signed, it actually says plus 200 new employees on that one. Yes, that's for Indy 6.

That's the new process.

Isn't this Indy 300? Because it's 1,886 existing employees plus 200 new employees.

I thought the resolution said 400 employees. There are two separate resolutions.

The other resolution says zero existing employees plus 300 new employees.

And that's what I thought was 6. That should be, if there's zero existing, then that would be yes.

Yes, that's building six. So this is the one that Keely's been talking about, which is building three. It currently has 1,886 existing plus 200 new employees. And then she said that there's two different S,

Yeah, what we have attached to the resolution for consideration says you have 1,886 employees, 57,500 a year average salary with 200 additionals. And then that is dated May 6th. And then there's two other SB1s with the same address on West 500 North. One is all the way back in December of last year. And that... Other than some, other than a lower salary, it looks substantially similar. But the most recent one is July 31st, and it has higher salaries and higher employees.

And that one should say 400. It does.

So it's your intention to use the most recent one, 400, with a salary of $61,300.

So then on page two, Scott Banke, legal counsel, page two, should we have that changed to say plus 400 new employees? on the resolution for that one. My version says 200.

Yeah, our version says 200, Randy. Absolutely support that amendment. Okay. Completely.

We can include that in there.

I'm not saying it's a big deal. I just want to clarify since we have more than one document.

But it's 400. Yours is redlined.

Yeah, but hers does say 400. Yeah, her version says 400. We just got two different. We have two different versions. So make sure the one we signed says 400. Right, we'll pass the one that says 400. Thank you for the clarification. Oh, that's fine.

Is that what your original says then? 100 would be perfect. We don't have one that says 400.

Well, she does somehow.

That's interesting. How did you get that?

I just got these from Randy, I believe.

Did you print it out? Yeah, I printed it out, but they sent it to me, and I printed it out.

Oh, she printed it out. It's something they sent.

No, mine was in my packet.

It's in the packet. It's in the packet.

Oh, Randy sent it up to me.

Okay. Okay, so the one you...

But the one I sent out...

It's good to go on that.

The correct one is dated 7-31-26. And it says 400.

The resolution needs to be changed to show 400 instead of 200.

And it also has the wrong salary.

It just has to have the right resolution.

Higher.

Yeah, it doesn't have the correct salary either on my page two.

That's fine. The latest SB1 should have updated salaries and the correct number of 400. And then obviously, yes, we would approve. If there's an amendment that needs to be offered to make sure that the resolution mirrors that 400, we certainly support your offering to do that.

SB 1 says 400, too. They both do.

But the, so the resolution we have in front of us, I mean, it's mostly right, except 400 employees, not 200 is the intention.

And then the money amount. The money amount.

And 61,300. Instead of 57,500. 61,300 and so then that number That'd be times 22 86 employees It's 2008 or 2286 employees Is a hundred and forty million one hundred thirty one thousand eight hundred feel free to check my math someone I

And to be clear, we certainly hope we exceed that number. Mine says 200. Yes. My package says 200.

Should this resolution specify 200 full-time and 200... season one contract or you know he's someday they're gonna come back later right with their CF1 and we won't be all the same people sitting here and I just want to make sure that we're differentiating as much as necessary that all 400 are not permanent year-round employees

that's correct right 200 200 are expected to be we're we're comfortable with you doing 400. it's going to be more when they get okay bring the seasonal in yeah they just picked up the wrong okay we got it all right anything else on clarifying sorry but that's not keeping you back on schedule that's okay all right i'll have you take a seat eric and then um

now at this time we're going to open this up to public comment please understand this public comment section is about the walmart personal property although we will have another opportunity next month also talk about walmart but because we're voting today we want to give the public a chance to speak so this is not the time i know we've gotten a lot of emails and i believe all of us are reading them pretty diligently about data centers this is about the walmart uh property tax abatement for two buildings. So who wants to speak? Mr. Overhauser, would you like to go first? Come on up. Name is Paul Overhauser, correct? Yes.

Thank you, council members. I appreciate the opportunity to address you this morning. I think there are several reasons why this council should not approve these applications for abatement requests by Walmart. i have several reasons for them the first two i think are really the most important because i think these abatement requests actually would violate the abatement statute that we have here in indiana now i did get a copy of the draft resolution for both of these uh abatement applications and they have this sentence in them. They say, the equipment is to be installed in real property improvement in an area previously declared to be an ERA or economic redevelopment area. Previously declared to be.

Tell us what paragraph you're referring to.

It's the second whereas paragraph on the first page of the proposed resolution. So the proposed resolution says that this area was previously declared to be an ERA.

It's the first paragraph, Scott. Yeah, I'm looking. Oh, okay, okay. I just wanted you to know.

Okay. Sorry about that. I wanted him to clarify it so everybody knows. Okay. Yeah, you go ahead, Paul. But the abatement statute requires of finding by the council that the land now has to be an economic redevelopment area. Specifically, I refer you to Indiana Code 6-1.1-12.1-1, And that requires that the definition of an economic redevelopment area be land that, quote, has become undesirable for or impossible of normal development and occupancy because of a lack of development, cessation of growth, deterioration of improvements, or character of occupancy, age, obsolescence, or substandard buildings. That does not describe either Indy 6 or Indy 3. Both those properties have brand new warehouses on them. The one on Indy 3 cost about $250 million. The one on Indy 6 cost, I think, in excess of $100 million. So these are not economic revitalization areas that would allow you to grant an abatement for them. Second reason by the statute that I don't think these abatement applications can be approved is because Walmart is a retail business. And I direct you to Indiana Code 6-1.1-12.1-2 . And that part of the statute reads, and I quote, however, the deduction provided by this chapter, that's an abatement, the deduction provided by this chapter for economic revitalization areas, not within a city or town, shall not be available to retail businesses. Both these facilities are not in a town or a city, they're in the county. And if there's ever been a definition of a retail business, it's Walmart. And I think Ms. Ramgis testified just a few minutes ago how from these facilities, Walmart in fact does now and will in the future continue to fulfill retail orders. So under the statute, these facilities are not eligible for an abatement. And I think there are other reasons why this abatement should not be approved today. The questions about the number of employees that are going to be there are insightful. This is the second time for the IND3 application that Walmart has come in and asked for an abatement on personal property. They filed an application in 2025, and in that application, they didn't identify any new employees that would be hired as a result of the installation of this equipment. And today, they're coming back asking for an abatement on the same amount, $440 million worth of logistics equipment. And somehow this year, they say they're going to have 400 new people. But as I think has been pointed out, and there's some asterisks on this, they say that includes seasonal hires and vendors' technical, mechanical roles. So it sounds to me like they're referring to technical or mechanical roles that would be employees of whoever Walmart may hire to maintain this robotics equipment that they want to install. Well, those aren't employees of Walmart. I don't think they count. And moreover, there's no idea for any of these employees how many of them are going to be located in Indiana. The real purpose of these abatement statutes is to try to encourage the hiring of individuals in the county. Because if they're hired, if they have jobs in the county, they pay local income taxes to the county and that benefits the county. But even if they work at these Walmart facilities, if they live in Marion County or somewhere else, Hancock County doesn't get the benefit of that local income tax revenue. So even if there may be some more employees, what the statute, Wake Bateman statute says you're supposed to consider is the number of employees And this is, let me quote you the statute again. This one is 6-1.1-12.1-4.5 . It says the abatement application has to include an estimate of the number of people who will be retained by the applicant as a result of the installation of the new manufacturing equipment or logistics equipment.

Hey, Paul, I'm trying to limit about five minutes because I want to hear other people speak, too. Is there anything else to wrap up real quick? I will respect your time and curb my comments. The only thing I had for you was, to me, when I was listening to, obviously being an attorney, I understand the statutes. that Indy 6 is an empty warehouse. And so that, I mean, it's been empty for a while. That is a concern. It sounded like that was in the statute where that would make it one that we could, by statute, give a tax abatement.

Well, in the original Walmart building would have been deemed an ERA back before you or I were even here when the Walmart got their first abatement, which is pre-exist me, Scott, and Clark. So it's been an ERA for a long time. It's not becoming one now.

My understanding is that the statute requires that for you to give an abatement, you have to find that it is now an ERA. You don't have to find whether it was an ERA at some time in the past, as is suggested by this draft resolution, is irrelevant. You have to find that it's an economic development area, redevelopment area today, and it's not.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Who else would like to speak? Can you speak either in favor or against it? It doesn't matter. All right, Mr. Bolander, come on up. Bill Bolander.

It's good to see you all after these years. I came to speak in favor of it. I think Walmart's the biggest employer in Hancock County, the biggest employer in the state. I would say a warehouse that you can't go get anything's not a retail store. I'd throw that out for, I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but just saying, but anyway, um, we'll make about i was looking at some of the figures i think we will gain about 27 000 or 27 million dollars in taxes and they'll save 10 million so that seems like a pretty good deal because that'll go to the schools for the most part the way i understand so i just think they're a great business i think we want to show a positive a positive vibe towards business. We don't want to wind up like Richmond and Newcastle and the empty Main Street. I mean, if you look around here, things are booming and I'd like to see it stay that way. So I won't blow on, I'll just sit down.

Okay. Thank you, Bill. Any questions, Warren? All right. Anybody else that would like to speak? Leah Letterman, come on up. I'm roughly doing five minutes.

This is quick. I want to start off by saying at the last meeting, the gentleman used the term community partner. And I really appreciated that in terms of talking about abatements with developers because good neighbor is tired and entirely inaccurate. And I appreciate Walmart sweetening the pot as they've come back for this abatement, being willing to work with the county. and these additional perks and additional benefits are nice i do think they should have been attached to previous abatements but that's not up to everyone here in front of me so just using that as an aside but with these perks and additional benefits i hope we keep this in mind with incoming projects with larger corporations that can afford to provide hancock county not just with the trickle down to schools and police and i understand that that's great but some immediately tangible benefits to the taxpayers. And excuse me. I appreciate that the abatement application has been improved. That's really great progress. And here, if this abatement is approved, we have the opportunity to be proactive rather than reactive. And I'm talking here about the CF1s and the compliance issues that we've seen. We have an opportunity here to set a new precedent in terms enforcement and compliance with that I know that there's a hesitation to punish Walmart per se because of what they bring in and I get this logically but with the optics there I feel like it has the potential to send the message that we're not community partners that we're kind of beholden to what the developers are willing to do and I think that we now excuse me I don't want it to give the message that Hancock County tolerates sloppy or disingenuous developers. I think there needs to be warnings or consequences in place already. Like, hey, if you don't do this, or if this happens, we're going to have to, you know, whatever the consequence is, you guys, that's your job. But just that there has to be something in place. Because right now, I feel like we're always playing catch up.

and i'd like to see us being more proactive and there's got to be a mural in there somewhere all right is there anybody else for the public that wants to speak for it against it or neutral i see people out there that don't always come to our meetings so that's what i'm asking yeah i was wondering where you've been george Okay, if there's no one else, all right, then I will then move it on to bringing Eric back up here so that he can answer any of the public concerns or if we have any additional questions for him before we vote.

I want to make sure that the resolution for the 5259 West 500 North, the second page is correct.

Is that building, is that Indy 3? Yes.

And I think that should read employment of approximately, I'm not sure. The, I guess the, this shows 1886 existing, but the SB1 shows 1805. so that should be changed i think to 1805 i guess and so the employment approximately of 2000 uh 86 would be what 1805 plus 400 right Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay, so that would be 2205. Employees plus 400, not 200 new employees with annual salaries approximately...

You did that?

I had $140,131,800. Okay. For that was on. That was on the 2086, though, but you're saying that the other one was 1805, so we need to alter that. So 2205, is that what was on the 731? Yep, 2205 times 61,300 is 135,166,500.

Okay, and then that's the 57,500 would be 61,300, right? Yeah, that's what the July 31st SB1 has. And the 2,086 employees would be?

2205. 2205, yeah.

Are we able to print that out?

We've got it printed out.

So, for the record, we are increasing the salary, we are increasing the number of employees, and we are increasing the total salaries paid. Not making it more in Walmart's favor, it is more in the county's favor.

And that auditor is checking it right now.

Yeah, I was going to say, I've got that, and mine came from the auditor.

Mine's not bad. We received like three different versions. Okay. We received multiple versions. We're going to get the right one.

We're going to get it done correctly before we vote. But to your point, Keely, we're going with all the higher numbers.

Yes, these are high. The highest of the numbers for the county.

Can I read what I've got then?

We're going to circulate the exact right. Oh, you know.

So you do have a typed up version that has all that. That's fine. Okay. Any questions?

Good. Yeah. Make sure we don't sign the wrong one. So while they're getting that ready, I know Kent wants to speak.

Well, no, I just want to clarify a couple things that came up. Because I was involved in the original Walmart abatement. And I know the question about retail has came up in the scenario, but just because the company may have retail outlets doesn't mean the company, this specific warehouse is a retail outlet. Okay, I know a lot of hospitals, big hospital scenarios that do their own medical waste, okay? But just because they're a hospital doesn't mean they're a waste removal company. okay so it doesn't mean a patient's allowed to walk into the waste removal facility so because we intentionally don't abate retail establishments uh strip malls things things like that i mean uh that's that's kind of the

I mean, the reality is every one of those businesses in a warehouse is possessing a product that ends up in the hand of a consumer at some point.

The reason that they have to warehouse the product and move the product is because of a retail somewhere that's providing it, which we are happy that Walmart's producing another retail store up north of Fortville because it's well needed.

To be clear, our store here does wonderfully. It's a great relationship with the town.

Well, we've been abandoned by all the other national companies or all the other smaller companies. We've been abandoned. We have a food desert here, and it's taking a long time for anybody to fulfill those things, so it would be a tragedy if that. But I do appreciate you helping us go through and staying with us in the process here and not – I don't want you to get a sour taste in your mouth. We do believe that the partnership for the next 10, 20 years, 30 years is going to be a great one between us and you guys. And it's allowing us not to have to take on a lot of other large entities to try to solve our SB1 problems and solve all the other things, you know, without Walmart then,

uh we would be have to be much more aggressive in the other things that uh that we have to put out there and um i do have a question not for eric but for anyone including scott so over 25 years they'll pay about 76 million in taxes so just roughly that's 3 million a year well hold on stop there

The full boatload of taxes over 25 years would be $77 million and change. With this request, they would pay $66 million and change.

So roughly $2.5 to $3 million a year that they will pay. Since this is in a TIF district, tell me, understand, is that more money that will come in that the RDC will capture, or will this lower the tax rate for the

It's the latter. This money does not go into the RDC. It goes directly to the taxing units and it will lower their tax rate.

the school, the township.

And it makes the schools, actually, they're probably going to come along with the referendum, all four of them, probably, in the next two or three years. It'll lower the rates so that their referendums will be more palatable.

The thing that Hancock County is different in, and it's RDC than all the other counties in the state, I'm assuming all of them actually collect personal property tax also into the RDC, and we don't do that. um it's been asked multiple times to do it and things and we've we've neglected it time after time 10 years ago i i i sat in meetings neglecting to to let the rdc capture the personal property tax because of the school and so the the personal property tax abatements go to the taxing units it's not it's not captured in the test yeah so i just want to make it clear just from my understanding and anyone who's kind of newer tuning in that

There will not, fortunately, there will not be more money going to like Buck Creek Fire Department. I'd like to see that in the future, but this will directly help the citizens of Buck Creek Township by reducing their tax rate. Am I saying that correctly? Okay.

Yes, that is my understanding, correct.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, I'll just say for the record, I was not in support of the request last year. It was for more savings than what would be paid. I had my idea then of how big of a discount I thought was palatable. And this, after further discussion, negotiation, Walmart has come back and said, we wanna stay here and we wanna do it and we will ask less in terms of tax breaks. And to what Clark was pointing out, they're asking to pay, 66.3 million over 25 years instead of 77.4 million over 25 years. I mean, those are fair numbers that I can live with. So I didn't support it last year. I do support it in its current form and think it's very fair and makes a substantial benefit to the taxpayers. Especially for the lack of burden it creates for them to put equipment inside a building that's already standing there.

So from here we go to a declaratory resolution?

If it passes today, yes. If it passes today. One or both, yeah. Right. And that would be next month, and there would be an automatic publication.

Right, they would have a hearing and everything. What is the ordinance or resolution number?

Resolution number would be 2026-9-2. And that's on the Building 3, Indy 3.

yes okay and what's the resolution number for the nd6 that would be 2026-9-3 okay uh does anybody else want to make a comment before i ask for a motion mark i think you've made

well i was going to more whenever we voted i assumed we'd do a roll call and explain well i don't know if we're going to do a roll call i mean my biggest thing is if you look at walmart they have the size to eventually potentially disrupt the retail food industry if you look at what they did in fort wayne i know that was 10 years ago at the dairy plant but they did another one in texas a year ago Removing the middleman most often increases prices paid to farmers. If you look just today, if a farmer takes a load of corn to poet an ethanol plant, they can get $5.31 without a basis. and the positive or negative is just neutral. If they go to a local country elevator, most likely they will only get paid $4.81 with the negative 50 cent basis. That's a dollar more per bushel. On a truckload of corn that's usually around a thousand bushels, that's a thousand more dollars a load. you haul three loads four loads a day depending on the line that's significant more dollars in the farmer's pocket we do want to stay an agricultural rich community and if someday walmart does decide to up in the ag industry again not the ag industry the retail food industry i would really like for us to be at the top of the list and look at hancock county whether it's a dairy plant Who knows? Probably not a beef meatpacking plan. I don't think that would fit next to a neighborhood, especially one that's doing 3,000 or 4,000 head a day. But Walmart's pretty innovative at times or others they work with. Is there any type of innovation that can help cut out the middleman and get farmer's products directly to Walmart, directly to the consumer? that will increase the value for farmers I sure would like them to look here first and call us first so because of that that's why I'm pretty supportive of this because I want to be at the top of the list if they do decide to do any other type of ag type building and are you like Clark are you just thinking pie in the sky no look at Texas they did a huge dairy plant there last year look at Hancock County next time first please

Does anybody else have something they want to say? I mean, the only thing for me was Indy 6, I'm looking at it as two different abilities. Indy 6, you know, I mean, it's a empty warehouse. I know the public have been very much against, we're getting tired of the empty warehouses. So the fact you're coming in, buying it, bringing in a tremendous amount of jobs, you know, with good pay, you know, a whole different thing when you're doing large, like TVs and stuff, because I've gotten a tour, so I know how it works. So I'm really excited about that one. But For me, ND3, you know, I might be the only no vote up here on ND3, but I think you're going to do it no matter what. And so that sometimes that's one of those things like if an organization is going to do it, then why would you give an abatement? And that's how I stand on that one. Just, you know, I mean, because I know you already been working on it. So that's just, you know, it's kind of one of those things like, We always want, and this is probably for the public more than just Walmart, because I know people watch this and want to come for abatements. Don't start doing something and come to us for an abatement. Come to us because the only reason you're going to come to us is because you need the abatement to make it happen.

So let's look real quick at history, and that's what I keep going back on. Walmart right now is going to be our largest supporter of our county for a single entity. I grew up where we had a pharmaceutical company that was the largest supporter of our county. the county commissioners did not support that pharmaceutical company. They thought that they were gonna be here no matter what. And they pulled out, okay. Just like you said, Clark, the things that happen in the future, that company is, is a trillion dollar company today. They're four times larger than they were at the time. They've created new products that require new facilities. If that company was still in Hancock County, we would be a totally different looking county than we are right now. And they had the property, they had everything all set up, and as soon as the county fathers turned them down on an expansion or anything, they pulled out. and and we lost um it's it's it's hilarious we talked three or four million dollars but i'm talking 30 years ago they were paying 20 million okay which is 100 million today And so we are fortunate to get another company back that wants to partner with our county and provide jobs and provide taxes and it's a clean partner. And so it's very important in the future too, like Clark said, there is things that come about that we don't know about that could sustain the county for 100 years.

All right, anything else? I'll move. No, go ahead, make a motion on. I'll move, we approve. One at a time.

Yes. Yeah, one at a time, whichever. Resolution 2026-9-2. So moved, I'll take second.

Second on the approval of, okay, resolution 2026-2-9. So I have a motion and a second for approval of resolution number 2026-9-2. This is for ND3, for those listening. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those against, aye. Motion carries 5-1. All right, next motion.

I move we approve resolution 2026-9-3. Second.

All right, I have a motion and a second to approve resolution number 2026-9-3. This is for those in the audience in the six. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. We'll be back next month for the declaration. Yes, Mr. Sorrell.

There needs to be a motion to set both of those for hearing and then set the public hearing. I'll direct the notice.

When is the public hearing going to be? October.

What do we have available? Next council meeting is October 14th.

We can do 9 a.m. I move we set the hearing and approve for the hearing. Second.

Thank you. All right, I have a motion and a second to set the hearing for October 14th at 9 a.m. and for approval of them. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Yeah, I'll get the notice. Okay. Thank you all very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right, next up is the budget meeting update.

Well, we reviewed all of the fund balances and found that they were very satisfactory. I added needs for Scott Williams and Jeremy Teepin. Such a public hearing for the lit ordinance for 9-29, the joint meeting. So we really do need to have a quorum of us for that meeting.

I will be traveling that day. I will not be present.

What day was it you said, Jim?

29. 29. Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I think that's a Tuesday. It's a Tuesday evening at 5 p.m.

It's a Tuesday evening.

Okay. Will need joint meeting with definitely need a quorum for people. Three and we talked about the sheriff's retirement plan funding. Changes and and we reviewed the must group meeting and that was it. Unless you got something now.

All right, next action item approved minutes for August 12, 2026.

Make a motion to approve the minutes as written for August 12th, 2026.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes for August 12th, 2026. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Auditor business.

Okay, auditor business, I have two items. Last week I brought you invoices from MS Consultants for the county farm. We reviewed the minutes for... the entire year of 2026. And we could not find any discussion on where these invoices were going to be paid. So I'm not sure if that discussion occurred at maybe one of the county farm visioning meetings possibly. So I'm just coming back to find out where you would like all their invoices paid from.

The commissioners would have authorized the contract and we would have had to talk about the cost.

We had to. We couldn't find any records in commissioner or council.

I would think that would come from economic development.

Maybe.

What's the amount?

The amount totals, there's several invoices, they total $99,676.11.

But by the time it's all said and done, I don't remember the final price, but I think it's in excess of...

I don't remember.

I mean, I think by the time it's all said and done, we were probably looking closer to $200.

I thought it was $100,000, but... Oh, you did? Well, that's what I thought, but we wouldn't be paying in advance.

Because there's, like, drainage, you know, like, they're studying topography and drainage and all that.

It's definitely economic development.

Huh?

It's definitely economic.

Do we have funds appropriated in...

We do not. We only have $11,000 appropriated in a miscellaneous line.

Do we have time to go through an appropriation and get that invoice?

We do. We could actually hold a public hearing at the joint meeting.

Oh, yeah.

To appropriate it.

Yeah. Do we want to do just the amount of the invoices or do we want to do some excess so that if additional invoices come in, they can be paid through economic development or do you just want to do another appropriation?

Why don't we find out what the commissioners, what that contract was for?

Okay, we can look up the contract.

Yeah, but you'll have to list the current invoices for the appropriation. We'll have to have a dollar amount. Put in the amount.

Why don't we thumbs up to appropriate $100,000 to deal with the current invoices, and then, Mary, can you report back on what their contract with the commissioners said?

Absolutely. We can have that for the joint meeting.

And that's a thumbs up for an advertisement, right? Yeah. Okay.

Okay, and then one last thing. The public defender had came Oh, probably a couple months ago now regarding the one-time bonus that the state prosecutors were getting. That was approved. I just have a salary ordinance amendment because we do need to add that in that the public defender and the chief deputy public defender are both going to receive a $2,500 bonus, one-time bonus. So moved. So what's the ordinance number?

All right, so I need a motion. I need a motion to approve ordinance number 2026-9B regarding the public defender's one-time bonus for the chief public defender and chief deputy public defender in amounts of $2,500 each.

Suspend the rules to sign it today.

Suspend the rules to sign it today. I need a motion.

Well, he already said so. Motion?

All right, motion for Mr. Shelby. Do I have a second? Second. All right, a second from Mr. Smith. All those in favor of the ordinance say aye. Aye. Any opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

I'll make a motion to... What? I'm opposed.

Opposed? Okay. So that carries 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1.

You need a motion to suspend the rules and... That was part of the original motion. It was part of the original motion?

Yes.

He referenced it once I brought it up. That's my motion. There.

If it suffices for you.

Any more auditor business?

That was it.

Did anybody schedule individually any additional public comment?

No, I believe the only one that I received this morning was a gentleman from Exeter, but I believe Scott Dinky Yeah, we dealt has already talked with him. So we're good.

Okay All right. I will entertain a motion to adjourn So moved we got a second for adjournment Oh second motion saying to adjourn all those in favor say aye aye aye all those against motion