Hancock County Council Budget, Efficiency and Revenue Committee and Council - Regular Meeting

report.

And just chime in as we go through. Any question? Holler. General fund. you'll see is about 17 million8. So, it's down the way it should be. Economic development 1112 is um hanging in there. Community correction 11:22 the projects fund is um is u leading off but not badly. And then 11:35 and 38 the two funds the bridge and Kum Capital. You see KUM capital is u not really a fund 1159 the health fund is good health uh first Indiana which is the second thing they get uh that's been cut a little bit is looking pretty healthy.

Hey Jim, can I ask a question? I'm sorry. Uh going back to 1149, the 5% economic development fee, it's zeroed across. Does that come to It's because No, it's because the auditor hasn't dispersed it and as soon as she disperses it, he takes it. Yeah. So it it always looks like a zero because they come and go so quickly. Okay. Thank you. In and out.

Yeah. Uh the uh 1170 lit public safety is looking good and rainy day at the bottom. 1186 we haven't done anything with so it's the way it's been. Second page the 1213 we watch Cassa there for us. uh 1222 is uh the uh fee part of E911 and you see that's being drained. Uh 1233 and 34 are the two uh jail lit funds. one the capital. We'll be taking um that down with the um building of this uh maintenance and storage building. Uh let uh PAP is the other part of 911. Uh and that actually is increasing because we took two basis points from the library and plugged it in there. 251 drug court is positive. Page three, uh 259's behavioral court positive. And then uh 4616 is the big tiff area. And uh 4623 is a 2020 2021 geo bond that still has a pretty healthy uh balance in it. And then the uh two uh tiff areas uh 4624 is the other big tiff area which is building up. Can I ask a question? Uh, on the GEO bonds, the 2021

guys, the commissioners, you guys kind of have something earmarked already. 2021. Yes, that's the rehab for the community corrections. Okay. And we're still working with that. So,

and then 4633 is the 2023 GEO bond proceeds. It's pretty well drained. And then the two uh smaller tiff areas, well three tiff areas and the GDI remind you is GDI built a road. We gave them a uh what do you call it? Developer bond. So they're paying off what they invested in that road with tiff money. And 4638 is a 2025 uh geo bond. Excuse me. Uh, page four. 4700 is our self insurance. 4913, the perennial jury pay fund is healthy for a while. And um, nothing else on that page. Page five, 7201 is food and beverage. Looks good. And the last page, uh, the CARES Act and the ARPA, uh, the CARES Act, that's the health department, uh, still has a lot of money in it. ARPA, we're down to 17,000, but that will go to zero, right?

Yes. All right. Uh, real quick, and Kent brought this up last month, the food and beverage balance, is there anything pending payment out of that that's been approved? There was checking. Yeah, take your time.

I think there is. You can take your time. We can circle back on it too. It's just The only thing big I could think of would be the 500,000 for the for the A association, but that surely has been paid.

That yes, that was already paid. It looks like um let's see the things that are earmarked. Of course, you were looking at the cash balance. The the budget balance is a little different. There's 250,000 earmarked for probation to help keep them afloat and they have been using a a small portion of that. The 500,000 for the A association has already been paid. What about senior services? I thought last year we took some senior services out.

We we did, but they have their own funds this year and we just put some cash in there. But no, there's there's really not. There's uh there's quite a bit of money still just sitting here for us to use for an emergency or a one-time expense. Well, I paid $27 for two meals for my grandchildren at Culver's. Oh my gosh. What reimbured? Well, it's like I mean that fund's going to be millions. I couldn't believe for just for a couple chicken sandwiches and some fries contributing. He's unbelievable.

So, so we have, you know, caught 1.8 at least working balance there. We do. Now, there is there is 639,000 in our miscellaneous line. So, if if there's an expense that comes up, we do not need to advertise to appropriate it. we have that much appropriated that we can use and for any emergencies.

Beat a dead horse, but because we're self-insured on both sides, probably be a good idea to just kind of keep an eye closely on those balances for claims just to make sure, you know, we got a $930,000 stop loss on the liability, sure that something terrible would happen that

if I can too. Um, you know, with I think what we're going to see is that we are maxed out with the projects. So, we had I had been talking over the last meeting or two. We may have to fund the uh egg needs from a different fund and food and beverage would have to be the one more than likely, but that's up to you. you all. Uh, but there's a there's a lack of funding there.

Okay. So, FYI, Mary, what was the 40? Also, what was the 46 that came out of the self insurance liability? That's what we had. That was I was thinking more of a safety net. Oh, that. Yeah. Oh, no. Those those are all of the claims that we pay up to what 25,000 Deb is that right for the Yeah. For the for the for the No, it's for Well, for liability for liability. So, yeah. Any any of our medical Well, not medical, but any of our liability claims get paid from that line. Here's our self insurance reserve.

Oh, you're talking about 5901 and 591. Gotcha. We have $400 and some thousand dollars there. And actually, I think off the top of my head, I think last year or year to date, it's been like a hundred,000 or less. No, I guess I'm announcing something different. I thought we had a self insurance liability reserve fund. Oh, no. We do not have a reserve fund. I thought we did too, but that never came to fruition. I thought, you know, because we have our health insurance and our health insurance emergency fund and we should have our self insurance on liability casualty property and all that and then another one.

Another one. Okay. I thought about it so much that I thought it was reality. Yeah, I'm I'm right there with you. Okay. I'm right there with you. We talked about it, but we apparently never did it. I thought it was talked about never showed up. If we if we were going to start one, would we fund that out of general fund? That would be about the only place. So, why don't we put it down as a topic for next time? Okay. I don't want to cuss and discuss it today because we're not really, you know, and we're hoping to get some information on supplemental lit here real soon uh next week. So, let's put it on the agenda because Yeah, I was overly convinced we had it. I was right there with you. That was it.

Yeah. Nope. I was right there with you. Do do you think if our um balance in this is 500 that another 500 in the reserve would be adequate or if the stop loss is 930 is that what the reserve should be? No, I thought we were going with a self insurance liability of 500. Okay. Yeah. I thought that's what we were trying to get. And if we can maintain that type of balance every year, you know, our stop loss is going to go up every year. And actually, it might be a million10 for 2020. I think I told Jim, uh, 2027, but we've worked out, you know, our uh, premiums went up a little, not bad. So,

okay, that clears that up. Thank you. Because I thought I thought, why are we spending out the reserves? And and I did skip the 5901 and 5902. Sorry about that. That's all right. Um 5901 uh is the health claims fund and that looks good. And then the reserve fund has a million in it. So health

Jim, can I make a comment about the general fund? Um, I've had a lot of people ask me questions about they think we have too much money in the general fund and uh we don't spend the general fund down because we never know what's going to be coming down down the road. And I was reading um Greg's sustainability revenue and spending plan. And I noticed that the ending balance with the spend down this year is pretty much 235, but in 29 it will be almost half. And that's why, you know, we have to be prepared for these things because we all went through one thing one time that we we didn't really have Greg and we weren't prepared. And that's pretty ugly. So that's why we don't spend general fund all the way down. People want to know why you have so much in there. Well, some of it's a safety net and we're going to have to use it.

It can disappear real quickly, can it? Oh, it can. Well, when we get to the geo, I'm going to give you a little write up from S&P that they released last week which said get ready. Oh, wow. Was it just related to us? No, no, no. Just Indiana. Indiana specific. It's been a little hard to get. While you're there, let's go over the uh regional sewer fund. That's why I stayed there. So, here's what we're going to do, Jim. We have to

Let me just so we're all tuned in. This regional sewer fund, these are monies coming from our investment in the uh 200 West sewer system. Uh we set that up so that we get some of the it's not the um uh uh an monthly uh cost that people pay. It's the uh houses that get hooked up in that case. I believe connection fees, right?

Connection fees. Now, when we go to the uh North N sewer system there, we're intending to have like a two or a $3 fee on the monthly bill for the people using it. And that would go into this fund. And the purpose of the fund is to eventually build up enough money that we can then go to Charlottesville and build a system for them. Well, and um think that question. So, uh they're just going to add a $3 fee, $2 to $3 fee every month until their those residents ser uh connection fees are taken care of. Correct. Is that it? I

think Ninstar was going to No, that's above that. It it's just it's just a um fee. What would you call a fee? Uh impact fee. Impact fee. We actually just s call it a search charge, you know, because we're trying to a capital search charge because we're trying to recover the amount that we're investing. Does it have a sunset date, though, or is it just run until all the uh money's uh resri We've run it for 20 years. So, yeah, they'll get used to it. There's $15 million investment I think has to be made. Is that what we 20 we're going to hear once? Yeah. if we get so yeah it it it's going to take a

longer time than we're going to be alive to some of us for sure. Well, in in addition to the regional uh uh fund in order to get something for Charlottesville, the north nine area is all tiff. So the uh tiff money can then also be as that into that tiff. then that TIFF money could be used in addition to the regional uh sewer fund to get to uh Charlottesville. So hopefully it won't take that long.

I think it's also worth mentioning that when we invested the ARPA money on 2 West, we were firm that we didn't want to make anyone who's already there hook up or have to take it on. And so they had the option to wave it. And so that would only be on on new development off of that. New houses are being built right now on 200. Yeah, they're building

across the street from the exist plus the the existing uh addition that sits right next to the treatment plant. Probably 50 new houses in the last and on the north nine project. I believe the investment money we're talking about includes uh the hookup for the people. So there'll be no So commissioners, you can demand that that people hook up because we'll be paying for it. So there's no reason for people not to hook up

and that's all included in that 20 million. the plan so far unless the state kicks it out or something. So yeah, keep keep in mind I would call this a schematic design, you know, until someone says no, it was actually creating the lateral. You going to allow the ones that are out there that are existing once they do connect to keep their wells like to do outside watering and things or are they making them tack the actual water well? Um, that would be a Ninstar question cuz Ninstar is going to do water at the same time. Didn't know if it had been discussed out loud yet about

Not really. And as you know, we're coming there. I'm coming and Ninstar is coming to the regional sewer board to discuss the overall project later this month, I think.

Okay. And so that's going to be addressed then, Mary. But I'm I'm thinking normally when we do when I do water and sewer projects, water is not mandatory hookup. Sewer is within 300 ft. Water it's not if you want to keep your own well. Then it's a matter of, you know, do you want rusty water or not? Well, I was thinking more as they do connect, but they can keep their well and do outside, you know, water their lawns or wash their cars or whatever they choose to do outside and not have to use the water they're paying subject to nine stars rules. I believe that is true, but I do not know for a fact.

You just have to have it plumbed that way and keep a working well pump. We just have to convince them that it's easier to do it when they're going through there because we just had the uh situation down here at subdivision down here. People had the opportunity to hook up to all that stuff years ago when it was put indeed. Some of them did not do it. They came back wanting at the same price as we were offering it to them before. Yeah. And it went up by $15,000. So, I mean, it it's it's a good idea for them to hook up to water. Yeah, as it's coming through just like sewer.

Well, one more thing about water is the county we the money we spent was not for water was run at the same time the sewer, but I like to point out we did the county did not fund the water. We only funded the sewer. It's environmental. Um, so when some people complain about paying for water, we're not making anyone hook up to water. We didn't pay to put water lines in front of their house.

Well, and the the cheaper part of that whole scenario is the water. It's the sanitary sewer that your bill rises so much from. I mean, that's what we're experiencing out east. And I don't know if Hancock County's got this, but in Hancock or in um Hrix and Putnham, we have wells that are sometimes 6 ft below in a concrete if the home's older and you are not allowed to remodel or rebuild without that bring being brought up out of that concrete pit. And I don't know, you know, in Hancock you may not, but in this area there may be some

you're talking about in Maxwell there's a lot of really really shallow wells inside that town and the water quality is horrid. And I'm talking about the ones that are eight foot down in the ground because they suck water in and they become that's the so they won't allow you Hendrickx County will not allow you to remodel or rebuild with that type of water system.

So, okay. So, what we're going to do, Jim, is uh I'm we're going to work with Mary. We're going to have a resolution that we're going to deposit the 75,000 on a temporary basis. We have to set up a whole new bank account and everything for the regional sewer board uh general fund in order to deposit this. So that's going to take a little bit of ordinance work and some things like that. And then they will have to going forward have their own annual report too. So we'll be filing uh yeah welcome to auditor's office Mary if you haven't been there before. Well, she's

I'm assuming that once the interchange is done and we have commercial entities um coming in around the interchange and things like that, then all of that those sewer hookup fees then drop into this fund. Well, the sewer hookup fees we haven't really I don't store that's a big fee. Yeah, we you know I guess that's we're still working that out with Ninstar. Yeah, right Jim. I mean and Bill's not here, but I just forget how that fee was set up honestly. We'll know more on the 14th. Yeah.

When we're all together and and please do not, you know, do not divert from the three or whatever, you know, ad. I'm going to sh You know, Hendricks counties, I've got their regional sewer here. They got over $6 million in the bank. So, and they've been one or$2 dollars and it's it's working. So, you can you can accumulate take took a while. Took a long time and they're looking at something at 70 and 39, but you know, uh it it can work. It just takes a while. Okay.

Well, and I was talking with someone from Charlottesville last night. We're going to need some sort of backup plan like that when we get to Charlottesville because, you know, I mean, there are very few houses and a lot of those folks, it's lower income out there and they will have to be we're going to have to take care of them in some fashion. Absolutely. Because a lot of those folks out there cannot afford what we could be proposing for them. M and

also I'd like to add that you know the town of Charlottesville is almost non-existence as far as government goes. Okay. I mean their sidewalks and everything else out there are just crumbling away. I just got a call this week and about people speeding through there and all that. So I've already take care of putting a speeding sign out there. But they're they're they're they got little pieces of sidewalks all the way through that town. It just we're we're gonna have to probably help them there. So that's incorporated or unincorporated. They're unincorporated.

But you know that the sidewalks and everything could be part of the project like it was in Shirley years ago when we did the sidewalks, roads, and sewer. And a place like that needs the water part for the fire. Oh, that's yeah, that's the scary part because I'm sure in talking with uh a resident in Charlottesville last night, you know, your homeowners insurance can be very expensive. Um, even if it's just a volunteer fire department

and I did not know that there was a tremendous difference between having a a professional fire department and a volunteer staffed. I did not know there was a difference. If I have set up fire districts and fire territories and it is literally across the street or not across the street, it'll be $500 difference. Yeah. And you know, this particular resident lives right across the street. Yeah. But there's not a hydrant to be seen, you know, anywhere. We we just have to be proud that we're trying to do something for the quality of the water because it hasn't been done to this level before. Everybody's just said

kicked it down the road. kick it down the road. Um cuz every dollar we're trying to capture here and every dollar we're trying to spend uh is solving water quality issue in our county. And if we don't stop it, it just gets it just gets worse and worse and worse the bigger the county grows. But we've got to everybody that's elected that as long as they're here, we got to make sure this money gets to where it's supposed to get to. We can't steal it for something else. Can't use it for other things. And then if if if when we set up these districts, if someone has to be charged a searchcharge, you just have to say it's for the betterment of of the of you and everybody else because we're trying to solve the issues.

And and these small towns can't afford to uh do the investment part of it because their monthly bills would just be out of sight. So that's why we really need to come up with Bowman Acres when Bowman Acres was built that sury was on the lot and a lot of people couldn't buy lots in there because they couldn't afford surfy afford to do that and we're trying by the way remember we're just just starting out on this runway.

We you know uh we haven't got no feedback from the state yet. There's lots of competition. So you know we got a long way to go here. place we're going. Balls rolling. We're making Yes. positive movements and it really is truly we're trying to do it for our people. Absolutely. Absolutely. But but we're not depending on the state. I know we're we're we're trying to follow the the get the best uh use of our money as we can by working with the state, but we don't have to have the state. But they're not going to shut us down.

We have the finances to do it. Number three. Number three. Uh so um it is my understanding the commissioners have um included the the go. What I want to pass out here is a little write up uh that S&P released last week. Um, and if you'll take one to pass and and this basically says um talking about uh Indiana's property tax reforms, stronger possibility of negative credit implications. So what SNP came out and said last week and he I was down in Savannah, Georgia, which um Savannah is not the most delightful place recently, but um that's where the conference was and um SNP said two out of three credits across the country are going to be get downgraded. And so, Robin, this also hits your point on, you know, I keep getting the question, when is cash balance too much? And it's the the answer is, well, what turbulent times are we going in or are we just storing up cash because we're doing very we're going very very smoothly. Well, no. That's the smoothly is not working. And what they're saying is and with our new assessor uh we won't we won't assume 15% growth in AV but if we did achieve the only the 5% like we achieved this year then our go bond will increase the tax rate. So you got to be aware of of that. we will

probably not be able to, you know, we froze our tax rate and we we gave some of our operating balance back. We got all of our levy appeal that we could back in, but we gave back a little cash balance. And so if we only get 5% and we get a 5% growth quotient or a 4% growth quotient, then what we will probably do is have an increase in the tax rate because the 25 go, remember we used the premium and bought that down to stabilize the rate and then brought out of cash balance the extra little bit that we needed. And so remember, there's a lot of things that went on last year to get to this. And so now we're going to move ahead. So we're going to be doing the 26 bond. We don't know what AV net AVs will do, but what they're saying here, what we're expecting is net AV will go down. Okay? Especially because of the new exemptions and the new deductions that continue on for the next don't forget four more years.

Don't forget our our growth did what was our AV growth percent this year then it was five% 425 or 26 26 yeah but it was higher than that the year before. So we're are we seeing a trending of slowing down?

Yes. And part of that is again remember that extra the the extra deductions that the state has given for five years and I showed you that home home value might be going up but home deductions are making the net AV go down and the question is will they outstrip each other in Hancock you'll be totally different than any other you know Hrix Hamilton boon and Hancock all kind of look similar, but everybody else

I had read I was going to make but you may know. I had read that the U cost tables had been updated by the DLGF and it said for 2026 was that for 25 pay 26 or 26 pay 27. It was well it was pay 26 but it continues on. Right. So what we're seeing right now is the new cost tables that people are being notified of. Correct. Correct. What we're hearing or I'm hearing anyway is that um even though this Senate Bill one was supposed to help with the reduction and all these additional exemptions or deductions we're going to get implemented, the new cost tables kind of

Yeah. You know, the cost tables are more for commercial as opposed to residential. I mean, you still have the residential influence of the neighborhood, but that's not how it now the um the AV of the uh new cost tables on the residential side uh grew as well. I've been getting some calls on them already about that someone's uh AV went up $50,000. I don't know why. Nothing's changed. So, yes, the assessor could offset that raise

factor, correct? But I don't think that happened this year. So, so what we're seeing is that the AV grew because of the cost table and nothing was done to offset it. So, so we'll see what the new assessor does as we go forward or eventually the new assessor. That's Greg. Greg, bottom line though, you're you're saying that um due to the ex increase in exemptions uh as we do geo bonds uh well the next one is probably going to cause the tax rate to go up a little bit. Yes. And I really want you to understand that and then understand the unknown.

Why does that have a negative effect on the say bond rating? No. Well, the bond rating is more about our ability to meet the debt obligation has decreased because of the limitations put on us by state legislation or fund I would even say funding government you know because of the unknown in the income tax and then the fact that property tax rates will be going up as AV goes down and that will be a function of both AA1 And if you add, you know, additional GEO bonds. So

now, Greg, you know, I think I my personal thought is we need to make the most out of our 2026 bond. Yeah. Because there's a good possibility we couldn't we may not do a geo bond in 27 to save our taxpayers. Is am I thinking correctly down that line? Yes. But the other thing is we have a geo bond coming off too. Yes. So,

so we put together that schedule and we actually handed it out and I think it's actually in the sustainability because we've been on the annual uh process and and by the way wait the annual process we were doing that when Bill was here Bill Bone Lang and and so um we have some dropping off now strategically and we've been aging that and that will affect standard and pores concept of us too and So I I think there's some coming off and going on that is working well. So we should stay hopefully

again depending on uh the assessment depending on cost tables depending on cash balances depending on depending on income taxes too. So

Greg do you know off top of your head how much we're talking on rate? You know if this bond was 5 million instead of 6.8 would that maintain the rate? Well, he here's here's one of the concepts we've thought about is number one, u this bond will will have a 5% interest rate on it. That's what everybody um I don't know if anybody bought for their own personal a uh a tax exempt bond, but that's what you will get no matter if you buy a state state or Hancock County or anybody, you'll get a 5% coupon. you will reconcile it back to a a 3.7 probably, but this one probably will go out closer to four net interest costwise. So, we will get premium. Our opinion would be we do what we did last year with the premium from the 25 is we deposit that in the to the debt fund Mary and deposit that into the debt fund lowering that impact of the rate. Okay. Then what we may you know we could do is you could also then deposit some other funds. You could deposit EDA money. You could deposit food and beverage money to then supplement that rate before you know we get too far with the rate. In other words, if if we know we need about 200,000 to get it down to X. Okay. As long as we deposit that at time of closing of the bond or before we set the budget, we can do that. We can buy that down. So that's why I've been kind of on

a tra trying to get the timeline worked out where we're doing the 206 bond issue before we finalize the budget. And now that we've got the need assessment, we're ready to go. Okay. And we're ready to get I believe Lisa Lee's got the ordinances together. So, we're trying to put together this 12-month timeline and keep it as flexible as possible if am I making sense in what you asked?

Yeah. And I guess all I'm saying is I would make sacrifices or or use funds from other places, etc. in order for the rate not to go up. You know, I've been here over 5 years. We've not raised the rate. And you know, even if it meant taking a million dollars out of rainy day and then building rainy day back up for the tax rate to not go up, like those are things I would Yeah, I definitely would not cut general fund balance to do it.

Right. But if like floating some money out of rainy day and then gradually putting that getting back to the 7 million target in rainy day meant not raising the tax rate, I would definitely do that. So the the answer is all of those in our hip pocket, right? And if the timeline works out, we'll be able to strategically know what we need before it's too late. Okay, perfect.

Okay. And so we would always advertise the budget on the go bond as 10 cents. I don't care what it is, you know, uh for advertisement purposes because it will always go back down to the actual. Okay. So, over the next six months, we'll strategically build our position. Okay. Perfect. Okay. That's all I because there's so many things going on here. We got the 25 rolling in. We got the 26. We got premium in different places and things like that. So, stay tuned. Okay.

Okay. So to the bond uh as I understand it the um uh exhibit A would be uh 1,632,000 for the courthouse windows and doors. A association was that 632 Jeb. Pardon me. Did you say 632? Yes.

Okay. Go ahead. a association right now zero. Uh E911 equipment would be zero. Uh the sheriff's department for cars would be 833,000. And then number five would be um a total of 2,783 258. That's for the highway. That's the highway. That's to rehab their actual office that got holes in the windows and everything painted. And uh they've got a 80-year-old building over there that we have to replace and it's been needed to be replaced for a while. So that's where they store the

Yes. trucks and Yes. stuff. I I walked through it the uh just last week. I mean there's rust on the beans there. So I mean it's time we get it done. So absolutely. And then uh a hund,000 for um that's memorial building. Um that that is to fix up the bathrooms because they've got broken everything. Everything over there. So we're just trying to make it liveable because we've got people in there. We don't want anybody to get hurt or cut or anything like that. So yeah, there

it's a hot mess. It it I I w I went through that last week also and it just it's bad. Yeah, it wasn't good last year when we did our building inspections. So, it's not any surprise. It hasn't it hasn't improved. Uh just as an aside, can we assume uh in looking at the county uh farm master plan that the transportation department will be by building that building or or the commissioner saying we're going to keep the transport department?

I I think it's a consensus right now. We're going to keep it here. I mean, I did have them. I called uh uh Mark and told him I said, "Throw it out there in in your plan, but I don't know that it's actually going to go, but at least we'll know what it will look like if it were out there."

Okay. Okay. And then the IT equipment is 690,000. Yes. That's for programs. That's for hardware. That's I mean, yeah. So that all adds up to 6,38,258 if I'm adding them up right. So there would be some more monies there hopefully if we do a a 6.8. Yeah, it pays the fees and all that kind of stuff. So, so that would would you be looking at that then back on the other two items that have zero

that if we have we pay the fees and all that kind of stuff and we have money left over and if we can give that something to the egg association or if we can give something to 911 we we'll gladly do that. Okay. Okay. Stating that nothing else crops up and shocks us. Stay tuned. state. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No guarantees. Shocks or floods. Do you want me to Okay. I'm not in favor of that

without something for the A association. I understand that we can take some out of food and beverage because I think that's good money, good use for that money. That's different money than property tax. But if we can take maybe a half a million from what's left because there's what 600 or 700,000 and then add a million from food and beverage to the a association get a million and a half for the A association. I think that's worth us fighting over.

Well, I don't disagree with you Kent at all. But however, we don't know what surprises are yet in store because just from some of these things that we looked at um last year going forward, what we need to do this year, the price increase was incredible. And so we just want to make sure that we are able to keep our buildings and everything in in in good order. And to add to that, uh, our windows and doors over there, originally we had a two, I think a 2.5, uh, budget for them to do everything over there last year, and it actually went up even more to do it this year.

Well, and I'm I'm not against It sounds like we may end up with Well, let's don't cut out the idea that we're not going to have a zero bond next year. It may be a small bond, but it if we pay off a bond this year, we may not be able to do a 68 million, but if we do a half that size or less bond of reimbursing back um with that bond, stuff we take out of food and beverage or somewhere, you know what I mean? Also, so I can't imagine anyone up here is wanting to take away from the egg association.

That's what I said. I if if we can if we can all figure out how to get something of that thing too. Um cuz it it was it is a the $2.8 million for the highway department wasn't spoken of when we were talking about all these other things. That's that's a surprise there. Okay. Well, uh yeah, and and I didn't even know about it until Bill brought it back to me. He says, "We we've been putting this off." So, I mean, I didn't know about it at that point in time. That come later. Right. And I and I'm not saying it's not important.

It's not important. Um but I want to we do have the ability to to fund everything. Okay. We do have that ability. A couple years from now, two or three years from now, um we'll everything will go on. We won't even worry about what we're talking about right now. Yeah. You know what I mean? But I'm not I'm saying though too that the best use of our food and beverage is to help back into the local economy. Oh, absolutely. Especially something egg that brings food.

I don't think using it to build a a shed for the for the trucks is good use of that money. I mean, you know, when because it's self-fulfilling the and the only thing we really have to support to bring to for our local economy, for our county, the only thing is really the keep making sure the fairgrounds um can do as much as they can possibly do. You know what I mean? And we don't disagree. We don't disagree. I think we're just more of a wait and see.

Yeah. We're just being overly cautious. I kind of disagree with the idea that we don't need to maybe put money into existing buildings that we already own because we could feed it towards a but if the money becomes available that we can give something to a that would be great. But I I would like to see that we have a certain level of maintenance on all of our buildings. We have to at this point we we we our build that building out there is 80 years old. Well, I mean, and and the windows and the doors over here, I mean, that's another thing. I mean, they're falling apart.

Well, we're really generous with what we do with the with our county government buildings. We've spending six or $7 million. We just spent $35 million on a jail. We're spending $6 or 7 million on on um on the jail. Again, um you know, this is $3 million for that building. This is 2 million for that building. We we are I'm not talking about new construction. I'm talking about a maintenance. Yeah. Is keeping what we have usable and safe. Yeah. I'd rather spend that much money on the courthouse for you someplace else, right? It's county sticker shot. I know. Because courthouse, you know what I mean?

And another thing that we're looking at right now is the addition to to the annex. Yeah, we we really haven't had a a good uh capital plan and Gary and I have been working together on a commissioners have gone to all the department heads and asked for fiveyear plan from them but we have not had good insight into what is coming up. So, and we we are starting to get those back in. So yeah, I scratched together here. U hopefully we can work to to u

and on on that plan I added uh just to where everyone knows about it. Uh we have a a done deal with Jack and Suns and we will be shaking on that fairly soon. And right now you you've got I put I put Charlottesville on there. I mean anything we can do for sidewalks out there or whatever. I mean we can Yeah. And I've already talked to Gary also and he said I'll see what I can do or whatever. And I mean Gary's real good at trying to do something. So uh and

what what is the what is the intent for the land use there for the county to perpetually possess? Uh we want to clean up the mess. Number one, quality of life. Yes, it's quality of life. And if we can put some of that property back on the tax roles, that would be great. So, uh but the the actual Jack and Sons junkyard part of it, I it's we're going to get help from Greenfield because they're going to use their Brownsfield grant to actually go in and assess things. So, it's we're just trying to get it. But we But we will own it. Yeah. Yeah. County will own the ground.

I mean, if Green Greenfield wants to buy it off of us afterwards, we'll probably sell it to them. Yeah. Now, the And the money for buying it, which is around 200,000, is coming, I I believe, from the bridge fund, I think, in the box. I I don't know for a fact, but Gary would be able to say that. We're we're working on that, but we're we're we're working on all that. So, we we Jack contacted us last week, so we're in the process of getting that taken care of. But we we will we'll update this capital plan. We'll work together to to and get everything down. Hopefully we can work key into this also.

You know there's you know you and I there's going to be a 27 and a 28. So there's going to be so that we don't get surprised with something and we can plan ahead and develop the financial plan to finance it. What was the deadline for our department heads elected captive plan?

I really didn't put a deadline on it. I just told them that with the council needs that information in order to better budget. So I would hope that by budget time we might have it back. I I think the idea of coming from the uh auditor's office is that uh when when we send out the request for uh budget uh what by June 1st or something that they'll go ahead Mary. Yeah. That means we're going to have to send out the information probably the end of this week or next week. Yeah. If we want to give them ample time to work up a budget and get it back to us by June.

So that Okay. So Jim, if we can back up as your registered municipal advisor with several security license that I have to protect and they made that obvious last week. Okay. Um the resolution of need here, did I hear something or or did I I I need clear direction when we publish the official statement that we are using it on these items. So, you know, what did I hear as far as clear direction? Do we need to pass something or just No, no, no, no. Just we You came to 6038.

Do you have to put dollar amounts on each item? No. We're not going to do that, but we're going to say it's going to be spent for these items. Can you include the items that were zeroed? And then if there's money, it's on there. and I will that I I wanted it there for that reason. Yeah. Okay. But before we get to the closing, we need to note the intent. Right. Right. But but for now, we can list all the items. Yes. Yeah. All the paper. Okay. I I put the dollar figures there. Okay. All right. And they're not in the document. I verbally did that.

Just a chicken scratched it. Right. Your chicken scratched it. I'm familiar with his chicken scratches. So what would be the in uh we will put you know obviously 6 million6 probably of project funding and you I think the intent is as written. Yes.

Okay. Gotcha. and can't remember just one thing we were trying to kind of avoid. I told you this last meeting, avoid doing Lisa Lee said we would have to do a taxable bond deal for the egg. We said no, no, no. We don't want to do a $1 million or $2 million taxable on top of what we're doing here. So we said if we funded as much as we could out of food and beverage that would eliminate that issue. Not that we can't on some specific things. It's the way they're going about doing it. They're using their, you know, as much good help as they can and they're not bidding it out as a solid package and things like that. So that was causing Lisa Lee heartburn. Okay. So that's why again I made that point early on today about food and beverage that's you know not taxexempt bond money

right so can't also we had the uh a association come in last month and they're actually raising money on their own also so that that that that's what the purpose of having these people come in and tell us what's going on with what we're giving them. So, but yeah, they're raising money off some of the money that we have given them in the past. So, so Jim, are we moving to the fiveyear capital improvement plan? Then

let's do it. The because, you know, as soon as we go to the rating agency, they're going to want the 5-year capital improvement plan. So, if we've got a combination, if I'm gonna, you know, I would formally have this typed up so it looks like a planned or whatever. I will I will send out another note today and see if we can't speed it up a little bit. What's wrong with that hand? We You're saying that for the S&P this you're proposing these you'll have to propose this list as the capital improvement plan.

We need a reconciliation of of both groups. And does this have to mean from bonds or can this just mean from all funding sources? This is our plan. The latter part correct all funding sourc. Okay. You just have to have a plan. We will get together and Yeah. Yeah. Let me show it out. And your chicken scratching is perfect, but we want a professional looking document.

There's Jim Shelby and his chicken scratches again. you need sign by by one rating agency. You're a triple AAA. You probably should look like it. I just want to say the one reason I did this was that he said Hendricks County does this. So, they probably do it in an Excel spreadsheet, but no, they don't. Actually, I gave him Larry Scott who's the president of the council and I I'm going there next week and I'm saying and I'm going to type this up professionally. Didn't think that. So, Janine, I'm sorry.

We will have a a good capital. Is Larry is he running again? Larry Scott. No, he's done like at the end of this year like I am done. That's why I got chicken scratching. I was chatting with him. So, we're going up together. Huh? Yes. You mean words? Yeah. Yeah. Cuz he's assessor for a minute. Yeah. Go ahead, Jim. Uh, so um the we'll we'll have it for the next meeting. Do we need to do anything of everything that has it already been approved? I mean, yeah, we signed off on it. The ordinance bond ordinance. Yeah.

Yeah. You signed this. You approved it. Now, the bond ordinance, I didn't know if council had to do anything or No, sir. Okay. They will approve the bond ordinance, which will be now obviously you usually the commissioners submit this to council. The council agrees to fund it, but they've already agreed to fund it. So, that's assumption. And so, the bond ordinance would now go next. Okay. And council will approve the bond ordinance. So the the commissioners can relax. Okay. Thank you, chair. That we can relax. We can relax. Uh I don't know. Is over. We got money.

As far as the a association part here, you'll notice I I put down what we originally talked to them about the phases.

Um don't really know. I know they've come before the commissioners and uh uh Keely and I were going to go talk to them also about what what they can actually do in time frame and maybe adjust this around and then see when the bond is uh sold and is there going to be some money in the bond for the the egg association. Then we can maybe sit down and decide do we want to uh go ahead with monies for the a association other than the geo bond from like economic development food and beverage and that would that would work economic development I mean

well that 5% would be a nice donation to uh amplify this year so it's not I think out of context to possibly give a nice through that 5% as well next year 501 C3 is eligible. Yeah. Is it possible for the the uh tourism to bond? Absolutely. For Oh, sure. for things. Matter of fact, we did. Oh, sure.

That's actually something I wouldn't I wasn't prepared to speak on today, but I I will ask that we put that on a an agenda sooner than later because I do have some ideas for how that might um be worth looking at. in terms of either the future of the courthouse if we're no longer occupying it for the judicial system or the fairgrounds or other venues that could be of public benefit.

Yeah. Because we don't really see an see intrinsic value out of that sometimes. And if we had a specific plan for some of that money over a certain amount of time and we could quantify, you know, a project with some of that, it would probably make us all feel better. Yeah, the fun the funding is there and I was actually going to propose that we begin some open discussions whether we could better uh utilize make a proposition a plan and a proposition regarding inkeepers tax that would better utilize it towards these exact things we're talking about.

I I was hearing somewhere that they really didn't give away a lot of bonds or grants or anything out of it this year. That's AC that's inaccurate. they have they have blown through their their grant budget already this year. And so that's something I want to talk about. Could that money be better spent? They have the right to do that. You know, they have the right to grant it. Um, but I've been looking at that for the last year and and really have come to a firm conclusion that given the county's vision for uh maintaining the courthouse when we're no longer using it for judicial and the fairgrounds and its untapped potential that there's some missed opportunity happening there as it relates to tax. So, agenda item number two, Jim, for next next time,

right? And and don't forget we did do that, you know, bond that that was privately negotiated with the developer for the gateway. Gateway. Yeah, we did. And so don't forget that. But in Hendrickx County, that's how we did their convention center that's tied to Marian County or not Marian County, but Marriott. And uh you know, we we own the convention center, they own the hotel. Uh would would that be appropriate to put that on the next budget meeting agenda first Wednesday of Well, probably what would be really nice as I don't know how the Gateway Hotel convention center is going. Do you Janine or

I was out there yesterday. That building's going up like it's going up and we're getting another hotel in town here too. Yeah, they're building it right now. Yeah. So that that inkeepers tax is going to escalate. Okay. Absolutely it is. But that that facility's inkeeper tax will long pay that bond. So the county won't net any more inkeepers tax for a very long time. 20 years, isn't it? I don't I does anybody remember how long that I'm saying that's 20 years for that developer backed bond. I've got it somewhere, but I believe it we may have gone 20 but with early payoff just to have the right to collect.

Okay. and and in case there's a shortfall. Remember that's what so but I can find that out for next time. If you look at the A association over the next few years, they're trying to plan out five years like everybody else and like another phase a $2 million phase in year three or whatever. And you know, we're having a new Fairfield in build. The the object of that money was to try to put it into something that's going to help the people that are paying that money. Yeah.

Okay. And so, uh, are we really doing that with that money? You know, I mean, are we really putting bet people in the beds? And and um, we did the studies about the people that come into the community for the programs at the fairground and it's it'll blow your mind how much money I imagine. And and so I don't know why we we're not helping bonding with the tourism money. a portion of their money to go to the to do that too or to to supplement. I I don't

I think there's there's easily room in there for probably $400,000 a year of cash flow. Why don't we do it good bond over a five or sevenyear period? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. and um they can do large take care of some of their large projects without us trying to take it out of economic development other things. I'm I'm not against that. But you know what I'm saying? If we've got money that we can utilize rather than take it out of

Yeah. But if you bring tourism in here, they're going to tell you they're broke and they don't have a penny and that um you know, t-shirts for the kids in New Palestine are expensive. You know what I mean? Bob Mansy can squeeze a nickel out of he can he's one off. It's doing a good job. But but their income is going to grow though too. There there are other hotels. There are other hotels that will in the whole county. Well, uh, whenever we get together next and Yeah, I that

Yeah, I actually I had called Bill Spalding to ask if he had even a round number on uh if we quit using the courthouse for the judicial system, but we want to maintain that building, preserve that building, keep it as some kind of community amenity, preserve the uh ceremonial courtroom and that kind of thing. you know, what would what does the county need to plan on spending on average annually to both generally maintain the courthouse and make these major improvements every so many years? He didn't have that number off the top of his head. Uh but even that could be a possibility. We talked about uh last year when we kind of all came to consensus that the fairgrounds would not be moving anytime soon. They said they don't want to they don't want to and it's financially not feasible. Um, but what we said that the only regret we had about that is that there is no large indoor venue that can host yearround events for a large size. Um, but tourism certainly has enough inkeepers tax to fund a bond payment to build a venue like like that. Um, so we have some options we could propose and work together on to bring some of those ideas

and and but we got to have commissioners help. Well, uh, the commissioners in the past have been will unwilling to help us, you know, I I don't think that we have that issue anymore. Okay. I mean, I I feel that we've worked very well together and we'll continue to do that. Well, and everybody knows we've had we we've been through this tourism thing many times. You know what I mean? And I've lost a lot of sleep over it in the past, you know, and I don't want to see Key get off the board. She's frustrated. I I did resign. I did resign off their nonprofit board and intend to advocate for change at this level.

Right? So, you know, I mean, it is going to take all of us to stand up and say this these these monies are better spent here. Let's do something important with that money. Let's just don't go year after year and what happened to it? Well, was this or that or this or that. You know what I'm saying? I said a plan. There should be and we should be able to get a quantitative um thing out of it, you know. I mean,

Jim, just one final point on your that the justice system of 100 million. That's that's you know, this is the fourth one I'm working on at that price level. Mundro County started out at 225 million. two years ago and we're down to 135 and we're lucky if we can do that and they have been literally working on it for two to three years. Hendricks has got the same thing coming up. Every one of them will have to take lit special probably a special lit as I showed you or at least go into the 1.2 uh lit rate max. So that's going to be really critical as we talk about mus groups and things like that. So

and that's about the only way you can do it. Yeah. Well, yesterday Jeff and I went out and we looked at the one out there that's ours out in the county and we also looked at green fields and our ours is bigger. But anyway, um that's really important. That's something that's stationary doing with the tourist money and it's stationary and it will be there. And I sat down with Bridget one day and I was shocked how many calls we get for event centers. It's it's amazing. And um and I think Jeff said Greenfield's already booked up. Yeah. So it's crazy.

Just this was 10 years ago. Just one wintertime indoor national cattle show is like an And this was 10 years ago. It was like $360,000 into the community. Oh wow. for one event and and I mean we had we did all those studies we did all the fees Tom Miller who was working for I don't know Miller Associates did all the it was amazing how much money it means to the community um and that's why we've been pursuing it so long I mean and uh let's just make

well actually Jim and Keely and myself will get together and we'll discuss and see how we can make it between tourism and um the 5%. Let's move on to the um 2027 budget instructions. Okay. So, Jim, we looked at the 2% versus the 3% for the general fund. We're saying uh with your help from your payroll department, probably plus or minus with uh with benefits, it's probably about a $700,000 swing in general fund. and I have a general fund sustainability that we can send you with 3% and with 2%.

Well, first of all, we need to decide uh what we're going to do as a a general increase. And looking back at the minutes of the meeting, sounds like it's we're we got to determine are we going to do 2% or 3%. And then we need to determine with the elected officials, you know, what are we going to do with the elected department heads and then we part-time people. So

and Jim, if I may, the the 2% or the 3% working with the payroll department, we took the 26 pay subtracted out the extra pay. they got a base per employee and that is the base number that we increase to or 3%. So now for elected officials we left the 1,500 in it's my understanding on the 26 and then we're taking two or 3% of that. Is your payroll person here? They are not here and I cannot confirm that 15.

What you want us to do? They went back and forth on that and I thought that you guys had agreed. I believe that's what they've done. So what's critical is when you I'm assuming you mean 26 base pay without the 27th pay.

Makes sense. That's what we did. I would like to just see us arrive at a percentage on the overall staffing employees uh pay raise and then we can lump the department heads and the elected officials under one umbrella and then just come up with a flat number uh for that if we choose to or we could go ahead and use the percentage either way. Uh I know we quoted last uh it's been a couple months probably that uh cost of living increase was 2.8% 8% at that time or the increases to social security. So I I support the idea of 3% if we are still having an open discussion about the percentage and the salary uh study committee ceases to exist. So anything that will be decided will be decided here without a recommendation from any study that had been done. I

I wanted to propose something when we send out instructions and if we did this I could be on board with the 3%. I'd really like to propose for this budget cycle, no new positions. Um, by nature of creating all the positions that we did at the courthouse, it's my opinion financially, we have absorbed all the capacity with that move. And I'll ask Greg to to say what he thinks. I haven't What about Amplify? Because there's going to be another person added in there for taking care of Amplify because they want to be on the county. Well, we were told from the very beginning with Amplify that we would have nothing in the operations that once we built the building, we would have nothing. I haven't heard that either. I

I I could have swore that there's there's talk out there about that. I don't think so. Maybe we could h maybe we need to specify or define if the new person was on the county benefits and payroll, but we get a reimbursement. Amplify has the money to reimburse. If the county doesn't Maybe that's what they're talking about, right? I I think the discussion was whether they're going to let whether we're going to let Amplify do it themselves or if since it's a county owned building, they let the county do it. Amplify and reimburse. I don't think it was ever ever discussed that the county would have to bear the burden.

And I'll bring something else up too. Uh we have to take care of GIS this year. I mean, they're they're they're going to want a little extra money this year. Uh, and we're also I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about positions. No, no, not position. We're actually we're kind of conversing with Greenfield to actually have them join with our GIS and maybe work out something there. They should consolidation of GIS is happening because I mean there's no use in and they don't have some of the uh technology technology that we have. So it'd be to their benefit. So but we've not got an answer on that yet. So but yes uh uh I don't see any problem.

But all we're talking about today is just the general instructions. Yeah. So but uh yeah, but they have to pay for Don Milbour and his assistants. They're they they they need a bump. They're underpaid because for what they do where we're coming from is we are in the current budget. We've got uh like five new people for courthouse um for security at 300. We also have three navigators. Jim, can you start over? I missed all that conversation.

Okay. Um my hand scratching. sheet um down at the bottom um uh in the well first of all I just took the the revenues and I estimated the um property tax uh increase and the income tax increase those are the numbers come to 1,19,20 probably revenue increases now Greg may have some negatives to go in there. But that was mine. And where's that at, Jim? Yeah. Where is that? Did you this page?

Okay. Oh, but I'm looking at that. We're looking at the wrong. Sorry. Sorry. We switched pages. Okay. Number two. On the revenue. The the upper part is the revenue side. Uh I was trying to save paper, so I just took last year's upgraded it for 27. We don't have this. We don't have this. You don't have that. This page right here. Oh, you don't. We don't have it. You hold that, Jenny? Yeah. This is Clark's. That's Clark. Oh, I'm I got itized. Here, take mine. Okay. Here you go, Gary. Perfect. Okay, now we're on. Okay.

Okay. just taking a whack at the the revenue side is the upper part. Uh our increase in uh income tax is going to be 6% according to uh uh Greg and uh the uh property tax increase will be 4%. So if you do those numbers you you come up with about a million19,000 increase in revenues. Thank you. Why does it have FSG revised? Oh, we haven't done those. Huh? We haven't done those, Jim. I just These are last year's last year. FSG. Just my first.

Okay. Okay. And then I took a whack at how much the 2% meant. We expected to be more

200 290,000. 3% is about 435,000. And then I added up uh the costs. I took the 3% because that's what it sounded like people wanted, 435,000. But I added in we already have increased costs 427 of the courthouse security. That's 361,000 or about. And then the three navigators that we've committed to in the jail at 316,000. So you add up those three items and you get a little over a,112,000.

Well, and that number would even be a little low because the 3% increase doesn't account for the fact that your FICA goes up on that 3%. Maybe your workers comp goes up on that 3%. So that's actually a low ball. That's right. We're thinking it's more like 600. Did that for the incremental difference is about that seems level 435 when you calculated the 3% did it include the elected officials and um office department heads just as a general number did the 3% include them or did did it not you just did that on total payroll yeah just this is on total payroll okay

total payroll my estimate okay that's just a whack you know the only thing I want to add about this is They're we're going to have it next week because we couldn't fit in the schedule this week, but Mr. Eaton's going from the prosecutor's office going to come in. He wants to discuss additional staff. I'm guessing other people want to probably present additional staff, too. So, I think we got to listen to them, but I'm not saying we're going to do it. We just definitely need to listen to them. Well, my my thing is more when we send out instructions like we're talking about firming up these instructions for the auditor's office to send out, we're picking between two or 3% it sounds like. Um but in addition to that stating no new no new position requests

hiring freeze we would replace positions as yeah we're not removing any but don't add a new line item for a new person that doesn't already exist a position that doesn't already exist unless you presented it to us because after adding the courthouse folks plus 3% It's Yeah. I is public defender. I have that in there as a half a million dollars addition. Well, I noted that that's not in my head scratching, but it's it's a real number, I think. So,

so I've kept it about 600 going out and growing. Yeah. Yep. Which is an increase of about 400,000 over what we had budgeted. It' be for next year. I have 500 forget the budget amount for 25 solo or 26 we budgeted,000 it's going to be 500,000 I thought according to them six okay I think if they want to request it we need to at least let them we can say no but to tell them I guess kind of bottom line my thinking is we've spent all the money we so no you spent more than you're going to bring yet You spent more more than likely you're spending more than you're going to bring in,

right? And don't forget the commissioners directed us 9% on that's what we build into the sustainability 9% on group health. Yeah. And we're one of the lucky ones I think with just 9% because I've heard as much as 12%. Well, I heard directly from the hospital associations. Now those numbers that I told you many many years ago, they are built into the cost formulas. So the cost formulas are going up. So the question

the sustainability on this, you know, we used to say, well, let's be conservative and hopefully it'll pan out a little better, pennies from heaven, etc., right? And things for many years, interest was better. Pennies from heaven's better. But when we look out five years now, it's very likely not better. And we are we've been spending for years more than we take in because we had this good cash balance. But when you look out more than five years now, that's likely not the trajectory at all. So if we keep spending more than we bring in, that general fund balance will no longer be healthy a handful of years from now.

However, you know, if you think about we end the year with what, $23 million in our general fund and then we start into 2027 and have to spend an additional 600 on our people. Those are the people that are keeping this county moving forward. It's not us, it's them. I'm I'm I can be totally for the increase. I'm just talking about new positions. Well, I think that there could there could possibly be new positions. Well, I was going to say if they have if they have a request at least and then we can say no if we want. We're Yeah, I think they should be able to come to us, but we

we could have to bring somebody in to do different things. I mean, we've even talked about in the past a county manager in which they they can do a lot more than we can do. Plain and simple. They have the knowledge to do it. I I I just talked to one that just got released last week or this last month, I think it was. And they're an engineer and they do a lot. I mean, it it's a possibility. you're talking another 150 when you get down to benefits and everything like that. But they they can they can look at some of these projects uh that we have been talking about and what we're going to be meeting with Randy about and see what I mean these are things that we need people who know what they're looking at. We can't just throw something out there for economic development if we don't know what we're looking at. So there could be somebody Well, I think we we really have to start approaching those things as where are we deducting 150,000 to add this 150,000 because the way it nets out over the years to come the compounding of it if every year you spend more than you take in and now they're cutting what we're going to take in eventually you end up at zero. You know,

I I know I I understand the concept and all that, but we have to take care of our people. And as this this county gets bigger, costs are going to go up. So, are you raising taxes to pay for it or how are we I I that's what we have to figure out. I mean, we have to plan for us to get bigger simply because we we need people to take care of some of this stuff. I mean, you want to get too much on the people you got. So maybe we need a 2% increase in and put a little No, I'm not instead of a three either because I I would asking the current employees to pay for somebody to come in. Yeah. And I think we should take care of what we have first. Yes.

Well, we've never we've never been in the last few years because the county is growing and because all the issues it's caused, we've never been neutral on our revenue versus our increases. Okay? we've always been eight or $900,000 more spending than what we're getting in additional revenue because we had that surplus and and and that's why I said it's it's always been that way every year it ends up this way and um until we stop growing the some things like the police department until we stop growing those other things that are causing us these budget issues we won't be able to come back down

I agree with what Keelley said earlier So, if we're going to add another $150,000 to the budget, then where can we look to maybe cut $150,000? I'm sure within all of the budgets in the county, there's some uh cuts that could be made of monies that's either not spent and rolls over or it's an item that it just shouldn't be in the budget anymore. It it it's funding something that I know we talked about at some point having uh a a phone system that everybody operates under. Bernie has wanted to do that for years. I'm talking about the cell phones that we spend a tremendous amount of money on cell phones because we let every office contract their own. And you may have an office with two people and they're paying $250 a month. And then you've got another office with two people and they're paying $100 a month. So getting uniform in a way with some of this outside spending that we do on on services or product I think would be something that we maybe uh push towards as well. That's up to us.

Yeah. And we've talked about that. Well, Bernie's talked about it for years. And and again, don't forget the 9% insurance. If we have to fund that, that's really helps the employee because we're not talking about extra contributions to that, you know. So, you got to take those into account. But I can't disagree. I I agree quite a bit with Keely. Don't forget about that revenue side and don't forget about that big interest income number, Kent. That's been a huge saving grace. Yeah. Over the last year or two. I think we might have a hard and it's going to and it's not dropping as fast as you thought it would. So,

correct. Because but you know, and we went with your permnos what you decided last time and you said hold on for 27 and I think you and I agree 28 will be different. Yep. Well, I I'm not real thrilled about the part of taking a percentage away from the employees on their raise to pay for a position for somebody else. Yeah. That's why we just say no new positions. Give it to current employees. So, you'll support no new position? Um, I think it'd have to be extreme circumstances. They'd have to really prove to us it was extreme.

Uh, guys, I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that we just got all of our associates up to a competitive competitive pay. Okay. We don't want that to go backwards and and it's things go up. Okay. So, are we saying we will support uh the statement at least that uh um how would you say it? We're not going to um uh consider uh new positions in 2027. Yeah. Unless we'll have some people that will come in and Yeah. Wow. But you got to make a statement. Yes.

That's all we're doing. I mean, these people are submitting their budgets and we're saying there is not room for new positions, but budget for the 3% increase. That doesn't mean that the commissioners won't propose the council at some point, we want a new county manager. It just means we're telling all department heads and elected official department heads, submit your budgets, 3% increase, no new positions. And I do want to remind make sure that we make it really clear that uh we felt like we had accomplished everything that we could with the budget committee and so we we've not done that this year. So those categories that they all went through have not been updated. So you can't really go by those.

They have a question. They could probably reach out to Andrea while they're filling out their budget just and we can include that on Yeah. I just want to make sure that cuz they really struggled to have some of their employees in those categories and they've not been updated for this year. So, so we're saying 3% and no new positions. Do you want to Is there going to be a pre-budget preparation meeting? Is there going to be a pre-budget preparation meeting with all the department heads and elected officials? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear. a pre-budget preparation meeting with the department heads. You know, our lunchon that you you used to have. Yeah. Yeah. We haven't had We didn't do that last year, did we?

And I think we suffered from that. We just we just sent out the message. Um but I think it'd be a good idea to do it. Me, too. I missed it last year. I I really did. I thought that we kind of missed the boat. I mean, people's going to have that question. I think as long as we keep it simple and not go into the projection of the counties making this much money this year, they lost this money, they're not listening. I guarantee it. No. Uh you just need to tell them the facts of where we are and this is what we are going to propose and take notes and we need to add to that whether or not we're going to exclude the elected officials and department heads and put a flat number on them or

Yeah, that's do people want to stick with the 1500? Is that okay? Last year we did whatever the increase was. I think it was 3% plus 1,500 for elected officials. Not council and commissioners. Pardon me. Not council and commissioners. We just did the flat 1500 for that. I was getting there. Okay. 70,000 and 3% would be 21. 15 is fine.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I wasn't I was spacing the 3% plus 1500. Should we just do 3% across the board and leave the 1500 out of it or do we say no 3% on department heads and do the 1500? I think it's too much to do both. Oh yeah, I don't want to do both. What we were trying to do last year, we felt that the elected officials, the department heads were underpaid and we needed to kind of get into a program of boosting that up. So we did that one year. So do we need to do that for a second year? I think the 1500 would be I could go with 1500 considering the financial situation. Flat. No 3%.

1500 flat. No 3%. But no, I think 3% on the elected officials in council and I don't know how the commissioners feel about that. 1500 for them. That's what we did last year. but not do that extra amount this year. Okay. Okay. That's so the proposal is that we do 3% for everyone the uh including elected officials department heads elected officials for the part-time elected officials a straight 1,500. Yes. Does that sound good? I don't understand. I don't either.

Repeat that. She's saying 3% for everyone except council and commissioners. That includes elected department heads and non-elected department heads. There's no flat dollar amount separately because that's normally what we do. Yeah, that's normally what we do. Now, something that came up in the past, so I think we should just firm up our intent now is uh some some department heads tried to give away part of their 3% to their employees instead of retaining it for themselves. And we actually said you can't do that because we don't want a department head out of generosity to get that department head salary too low and we have to replace them. Are we sticking with that? That the department head has to keep their 3% and they have discretion on the rest of the office.

We can make that in in our our budget instructions. But I would also if you would be so kind as to add or you may want to add that you can't take any of the 3% from your employees to give to yourself either. We did see that last year. We had we had somebody we had to correct somebody. We actually saw that more than we try to give it away. Let's let's

I like that because that takes the depress the pressure off the department head. Um that theirs is negotiable. It's just theirs is is a flat percentage. And then if you guys want to keep discretion with the department head, I've always been open on not even giving department heads discretion on how to how to allocate their 3%, but I know that here people have said they like giving the department head the discretion on is that are we sticking with that?

There are departments I think that need to shore up some positions versus others. And throughout the last few years, they've been trying to hit this this position and then that position. So I think that the allowing them that flexibility is what we need to do. I agree with Deborah. I think that works best. So 3% for everyone. Department heads are locked in at 3%. They cannot increase or decrease theirs. They have discretion over the rest of the employees. No new positions. And do you have step increases time elected officials?

Yes. When you go from one classification to the next or longevity of any kind? probably going to need to to loop Andrea in and the department heads might have to reach out to her if there's a question, but I don't think that I think that we're just doing that for um I I we're not giving raises. I don't think department heads are giving raises based off of those those categories or those levels. We're not doing that. And the only thing that's probably like matrix I do and I've said from the beginning that I don't think we we've made all these levels but we have no process for making sure year to year as we give department heads discretion that people are

adjusting to that's why we have Andrea and I think she should be engaged in the conversations but we but we have to get our instru our instructions out correct immediately because otherwise increases we'll be 100,000 behind public hearing in total public hearing 10:00. We do. What? Okay, we'll circle back on the rest of this. Mary, have have you got auditor? Do you have your directions? We do have our directions. I would say um Crystal's got a meeting she's got to get to and she we had her on at 9:30, just so you know. Okay. And we also have a public hearing. We have a public hearing at 10. We can get to the public hearing quick, very quickly. There's only four.

Yeah, public hearing. Don't worry to do that. Yeah, let's do it really quickly. We can do Chris. Okay, Scott, you want to conduct the public? Um, uh, we're going to call the 10 a.m. public hearing. Uh, the first fund up is 1,01, which is for, let me grab the paper. If I can grab the paper. County general 200,000 public defender. I call the public hearing uh, open. Anyone have anybody have anything to say? Anybody on the council? All right. All right, I close the public hearing and wait for a motion. Make a motion for $200,000 to county general to one.31.

Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Same sign. I motion carries. All right. Next fund is 1122 in the amount of $50,000 is a project income for community corrections case manager. I open a public hearing. Any public comments? Not hearing any. Anything from the council? All right. I close the public hearing, make and entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to um appropriate uh $50,000 from general fund project income 1122. Second. It's it's actually not general fund. It's it's Oh, I'm sorry. Project income. I'm sorry. I read I read the wrong lines. I still second it. All right. With the correction, all those in favor say I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. All right. Motion carries. All right. Find 1138 in the amount of $26,840. It is accumulative capital development IT department contractual software. I open the public hearing. Anybody have anything to say? Hear nothing from the public. Anything from the council? All right. I close the public hearing. We'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion for cumulative capital uh development uh for $26,840 and the number is 1138457 for IT contractual software. Second. All right, I have a motion, a second. All those in favor say I.

I. Uh all those in against same sign. Uh motion carries. All right. Fund 7201. The last fund we have is $75,000 on food and beverage. It is for be uh board of commissioners attorney legal services. I open a public hearing. Anything from the public? Not hearing anything. All right. Anything from the council. All right. I close the public hearing. Entertain a motion. So moved. Second. All right. I have a motion and a second for the food and beverage BOC attorney legal services in house 75,000. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. And that closes our public hearing. Crystal

items. I'm morning. Morning. So, I'm not sure what you guys want to hear from me. Um, I just got an email last week that said with the agenda, so I'm not sure. I I can I can chime in on that because uh I was running the budget meeting when this first came up. We know that your funding changed in recent years, right? Health first and then it got cut and other funds were going away and etc.

And you've had the capacity to help with a jail navigator and I know that that became kind of a year-toyear basis once your funding got cut from Health First Indiana. We look at your balances every month and see that amongst your funds you're sitting healthy and just wanted an update on, you know, whether you could continue supporting navigators for another year and how your sustainability is looking. So, our I turned it over to our board to, you know, make the final decision on that. Um, they did not have a quorum for their March meeting. They meet again next Tuesday. those that were in attendance in March were strongly in favor of still supporting that position. Um, but I I can't I can't stand here and say yes, we are a definite in. Um, I I agree. I don't know why we couldn't do it for 2026 at least or for 2027. Um, but but I do I would like their backing on that.

Yeah. Yeah. You can wait for official word. And then um we had approved when you got Health First Indiana the addition of new positions. There was a maternal health nurse. There was a immunization related chronic disease. Chronic disease and then a food safety food safety. And I know at one point you hired one of those nurses and it didn't work out and you were on the fence about whether you guys would even refill that position. Can you update us on that?

So we um I I we have not refilled that position. I have posted it off and on throughout the time just because I think if it if it stays on there um it kind of gets stale and people people don't see it and so I do every little every every once in a while I repost it. Um we have kind of shifted as posting it as a public health nurse rather than just specific maternal child hoping to maybe draw somebody in and just have them cover the maternal child piece of that. Um but um so uh because because I don't know if um because we're building that program if that is what is you know holding us back with finding um some good candidates or um what but yeah so that's kind of it's still vacant um but we um I do post it every once in a while

but you are trying to fill it. I know when your funding got cut it was kind of like do we want to even fill this position? Yeah we would still like to have that position. um we are doing a lot of programming um with it right now with our current staff and it's stretching them. Um so we would like to have that position and it's just broadened the scope to more generalized than maternal specific. Yes. And I really appreciate the fact that all of you are willing to um fund a jail navigator that helps us quite a bit. Yeah. So thank you. So if maybe you would come back to our next budget meeting and let us know. Yeah. I should I mean I could even probably send an email. Okay. After our meeting on Tuesday um hopefully with a positive outcome for you guys. That'd be great.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. That'd be wonderful. All right. Anything else? Thank you, Crystal. Yeah. Thanks, Crystal. All right. Well, that was easy. Okay. Thank you. Sorry to keep you. No, that's all right. Brad, you had something.

Morning.

You should, I assume, have in in front of you a salary ordinance amendment. Um, and let me explain this a little bit. this. So, in at the beginning of March, my jail commander retired and she was a merit deputy. And so, that jail commander's position was inside the budget in the general fund. And so, I didn't move another merit deputy into that spot. I just promoted the second person in charge to the jail commander position inside the jail lit correctional. There was no line item for that. And so basically what this is is creating the line item and moving the funds within to support that position. So it's not an additional appropriation or anything like that. It's just moving the money, creating the line item to make it happen.

Okay. And and you didn't replace the person who moved up, correct? I'm sorry. You didn't replace the person you moved out, correct? Yes. Within. So I I moved us So she was a civilian jail officer. She went to jail commander. The one that went to jail commander. Her position I moved somebody up into that position from in within the jail as well. Okay. Maybe I should have rephrased that. You didn't add a new position. This is I'm not adding any new positions. No. But is the position available or what? No. No. Move somebody up into somebody up. So there's no new hireing the bottom person. No. No. Okay. I don't I think we'll need a motion probably.

I'll make a motion to approve a transfer of $18,000 from the general fund. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is an ordinance. This is an ordinance. Salary ordinance. There's no transferring of anything. No transferring that needed to happen. I'm sorry. What's the salary ordinance number? Yeah. Salary ordinance number will be 2026-5A.

I'll make the motion then that we approve ordinance 20265A as presented. Second. Been moved and seconded. All those in favor say I. I. I. You had to transfer. I'm sorry. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yes, Greg. fund 1189 here. Give you one and take it around. I spoke at the reporters conference two weeks ago uh here in Indianapolis. Amazing turnout, over 100 people. Good turnout and probably

and so um this is an example. I I I'm giving them county. you can grab a copy of it, but we will need a ordinance like this during the budget process for fund 1189 once we get Marsha's uh sworn statement. So, it's important for us and this is just an example. We got several other examples. Council needs to pass this to meet all the budget requirements this year. So, this will be done in July when you were doing the budget.

Yes, sir. So, you're not doing it now. We just need someone to be the commanderin-chief of it. If you're going to give it to Scott, we want to start early. And um you know, or Mary may just hand us one or Marsha may hand us one, but uh this is new, so I didn't want it to hit you at the end. We'll just have Marsha since she's one to do it. While Marsha do it. That's what I I'm thinking. This is an example.

Okay. And so, uh, and then Scott can review. Okay. But it's basically saying you're agreeing with the sworn statement that the recorders given you and obviously they're going to follow the letter of the law, which we talked about it. The I spoke about the recorders. They're going to really, you know, keep an eye on the perpetuation fund. So, if you thought the perpetuation fund could be used for other things, no.

And if I could interject, it's not a new requirement. It's been a requirement for council to create the ordinance and we just kind of went with because you accepted the salary ordinance when you accepted my Warren statement. We thought that would be sufficient. Uh and we got clarification from state board of accounts that they prefer to see a separate ordinance which is why even though it's been a requirement to always have the ordinance we we were assuming that the salary or because you're adopting it accepting it with our salary in it that that was you know and they were they said they'd prefer to see a separate actual. So I'll create the ordinance

and and then we want it that way so the auditor doesn't get written up by saying and that's what I spoke is that an annual ordinance that is submitted with the affidavit or is it just one ordinance for all affidavit it's updated every year and it'll just be the same and like I said we've kind of gone with the salary ordinance was accepted along with my sworn statement so or passed and you know clarification then it's better to have it as an actual separate because I like this one cuz it even referred to the sworn statement attached. So obviously that's why it would be updated every year.

So well it has to be updated every year. Yeah. We don't want a write up an audit write up. Uh we're trying to avoid those at all cost because that affects your rating now. Correct. So thank you. Greg, you can stay right there. We'll go right to the must.

Okay. So, I sent the commissioners and I sent Scott. Yeah. Should have went out yesterday just a draft contract on on putting together from Gloria. Uh so, remember I have staff. It's just not me. Uh and so, um this is so that we can be begin the process. You know, it's technically one council member needs to meet with uh cities and towns throughout the county to begin the process to put together report by October one. Now, quite frankly, I have some councils that are saying we don't know if we're even going to do it. I'm not sure I would advise that. I would advise at least you take, you know, shots at it to try and come up with a uh unanimous decision on how you want lit to look in Hancock County. Now, obviously, we will have one unique feature in there, which is the libraries, because my assumption is we'd want to keep them in the same way they are with their special purpose. and you know make sure that's done.

Greg, so do do we know yet whether the that library lit is going to come under us uh under our allocation or whether it's going to be separate separate? Well, it the the special purpose is out and out of yours. Now, whatever we need to do to make up for the additional Yeah. Okay. Okay. because it was under ours. Is it true that does all municipalities have to agree and it's all or nothing that we have have this?

That's kind of what the what they're alleging. My answer is you you send a re AIM is saying, "Oh, you got to have unanimous. You got to be all unanimous or or you know, basically don't send in a report." My answer is no. you need to send in a report no matter what. Okay? Because you, you know, because uh Monroe County Council said, "Ah, if we can't be unanimous, we're just not going to do anything." Uh, well, I don't think I would advise that. And after I talked to Mrs. Crosley, she said, "Yeah, that might make some sense still putting money in." So, so I don't want you to make any decision now. I want you to, you know, my suggestion is you go through the process and make the decision,

Greg, as we go. Who who all uh in our county uh would be involved in that? Obviously, Greenfield. So, it' be Greenfield, Cumberland, Fortville, because there supposed to be every municipality. Shirley, Spring Lake, and and Wilkinson, every incorporated municipal. That's who they're invite. That's who they're currently. The Cumberland's trying to get everybody invited. I think they even had a secret meeting already. Um I've been told secret they told me. Um put your fingers in your ears.

Yeah. Um but anyways, they can't have a meeting with the Mus Group because none of us were there. So the thing is the only thing I want to point out is I've been going to a lot of these classes about it is that the must group every time I talk to an attorney, its requirement is one of us. It's at least one of us, not one. So we can have three. We can if we have more than three, we obviously have to, you know, to publicize it that but we can have so it doesn't have to just be one person. You're saying you don't want to go by yourself, Scott? Yeah, I'm saying I'm not going to do this by myself. I'm going to take I'm taking either Keely or Jim with me between the lines. Remember, I even suggested early on the council as a whole. And then you brought up Yeah, you brought up the fact that yes, it would be a public meeting.

I don't know if that's bad or good. Yeah, you you guys are the elected officials, G. Not not the first. We're not I think three of us ought to go and there'll be so many people and I don't think go I think you're actually going to host it. Yeah, we have to host it. We're the we're supposed to lead it. Who is the facilitator? Who council member the council is direct ultimately lit unless you're over the 3500 is the responsibility of the county council. Mhm. Let me ask you this, Greg, just at a high level. Did you find it, guys? I found it. I just He's the only one that got it. Bill and I didn't receive it.

Okay. Yes. I sent it draft to you and to Scott and I think I carbon copied Jim. So, and you know, it was a draft saying, "Let's talk about this after today. Then we'll send it to, you know, everybody." Commissioners have to sign. So, the commissioners are involved in it, too. Well, the commissioners uh signed the contract, but no, it's actually that's what I was That's what I heard the last time you were here. That's okay. But we have to sign it. Yes. This is just to hire FSG to run the process. Okay. That's all. Yeah.

Yes. Because as you know there's going to be various consultants also showing up for various towns and cities with various interests. Yes. Absolutely. So we have to have Greg round. Yes. We'd like to have our representation. But Greg, in a nutshell, is there is there any way it comes out any other way than cities and towns are going to want income tax that is in excess of what they receive today? There's basically no chance anyone's going to come in and say, I don't want any income tax. And so, so I'm going to say yes, keep going.

Okay. And so then ultimately by submitting a report, is this council saying we are in agreement with everything each city and town is proposing that they need? Are we endorsing that? We're just saying we're engaging. So the answer is you if it was unanimous support, yes, you would be saying that within the report. Okay? If not, you can write exceptions to the unanimous report or you can say it's not a unanimous report. Okay. Still submitting a report even if you don't agree with it and just clarifying that you don't agree with all the ass. Correct. Okay. Correct. So that's why you don't avoid the report altogether.

Right. Because if you have to submit a report that you're saying you agree with, I think so. It's pie in the sky to think we're going to end up with something. We

put yourself in the seat of a state legislator. No report says you're okay with where we're at. Okay? What we have bestowed on you, you're okay with. If you're not okay with that, then you should file a report. If you want to say yes, you're okay with that, then you should file your report. Okay? Now, one thing that was significantly changed in the uh 1210, I believe, is that Greenfield now can rather than have their 1.2, which they'll want something higher, but their 1.2 just charged in the city of Greenfield, their analysis may show that they want to go through they want to use the entire county income. They now have that right under non SB under the updated SB1. Okay. So, where did we just go in cons concept? We're almost back to where we're distributing lit now,

but we're not using property tax levy. We're using rate. Okay. But we're spreading it over the entire county. Did you hear that? They have that option. Yes, but the Greenfield's the only one and it's because of size or county seat

in in Hancock County. That's your only one over 3500 other than maybe you know if if Cumberland gets big enough and and they can have half of theirs. You with me on that? So, so there is that. So they gave them the expansion of so for instance let's take Hendrickx County Brown Brownsburg Planefield and Avon could spread it back over the entire county if they don't think their individual silos will bring in enough money. How is that fair? It's not. Oh hello.

Yeah I'm still I'm trying to wrap my head all the way around why somebody would want their financial okay. Let's define it in dollar terms. If their 1.2 for a green field would bring in 10 million, but they need 20 million that they're already collecting, okay? Then the 1.2 would strap them, right? And so if by charging the 1.2 over broader, it funds what they need now. That's how it's economically fair but may not be fair perception-wise. You with me? Yeah.

But so so it's a difference between money and your definition of fair. Now keep in mind it's also done that way. Now, right? Greenfield does not levy its own tax. We levy a a a total income tax rate and they get their share based upon property taxes. But but there is a pie here, right? There will be a pie. There is a pie and it's how to split it up. It's not like if one entity needs more than they're getting that you can expand the pie. The legislature is saying you've got a pie. Got to live in the pie. That's right. Just like now.

How do you want to? Let's see. Ladies, help me out. But a normal pie is 11 in in diameter, right? cross and so it's me I think your share of that pie Jim if you're green field you might say my share of that pie is 1 and a half 1.5%. Okay. But the pie of 2.9 did not grow over the 11 in right pie. And in fact, they've shrunk the pie over what it used to be. Well, no, they expand. They made the pie bigger because they raised the max rate.

Right. Right. Yeah. So the pie, but they've reduced their money that we can collect. So really the pie has shrunk. Our pie has when you include property tax. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no. That when you're looking at a total structure people will want their cherry pie and they will want the ice cream on top. Yes. Right. As far as next steps. Okay. So, we determine one, two, three people that will uh spearhead must and then was is step one those people sitting down with you and going into more detail. is step one calling a meeting of all uh towns and cities

number two. Okay. And then you would determine the uh necessary agenda and content for that meeting or us councilmen who have agreed to do that work are supposed to have a certain amount prepared or what does that look like?

Yeah. So, so, so my perception is we would we we would, you know, you call the first meeting, get everybody's concerns, gripes, criticisms out. Okay. You also then put up on the board what people are collecting now or need now. Okay? And then everybody will say, "But wait a minute, 10 million's not enough. We need 20 as we go forward." And so that's going to be one of those considerations about does the pie need to be cut different ways. You with me? And so then um then it will be trying to consensus build on where everybody is. It's almost I I almost firmly believe we're going to end up really close to where we are kind of starting other than it won't be divided on property taxes. It'll be divided by population and the and the factors that are built in. And so that's what you have to start with and see if you can come to some consensus.

But it comes back to if everybody doesn't want to participate then it's not going to happen. If all the wait was that question if all the municipalities don't come up with a rate and sign on and a consensus is determined then nobody's going to be part of that. No, no, no, no. That's not what I said. I said, you know, you will put in your report and you'll put in your report with unanimous maybe unanimous but exceptions

or you know if you can't come to something I think the county council as supreme commander of lit still puts in a report in my opinion. I have a question. It can local if they decide that they want to like Greenfield decides they want to have their own lit. Um will that have to come out of the 2.9 or will that be additional tax for their people and them 1.2 for them? Well, their 1.2 comes out of the 2.9. That's what she said. So, yes, it would be part of the 2.9 if they want. That's what I figured. Are we going to send out in advance? It has to come out of the 2.9.

So something for them to fill out before we have this meeting about what are you asking for? Because I think the idea of bringing all these people into an initial meeting and it just being a free openflow discussion and nobody has actually written down what what they think they need or what they're asking. So yes, I think there might be my suggestion is you put out a data request uh you know of of four or five items to bring. Yeah. So right now the question is are we going to hire FSG to uh run the show? I think we all agree uh don't we that we will and then it'll be on the budget uh agenda next time for you to come in and and say

I've already I've already forward the actual contract to Sarah.

Okay. And so um and we will develop the initial data request with some like I said number one is what is your lit and and obviously it's even in your sustainability you have exactly what Cumberland's getting from edit you have exactly what they're getting from lit all that information's in there for 2026 but you know the the the the huge challenge there's no doubt about is remember the gymnastics gym took me through that we if we had a 80 rate we needed a 1.2 cuz how in the world will we ever get those capital projects done right Jim remember that and I I I was pointing to you and I said that we showed the 1.2 too. Was it even enough?

Right. Oh, yeah. But you're saying it did get done in the legislation that the library special lit is not absorbed in R1.2. It's just under the max 2.9. I think both of you would agree your 1000 or 0.15 is separate. Period. Correct. Yeah. That needed to be that part for sure. Okay. Okay. Uh, counting on you. No pressure. Go. May I beat pre May I beat my head on this wall? Uh, early. Yeah. Little practice. Yeah. Um,

anything else? Nope. I don't think so. Uh, is there hesitate to ask for old business, but is there anything just really really pressing? The only thing I had was senior services uh participation by Greenfield. I haven't heard anything. Uh I I've addressed with Mayor Titus and they were they were instructed I got with Gary and he instructed them that they have to fill out the the grant form for Greenfield. Greenfield does their budget in in August. Yeah.

And they I I feel they're on board, but they have to go before the grants committee just like we have ours. So, okay. 426. 426. Okay. Well, I mean, it'll it'll start the end of the year. I think it is. And the they're they won't they don't just hand out money to them. It has to go through the grants committee. Right. And and Gary was was informing senior last time. He was he informed senior services they had to fill that application out. Oh, they so they've never gone to the city yet.

I I I don't know. I I just I never remember them actually. They just always sent the paperwork in saying we need this much money, right? And but this time I don't know why it's such a big deal this time simply because they've always been on the agenda for the budget. So yeah. Okay. Thanks for following up. And I I'll I'll keep following up. I mean Okay. because that that's something I didn't know there was an issue with it simply because uh while being on Greenfield for the last 10 years I mean 10 years when I was there they just always come in and got their grant. Yeah.

Well and something about that I don't know if it's changed since I was there because that's been five years ago but we had put in place my first year at Greenfield City Council a limitation on and rightfully so how what the max grant number a year could be. At the time it was like 25% of a certain income stream. And so if that's still in place, it's still in place and they're competing now. The portion that we're trying to negotiate with the city for senior services is competing in an open grant process with other entities. They they did a lot of cutting last year with their grants. a lot of it in which it probably needed to be done

but I don't know that they changed the mechanism for how much was available. I I think we ought to start looking at uh whether we want to continue uh uh senior services uh on our own because I don't think I really question whether Greenfield's going to step up. They haven't so far. Hopefully they do. That's true. But they use it more than the county does. They the city of Greenfield has 76% of the writers are Greenfield residents and all that. But if they don't step up and

it used to be called rural transport. I mean that was part of the acronym. And um and with Uber and all that I mean there are other ways to get around and I don't know. Yeah. I think I think if it comes down to with the federal funding being cut, if Greenfield also doesn't pay a fair share, I think we really need to evaluate the cost of it and who it serves. And I we we pay the the the blunt of that. Oh, we do. We I know. Yeah, that's my concern. Yeah, it's hundreds and hundreds. I think there's a pattern here when it comes to dealing with

I think there's a pattern here with dealing with what the city of Greenfield's willing to pay or not willing to pay and we end up having to pick up the slack and there needs to be some kind of format established that we're all in agreement with where the the services are being used to participate. At any rate, we'll we'll follow it. Circle back.

Okay, real quick. Uh, we want to make sure since since we're cash funding the new building out there, we want to make sure that when the commissioner signed a contract that we got enough additional appropriation in that fund to cover that and we're not going to get behind the eightball cuz he's so the update is we're building it now, right? So, we moved the construction trailer in today. Um I have equipment out there getting ready to start um subgrade work putting in some tile um and so yeah it's um it's moving and that's 12 1233 5.5 appropriated

yes 5.5 appropriated and did the commissioner sign any document higher than 5.5 in aggregate cost I've not I've not signed anything as far as that I mean no not since we've signed the other contract updated contract here recently like few months ago. Okay. So, we do not at this point in time need any further additional appropriations. We're staying within that budget and just be aware of that. Okay. Yes, that's it. Yes, Brad. Fly fly your drone. I thought we were going to go outside. No, you're not. That's what it's over by it's over by

we already approve minutes while he pulls that up. Scott, should we knock out minutes? And then um council facility um Dusty was uh saying that he could switch the cameras around. Are you good with that? So that the public could see it. Yeah. So what we what we could do is we could turn off the autoattendant which you know zooms around all over the screen and then I can turn the camera to this TV above me and then the public would be able to see this presentation from home if you guys are okay with that. Let's do let's do that. How about motion on the minutes so that we get Yeah, go ahead and do that and then I'll make motion that we approve the minutes as as written. Second. Second. I'll go ahead and give it to Keely.

All in favor say I. I a Are we good? Mhm. Okay. So, I wanted to um kind of just present to you today a demonstration of um I guess the what I call the future of public safety.

Um and this is our first drone that we have in in place uh in a station. You can see it. It's in the station and it's on top of uh Mount Cumber Elementary School. Um so this is f the first one of two. The second one will be going on the amplified building probably beginning of August. And so as we talk about, you know, hey, not being able to hire deputies or hire new people, you know, you know, the future is is we need to get eyes in the sky if we're not going to be able to do that. Not to say that we're not going to need new deputies as this county grows, but this is going to be helpful for the future of of getting to calls because we were on a call the other day with the drone before the police cars got there on the interstate. Then they were able to see the crash before officers got there and be able to direct them in prior to arrival. And so, you know, there's there's a need and and this again, this is a future throughout the country on what uh what this can do. And so, um, I'll just do a demonstration of what it looks like. And so, um, our our dispatchers are able to fly it from dispatch. I'm going to fly it today from right here.

Brad, is this then two? You're going to have two of these. I'm going to have two of these. Yeah. This is the first one. The second one is the one that's going on amplified. Okay. Currently, now I have locations for other ones and that's something we'll, you know, obviously have to just discuss. So, you can just see the garage door just open. It got brighter. You can see the sky. And I'm just going to tell it to fly house. Are you controlling? Can you check and see if we have any baby cats? Let's see how good this wheel is. You're doing the control right now. Okay. And so, we're going to take off and we're going to go see the interstate. I guess.

Now, there's some telemetry right now that we're still working on with dispatch. So, when live 911 comes available or with the 911 integration, they'll be able to just to go right to the the 911 call and be able to um dispatch it to that address. And so, right now, I've directed it to go to where I want it to go, and I'm really not even controlling it right the moment. It's doing its own thing. You mean it'll be like Google Map? You just put in an address and it will go? It'll go really. Yep. How many people are trained to operate?

So, I have um so all our pilots at the sheriff's office can do it. Um which is uh there's four the pilots there plus there's four control officers or dispatchers that are pilots right now hopefully to get more. It's Sheriff Burkard obviously. Where's it going? It's just right now we're just running. We're just going to go to the interstate there. And you can see um that it's headed that direction um to 6 West and 70. So this one partic this one here has a 2-m radius. So I can fly out 2 miles and then fly back. How fast does it fly? So right now we're running 25 24.5 miles per hour

at an elevation of 158 ft. And over to the side you can see the flight data. So over the flight it's telling me aircraft that's within a certain area. So I know those flights um as well. Tells me weather tells me the speed wind up there. So, it's 9 miles per hour on wind speed. Um, you really don't want to fly anything that's over 25 miles per hour. Gets a little shaky.

So, like I said, they use it a couple days ago on the interstate for a crash. Um there was a call out there before that a few weeks ago, a month ago on um there was some furniture that was in the roadway and so they were able to actually go out, fly, find the furniture, see that it wasn't in the roadway and that way the officer, the deputy didn't have to respond, you know, so it saves time from going to that location by the deputy being able to do that. And so so right now we're we're we're sitting at the interstate, but I'm getting ready. I'm So I'm I'm turning it with my keyboard. Now we can see how much has been built at the the hotel somebody was asking about.

Yep. So well, if you want, let's just do a flashing light over there. Oh, the gas prices. You can check the gas prices, too. We want to see those. No, you don't. It's flickering. Practice is changing every 30 seconds. Okay. Price oil is down 6% today. have a finer fee if one of our really nice residents shoots it down. Oh gosh. Well, would not be good. A finer fee for it? No, we don't have anything established for anything like that.

Don't know. I did never. It's it'd be it would fall under a criminal act and so we would have to establish it through through that if that would happen. And there's also FAA. Is there something that identifies the drone that it's for the sheriff's department or what? Well, I mean, it's obviously marked. It's got red lights and things like that, so we know. I mean, it's it's got to be registered. It's registered and everything like that. Um, does it have sirens? Does it have a siren? Siren. Does it really, Brad? Does it have a gun? It is not armed in any way. Oh, man. Oh, boy. M

you can and it does have the ability. So if I get to a scene or whatever, it has the capability of calling. So I can call it and it can communicate with anybody on the ground. Does it talk to you? Yes, you can talk back on it. No, I can't right now. Holy moly. Can't stop within two miles. Here's your new building we were talking about earlier. Isn't that crazy how cars coming in that center? There's the building. There's the building. Looks just like the one in Noblesville. Yeah. And so let's see. We can we can point in and then we can zoom in on what's going on. Oh, he's not working. Don't call his balls. They're on the phone. He's on his phone. Looks like a state job. Very good. Eating lunch.

He's eating lunchability. We we're able to use it for surveillance, you know, all types of different things. Uh, you know, so it's it is a awesome tool. Around a house and look in windows if you wanted to. Uh we we try not to unless there no if there's an armed situation if there's an armed situation know we're trying to you can get that close. Yes. But we also have interior drones that we fly in the house. Yeah. He has different types. I'm not a different technology guy. So I was going to say yeah I mean there's you know there's absolutely and that's the thing you know public needs to understand that that's not what we're doing. We're not doing we're not we're using it for public safety purposes. Um you know we're not searching things we don't need to. Um

it's something to assist the officers, right? It is. It's and and fire. Um one of the first things we went to, they had that fire over at those uh apartments off 7 West. We were able to um utilize that on the fire and and show show the fire apparatus being there at that scene at that time. like the tower there is it it's it's geo fenced off so it would you know obviously we're not running into the tower let's see let's go over to so if an officer comes on the scene can he then control it

yes so if you have a pilot on the scene that has a hand control he can take over the controls um at any point in time I can somebody else can take control over this from me once they log log in, say dispatch logs in, they can go down at the bottom and say basically take over as a pilot. And so they'll actually assume control of it. Does it show you the battery life or Yeah. So right now we still we have 82% battery life. And so it also knows if it gets down to a certain point and we're a certain distance away, it knows that, hey, I need this much battery to get back. And so it'll basically just say, hey, I'm going back on its own. Interesting.

Anybody want to see what uh Carbana looks like in all their cars? That's what Carbana looks like.

Huge. in here.

The cost of this one was a lot. This So, this is annual 80,000. That includes the station and the drone, but it also rec it also includes at new versions of a drone. So, when the new one comes out, which there's a new one getting ready to come out soon for this version, we'll get the update for that. With a lot of technologies, the longer they've been around, the cheaper they get. So, hopefully they become more affordable in the years to come. And so now

what's nice about this and this is why I invested in this one is because this is an Americanmade um in January the president signed a a executive order for any DJI drones which are made in China that they can no longer be utilized. So any anybody that's got a DJI will not be able to get any new parts or get any new drones. So um we won't have that problem. So this is six west and three north the roundabout. See the high have a lot of traffic out there with all that land. If you ever up in a plane a new gas station on the corner as well

to fly. And so I'm still at 74% but you know here we are. We're don't have really anything else to see. So I'm just going to say we're going to go home and it'll fly back itself and it'll land. So if an actual planning Okay. Yep. And so this has it's they're equipped with parachutes. And so if for whatever reason there's some sort of malfunction, which I don't see that it'll actually parachute out of the sky down safely.

Brad, how high do these typically fly? So, uh, if I'm flying a drone outside, um, the the ceiling is 400 foot. That's that's high as you can hide. You can go farther, but you have to have permissions to go farther than that. Um, generally, it's a lot of rules.

So, you can see in the top right up there, you can see the drone station where it will land. Um, the bottom screen, the bottom one there is the sky, and you eventually you'll see it coming down. Um, the camera position is going to change here in a second and it's going to point down towards the station. So, there is a newer version out um that just came out. I went to Seattle uh a few beginning of the month of last April. It was in April at the beginning of the month for their new grand opening or showing of this new one. It'll actually fly up to I think six miles at a speed of 60 m an hour.

Wow. Um and so that would be some technology to look at as we look hopefully into the future different locations throughout the county. The best. Um, one of the next locations I would like to see would be at the fire station off five west south of 40 because if you have a six mile travel, you can basically cover the entire Pensy Trail up and down for security purposes and reasons for that. And so then I would come in and I would just document what we did today. And so today we just did a training um flight. Um, Brad, it says weather permitting on the drone demonstrations. I was like, "Mary, I thought we were going outside." Yeah.

Whether I can fly it or not for him, not for us. So, yeah. So, does the weather, how much does the weather affect it? Yeah. So, rain, you know, it's light rain's okay. You don't want to be like yesterday, you can't fly. Um, and there again, the wind is mostly uh the problem. Anything over 25, you don't want to fly. Um, winter doesn't matter. I mean, cold's fine. Um, but and heat, is it okay with the heat? you know, if we is it okay with heat if we'd have some really hot days?

Yes. So, this unit, the station is actually climate controlled, so it's air conditioned and heated, so that that's ready and keeps it secure. So, um, but I just thought, you know, I think it's good for you guys to see. I mean, you know, just because of the funding mechanism and understanding, you know, the purpose of it and the reason why we have it and the benefit that we're going to see in the future as things continue to grow and um you know, we get others that they maybe have a farther traveling radius um and a faster speed. But if you can get you if you can get a drone on the scene first, you know, and maybe that that stops maybe having to send an officer or maybe it helps save a life of an officer or fireman or whatever if you can get eyes on first. Um, you know, if I go to a scene, I see somebody's at a house and he's standing outside with a weapon and, you know, I may have that's information that I can get back or dispatch can give back, you know, to to the officers arriving, responding so they don't get themselves injured. So,

yeah. But there So, now he's uh drone's parked and it's uh recharging for the next mission. The new version of it in its station actually has a battery changing device in it. Oh, wow. It'll land. It'll change device and you can go back up. This one here, you have to wait a few minutes for it to uh to charge. It only take about uh less than 10 minutes to get back up to 100% and you could take it off again. So, when does a human have to go up there?

Um, every so often we go up there and, you know, change out a battery just to reboot it and everything, but I can do a lot of it from the screen here. Actually, I sent a guy up this morning um to go up there and just confirm some things and reboot some stuff and so and not not very often. Yeah, we have access to the school to get in and go up there anytime we need to. Cool. You see your second time seeing it? Yeah. It makes me want to go home and get get the one I've got and get it set up. Yeah. I've had it for six months and I've not set it up yet. Set it up yet? Yeah. $80,000 drone. No, mine's a little small one, but it can go up to a mile. I think a mile away from you.

Yeah, they will. To the sheriff's department. You can go check for And so I'm going to I'm actually coming to RDC meeting as well. I'm going to show up for to everybody there next week. That's all I got. Thank you. They did. I mean, thanks, Brad. I come back in not knowing I want everybody. Is there anything on the auditor's business? Um, I only have 10 things. It was zero. You and me. Nobody else pay attention. I know. It would have been funny if somebody didn't pay attention. We We were. We were. Zero things. I think we're done. Oh, Clark. Oh, Clark. I'll make a motion. We're done. That will Well, I missed it. So, I guess I need to vote on it.

Another one to vote. Have a great day. throws a kick.