County Council - Regular Meeting

Patrick.

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Everybody seen the agenda. Do we have any changes, additions? Anybody have any issues that they didn't see on there that they want to address? Hearing none. Motion have a motion to accept the agenda. Anyone? Anyone? All right. Motion to adjurnn. No, that was not

meeting. Motion called. Oh, motion to approve. Good lord, people. We have to wake up. Wake up. I'll second. All in favor? I All right. Uh, we're going to move Eric up to the front. I said earlier um just because he's got a he has a commitment he has to get to. Eric might you have the floor.

Good morning council. I wanted to briefly talk about this situation we've got on this one line item on our budget. Uh we use a software product called VMware. Uh it is a pretty industry standard product that's used in uh to create a management environment for your servers. Uh it's been widely adopted by smaller organizations in addition to bigger organizations because it allows us to be more nimble. We can keep some resources handy and if we need a quick server that we can spin up, we can virtually spin one up and and have it ready in less than half an hour. Uh, like I said, it's an industry standard product. We've been using it here at Brown County for years. Uh, our annual cost for that has remained somewhat static with occasional increases of like less than 5%. Uh, back in 23, VMware was acquired by a company called Broadcom that has taken a very aggressive approach to changing their pricing model. Uh, and the price for that product that we typically pay last year we paid $5,128.32. It is now been increased to $17,51040. That is a $241% increase by Broadcom, which is, in my professional opinion, egregious. I've never seen anything like this. and I've been doing this work for over 20 years. Uh I knew that this was going to be an issue when I came on because you had been hearing uh anecdotal stories from uh other companies that had been contacted by Broadcom with similar price increases. AT&T experienced a price increase of over a,000%

on their VMware spend according to industry trades. Uh, so I tried to get a quote for this in the fall so that we could incorporate it in some way in the, you know, rejiggering process that goes on every year with the budget. And Broadcom refused to give us numbers until after the first of the year. So, we didn't find out what this price increase was going to be until January 20th for a renewal that's due on April 15th. Uh, we received the first cease and desist letter from Broadcom saying, "Hey, want you to know that we've increased your price. We haven't heard from you just to let you know that if you don't reup with us and continue to use our product, there'll be further legal escalations." We got that letter 15 days after we got the quote to renew the product. So, you know, obviously at at this point, we're kind of locked in. It would take a six to eightmon process to move our environment to a competing product which ultimately I feel like we've got to do. Uh but we don't have the we don't have time to do it this year. The good news on this is because they are doing this all across the board in the market. It's created a situation where a number of competitors have have sprung up and and our needs in this regard are pretty simple. So, I'm hopeful that come next year, we we won't be renewing with this company. We'll be getting a similar product with a competing company, but at this point, we are going to need uh an additional sum of money of I I believe $11,000 and and and some change. I didn't bring my notes.

It is 115. So, that's the situation. As egregious as it is, I' I'd be happy to take questions. Yes, Jim. just what's the purpose of this technology? Okay, to it I I'll be kind of brief because I could talk for an hour. I mean, is it a cloud-based storage system? Is it just store data? Is I mean, so what it does is in the traditional server world when you need a server to do something, I'm familiar with a server. Okay. So, you get a physical box that sits in a room someplace. With virtualization technology, you can get a big box and you can create virtual servers on premise, not in the cloud,

right? Here uh without having to buy

So is this a what's the gigabyte storage of this this this uh uh server? I mean how much and is everything is is all of for example in my office you know I have four primary have much more than that but four primary technology applications you know and they're all cloud-based so you log in every morning with two-party authentication so is the local network then tied into this you know cloud-based server so any application s that we have locally then are stored along with all backup. So all the backup everything that we all the data that we have. So LA for example LA is an application I believe that runs locally right and so then do we back up into this system? Okay. So, this system exists completely on prem.

It's what? It completely on premise. It's it sits over in our data center. Okay. I thought it was a cloud-based. Cloud-based meaning it's it creates a cloud within equipment that sits in our server room, a virtual environment, but it is not outside our network. Backups outside our network. So, in essence, it's really not a virtual cloud-based system. uh not by the definition that you're using. So we're charging a seven. So it's so it's actually setting on our hardware. This system sets on our hardware. That's absolutely true. Which is what a server is cuz I have a server in my office. Right. Right.

It could be described as software that allows you to take one massive server and create lots of smaller servers in a very nimble quick way. Does that mean so everything in the county sits on this application for the most part? I wouldn't say everything but yeah predom by and large it it a big part of our organization. So if I have a workstation you know I have my own private little workstation in my office then that automatically backs up to this on a day-to-day basis. Uh the workstations do not back up the data that's generated on the workstations within the applications that is backed up. Okay. All right. That's good. Thank you. So it's just data storage. It's not a server.

It is a server. The the the virtual environment contains uh hard drive storage. It contain it contains virtualized CPU resources and virtualized RAM resources. So it's more of an operating system. That's what it is. Yes. Yeah. That that's that it's an operating system. Yeah. Okay.

You say industrywide they've increased prices this much? Absolutely. Yeah. Now, uh I I in the stats that I looked at, 14% of their customer base experienced uh increases of more than 100%. Um so I I would say probably about 30 to 40% of their customer base have experienced increases of more like 30 to 40%. This almost sounds like a monopoly antitrust issue a little bit except for the fact that there's all sorts of competing products that are popping up and you know

Yeah. So this really I mean we've got to pay for this. So really what we need to do is create we need to create an ordinance to an additional appropriation out of the general fund right and then you need to submit it to to gateway to the DGF to get approval. And so can we get all that done by our regular meeting? It's already been it's already been sent to the paper. Oh, you've already got it in there. Yeah. Okay. So, Susan will draft the ordinance and then our regular meeting this month, we can go ahead and approve it pretty much because it's this is a have to. That's not it's a bill that we've got to pay. Okay. Otherwise, we're Well, you got to pay it. It's just have to pay it. And then maybe next year in 27, you can save a little money.

Hopefully a lot of money. Yeah. Well, we'll see. How much was the bill? Uh the total bill is going to be $17,51040. That is up from $5,128.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Kevin, you have the floor. So, we got a packet this morning. This is just an update for us to let you know where we're at with regards to bond expenditures for 2024 along with the capture of what that's those expenditures were and then looking at the two items that are I'd like to have considered adding one project item with regards to the courthouse windows. It would fall under the courthouse update. But I wanted to run through the numbers briefly this morning to say here's what this bond money has been spent on. Here are the two projects that we need to fund out of that particular fund and then have a conversation and then answer any questions you have on that. And then going forward, Dan Cartright, our owner's technical representative, here's this morning to basically go over the two proposals that were two plus proposals that were um set up for the prosecutor's office is where we're going with that along with the delivery method that we're looking at using the prosecutor's office. And that delivering method is um bot build operate transfer which is a resolution that we passed at the end of February in order to access that build operate method. Okay. So the current balance as it stands based on spend that we just looked at this morning is $2,637,00074028. That's what we've spent to date or that's what's bond is remaining sorry. So out of that we have done obviously the legal fees and the financial set of fees. There's been countless things with

regards to this research done on the window study at the courthouse. The construction that took place for community corrections Dan's activities related to any of the projects on the bond being the law enforcement center installation. um the actual courthouse update and constructions, the equipment that uh came out of that from Koka Koka. Yeah, sorry. Koka Malta. Um and then the um backup that went through SHI International and CASA, which is the IT backup for EverCloud. So, we've got a firewall and all that. um the additional appropriate or the additional uh approval to fund the body cameras out of this bond fund for the sheriff's as well. And then the original $949,400 which is still on budget for Coke mechanical. I will give you an update to that that there was again a request for two additional change orders from DLZ and both of those have been put back in the burden on them and that was going to summarize roughly about $31,000 that they attempted to go back and have chang

CO is the actual mechanical manufacturing. Yeah, that's the AC units. No, anon I think is a AO N. No, but Coke is doing the mechanical work. That's the project design oversight of sorry the project design oversight. What's that for the DLC? That is DLZ's oversight of the projects that they have been contracted with so far to handle the courthouse. Okay. And the LC. Yeah. But this cook line item for 9494, that's the actual physical mechanical construction work. That's the AC units on the jail, right? AC units on the table. So everything's done.

Not quite. Okay. We are now. So we have done all equipment installs. There is a punch list that has a contingent 3% retainer that we're going through and that's being worked through Dan and it's being worked through our maintenance people. So that project should be finished by hopefully before the middle of the month. But then I mean all right. So before it hits 85 90°. Okay. Sure. It's operating now. Everything's working. Okay. There's just some minor things you got to take care of. Got it. All right. Thank you.

Uh then we had some additional work that fell under the updates and upgrades down at the courthouse. Um the issue with regards to drainage and security area flooding in the courthouse. We were outside the warranty period and any engagement with DLZ, it cost us an additional $4,800 in order to have them come fix that. And it has been confirmed from the judge and others in this last rain that we had significant that it has fixed the problem. Good. Good job. Whether it was outside the warranty, was it part of the scope of the work?

Part of the scope of the Yes, absolutely. They poured the original curb that went back through there. They said in the actual original drain that was set in front of the door. Um, and if I'm not mistaken, in that process, at one point in time, there was an incorrect drain size that was put in that had to be torn back out and reinstalled. And then they charged us charged us for charged us. There's no charge for us. We're we're we're uh we're being burdened with an additional $4,800 to fix a problem that should have never happened. Z any more money. We didn't pay DOZ another fix,

but we had to pay we had to pay somebody to dig dig it out. We had to pay some money to go back in and put in a new collection area where the pooling was happening and they'll run it in and tie it into the existing drain system. We can't back charge for that. Huh? We can't back charge for that. One more time. We can't back charge for that because that's a you're outside of it unless you want we incurred because of a faulty design and understood. So, do you want me to go and spend lawyer fees to go into small claims court? Yeah, that's where we would have to get if I if I can be honest, it should have been caught at the completion of the project,

but I I wasn't here. I don't know what the review was, but no one caught it. No one looked at it. Okay. Lesson learned. Lesson learned. That's correct. And that's why we over the $31,000 change over. Another lesson learned. Correct.

So, the other part of that was um impacting the actual operation of the building. There was a tree removed on the southeast or southwest corner of the courthouse and one pri outside the judge's office because that tree was basically creating issues for drainage and the guttering and that stuff. So, that was an additional $3,100 that was fixed. uh in the study. So going forth, the $2,125 that was spent with Browning Day wasn't just a study in order to have them propose or at least give us an estimate of what the window replacement would cost on the courthouse. That's the first project. The estimate that they provided and is contained is a 15% contingent is $220,144.50. Okay. And then Dan is going to step in this. But the next number on that from Matt is building the court or building the prosecutor's office that also contains a 15% contingent. He'll go over the

Yes, sir. Is that 15% up or down? That's 15% up. All right. Thanks. Did they check with landmarks? Any landmarks on the design because it's a national historic site for what for the Browning Day study. So they went through the exercise and took that into consideration when they did that. Okay.

Okay. And they also engaged. So we actually had a meeting between the judge and bail to help ourself Dan and went through that entire thing and clearly identified what we our expectations were and then took into consideration some of the design architecture that would help us move back towards the historical because what's there today is not good. Okay. So, the last item, which I'll turn over to Dan on, is the uh prosecutor's office. The estimated building based on the footprint, the footprint you have here is roughly about 1.3 million. Is that what it potentially look like? Potentially.

Nice. Sweet. Yeah, it's nice. So, so given that, I will hand turn it over to Dan. He's going to run through the other packet information as the evaluation and what we looked at as far as the criteria and then he is going to give to you an overview of what bot is the build operate transfer. Okay. And then I'll come back and close off with a couple other topics related to potential additional appropriations. Okay. And if you've not met him, this is Dan Cartwright.

Hi Dan Cartwright. This is the first time I've been before you uh folks. Uh so I will just uh reiterate what Kevin said. I'm a consultant that uh was employed by the commissioners last early last summer and I'm working on all these different variations and different projects and things. A little history about me. Okay. I spent uh a little over 30 years as the owner of a commercial development company in uh Marian County and Johnson County. Predominantly, we did work in in Marian County and Johnson County. When I say developer, I'm not talking about being a contractor. We bought the land. We came up with an idea. We built strip shopping centers and owned them. We built uh at one time we owned uh about,00 units of apartment communities

in Marian County uh three different communities. One of them was 424 units, one was 336 units and other was 208 units. probably did own and operate. And like I say, I'm talking about from the from the point of buying land, coming up with an idea and carrying all the way through and operating. Uh we probably completed u couple hundred,000 or a couple hundred,000 square foot of uh of light industrial projects and probably about that much uh commercial uh or retail development as well. So I've been around this for a long time. I've been I've been in this business for a long time from concept to operation. uh when uh when we closed our company down, I thought I retired, but uh a bunch of my government friends like yourselves in uh Johnson County predominantly, that's where I live, started contacting me, wanted me to do consulting for them. And so I did that for a while. Uh then I was Edinburgh town manager and I left Edinburgh and went to Bartersville. I'm Bartersville Town Manager and uh I resigned from that position a little over a year ago and so now uh I'm back in the semi-ret retired too retired mode and uh working for the commissioners in Brown County. So I just want to give you a little my background to let you know I I have been around the block a little bit. Okay. If you look at the if you look at the document that says prosecutor office study, um we looked at different possibilities as far as where a good prosecutor's

office might be. It started out with conversations with the town uh and the possibility of taking the uh town police department. Um but however negotiations flopped on that. Uh I looked at I looked at the condition of the existing prosecutor's office. It's it's it's it's got uh environmental problems. Uh particularly as bestas uh looked at trying to remodel it. The building the building's not worth anything. It really is not worth anything. it would uh the cost is just it would be it would not only would the cost be a lot but also wouldn't be functional for what Ted needs. Uh and all this was done with the communication and the coordination and and comments with prosecutor. Okay. Uh so we we kind of forgot about the existing location and where do we go? So I came up with two site two possible sites as you see in in in this presentation. Um first thing was we looked at possibility of an addition to the north side of the courthouse. Okay. There's not very much usable ground there. Okay. Also we get into historical issue. Um you know we're uh the original concept plan had 3700 square ft uh for the prosecutor's office. I can't get a 3,700 square foot building in there unless I go two stories. If I go if we go two stories, we're really u we're really affecting the historical value of that building. Okay. And u it's

just it's really not very practical. Uh now the 3,700 ft² that we've been that I referred to is just based on original concept but u after further conversation with the prosecutor he believes the square footage will be less than that as far as what his actual needs are. Less than the 3700 I'm sorry less than the 3700. Yes sir. Yes sir. Let me correct less than the 4700. Okay. So sorry. So what you're talking you're down to the 3700.

I really don't know for sure where we are but we're doing something less than that. 3700 is how much I could get on that there. Yes, sir. And I I don't hate to break your train of thought. No, that's all right. My my train of thought is broke a lot. Okay. But could we go back just, you know, hit rewind for a minute and I'm operating off an assumption. If you all make a decision to do this, that the commissioners move forward with this, then the existing prosecuting attorney's office will have to be demolished. I'm assuming we'll have to demo it.

That's what I would recommend. Yeah. And I don't know if that's 100 grand, 200 grand, what that's going to cost to demo that. And then I have been told, I don't know that there's any truth to this statement, but supposedly the ground underneath the pro the existing prosecuting attorney's office, there's environmental issues. We believe that's a very good possibility. High probability. The research hasn't been there yet. that will once you demo that existing facility, you're still going to have to do the environmental remediation on that soil underneath, will you not? Somewhat, but you can you can encapsulate it with all aspect.

So you could mitigate that expense. Okay. now because the question is this for me is that I years ago se two or three years ago went in there and measured off the internal the inside of that existing prosecuting attorney's office and pull it from memory it's somewhere in the neighborhood of around 2200 ft. Okay. And my question is, is being able to demolish that building, do the environmental site cleanup, the mediation on that, and then going up with a twostory brick building at the current location where it's located today. Did you spend much time looking at that option?

I spent very little time looking at that option. And the reason why is because of the problems relating to parking is one, right? Okay. The condition of the building and cost associated with that. The the the environmental concern that you would have to take care of if there was uh environmental concerns in the ground below. You'd have to definitely take care of that, right? Which could be very costly if you were to build a new building on it. What kind of environmental concerns are there?

Well, we we really don't know. Well, for the environmental concern that we can be identified is asbesus in the existing building. Okay. Uh if you talk to some of the people over there, I've had I had one lady in particular tell me sometimes I hate to breathe in here, you know. Uh and also the security aspect of that location. I mean, the prosecutor's office needs to be a secured location. You can you can easily I could break into that building so easily. Thank you. I just That's Yeah.

So So we looked we looked at looked at the possibility of either going to the twotory con uh addition to the courthouse or a singlestory addition to the courthouse. Uh it it was determined when we met with the team. Okay. And I'll tell you what the team is. The team, the team was the uh Kevin, myself, the prosecutor, the judge, and the sheriff. Okay. Is the team that got together and looked at these possibilities, the team basically said, particularly the judge, you know, courthouse edition, forget about that. Okay. I see.

So, so then then we then I started looking at what are the possibility sites there are. Well, the law enforcement center, the law enforcement center would be a very good place for the prosecutor's office. Uh, at the north northeast corner of that parking lot, there's a substantial amount of grass in that area. So, we started looking at that. Uh, it is on it. Part of that is in the flood bridge fridge, which means it's 100year flood plane. Okay. You can build outside the 100year flow plane, but you can't build inside the 100-year flood plan flood plan unless you go back through DNR. And it's a lengthy long process. I've been there. I've done that. Uh uh so I I looked at the possibility of building well I should have said earlier that site plan and that building elevation or that floor plan and that building elevation that you have there uh was a a conceptual plan that DLZ did for the prosecutor uh a year year and a half ago. Okay. So that's the only thing I had to work. Okay. So I took that and I said, "Okay, can I set that building in that location?"

Dan, sorry. You said the site plan, that's the color photograph, the aerial. I said site plan. I should have said floor plan. Floor plan. Okay, gotcha.

When I was referring to that, the color photograph that you've got that looks like this. That's just a sketch that I did to determine what the possibility was on that building. I scaled it off and the block in the corner identifies where that building that you have the floor plan for would fit and how it would fit. Um, in order to do that, you see the red dash lines that I drew on there is approximately of the flood fringe. So I can stay out of that flange and get a building very similar to the one that that uh DLZ drew and that colored building elevation uh at that location. There would be some additional work associated with parking lot and the access to to the uh Sally port uh as far as parking or uh site work, but there would not be any additional parking. We might have some parking on the back side for employees, which I didn't look at. I didn't show that on the sketch. So basically the building you're looking at on the the black is about 40 by 100 by 4,000 square ft. We probably would also look at the removal of the gravel island in the middle of the jail parking lot and possibly be able to create more additional parking spots in there as well. Um this uh this this site honestly folks this site makes sense. If you're going to build a new building for the prosecutor's office this is the site

that it needs to be built on. Um, so if you look at back to what I call the prosecutor's office study, you look at site two, uh, on the second page, uh, northeast corner of the law enforcement center outside the 100year flood plane, anticipated uh, you know, possibly as much as 4,000 square foot can be be put there. Still plenty of parking. We would make some modifications to the parking and the asphalt in order to have accessibility to the uh Sally port and the cost is about a million3. Okay. This says a million288 650 but we've always rounded it up to about a million3. Yes. So at the 15% you're a million5 and is that turnkey put the key in the door parking lot everything's done.

Yes sir. But the I think Kevin's Kevin was giving the number of a million three. Yeah. But I'm going to use the 15% just to round it up to be safe. In my it's a million three to a million five. Yeah it's a million five. I mean this is a conceptual this is a conceptual budget. This is, you know, this isn't this isn't a hard dollar figure that I guarantee. The other issue we get into as well is this is based off of today's pricing estimate. It is not based on if if we drag our feet on this project 12 to 18 months, you could potentially end up costing more.

That's a very good point. I mean, the the the cost increases for construction right now is anywhere. It can be as much as 5% per year. Is the inflation on? The inflationary factor. Yes. Yeah, there's the inflationary factor. I mean, you've also got those costs have been elevated for some time, right? And now we're seeing, you know, the potential for kind of economic downturn to some extent. And so those prices could go down also. Is that correct? Who knows? I mean, it's always a possibility. Mhm. I I don't I don't think I would feel comfortable rejecting that. Okay. You think that'll go up?

Yes, I do. Yes, ma'am. For clarification, can you tell me exactly where the asbestous is in the current prosecutor's office? Cuz I don't No, I can't. I don't have that report in front of me, but it's I can. So, the basically current location for the prosecutor's office is in the utility room, which basically where the HVAC system is stored, and then two bathrooms in the same area is currently encapsulated. is not bleeding any dust or anything of that nature, creating a hazardous environment. But again, that's something that has to be taken care of. It is, but it is encapsulated. Yes. Okay. Okay. Good. I I just wanted clarification if it was throughout the building or where it was at. Okay. Thank you. And didn't Ted Adams have an outside consulting firm come in and inspect that? Yes.

So, he's got that all documented from that from from that report. That's all documented by outside. We have a report. Yes, sir. All right. Question. Has remediation been documented for that? No. Encapsulation has though, right? Is it is encapsulated? It is basically contained and not contributing negatively to the environment in that building. That has been documented. That's what the consultant told us. Okay. But to clean it up has not been documented. That is correct. No. To do that, you're going to open up the whole

process of Right. So what so the reason that has not been caught is right now it's contained it is not linking to that and like I said negatively there and the discussion around the prosecutor's office after we went through the discussion with Dan on originally there were four proposals upgrade the existing building build on the site where the building building the existing building is his first proposal which was what can be done on the courthouse house north lawn, right? And then obviously the last option which she's talking about right now. Thank you.

So the first two were basically removed because of structure and location meaning not updating the existing not existing prosecutor's office and not building. Dan, I have a question for you. It's more of an educational for you on me. The existing courthouse, I have no idea when was that originally built? 18 uh 70 maybe burned down and was rebuilt in the I think in 1840 something.

Okay. this new building for the prosecuting attorney's office provided going forward in the future. And that building is in law in addition to this building, the law enforcement center and this prosecuting attorney's office. Assuming that those buildings are properly maintained, will they have the expected life expectancy of the same as what we've got the courthouse? I don't believe so. Okay. I'm going to be honest with you. I don't believe so. I I I I 100 years will like this building.

It's unbelievable. I It's It's unbelievable how those old buildings what the what the longevity of those old buildings are. But the new buildings today so like this building here I mean is this building I don't know when I don't even know when this building is 1991 we moved in in 1999 okay so 2091 will this building still be functionally not without spending probably over a million dollars to maintain it to maintain it renovated okay that's that was thank yeah all right

so I in answer your question can and can those buildings can these buildings still be standing? Yes, as long as that went yes cost would be substantial. At some point in time you trade you you know you look at and I' I'm I've experienced that in my own business. You know I'll buy a building and I'll say okay we're going to remodel this and we're going to make it this office. Okay, you get into it and you find out that the cost in order to upgrade it and update it according to codes and and fire as well as building codes and everything else, the cost exceeds what Okay. What you could do to just tear it down and build your building.

Gotcha. Thank you. 1.3 stills 1.3 1.5 I mean this is this is standard woodframe construction, correct? With a brick with a brick veneer. It would be woodframe construction with a brick veneer. Yes. at 3700 square ft. I mean, that's size 2 by six walls. A moderately probably the outside walls that be the interior walls be two by four. That's fine. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's still that's a that's a that's a decent size house and $1.5 million for a decentiz house. It's $400 at 3,700. A million5 it's $400 a square foot. Sorry. Yeah. which is I mean it's

but it's a commercial applic is is it fair for me to go okay I'm just using a million5 round up right and then divide that by 3700 square f feet so that's 400 bucks a square feet and then you go over here on the residential side you know and the word on the street is you're a buck and a half to a buck 75 on a residential property but you're trying to contrast a residential property property. This is a commercial property. So, I'm assuming that the exterior doors are far more heavy duty than you have on a residential.

Well, there's so many so many things that you've got to look at in a commercial construction project as opposed to a residential. You got the ADA requirements. Okay. ADA requirements. It's just it's a substantial ad to a project. You got the building codes. Okay. fire code, which is totally different. The fire code uh you know the you know in order to in order to get a building permit for a commercial project it first has to be approved by by the the state. Okay. And I've been through that.

And then I'm going to ask one last question here just from an educational standpoint. You have government versus private sector. So, let's say I'm a private sector guy. I want to build the same building and I go bid the job. Will the private sector cut a break for the private sector? And does the private sector have a tendency to try to rape and pillage the public sector because it's government? Well, I'd like to address that in the next part of my presentation. Thank you. All right. Thanks. Uh and that's that's the construction delivery system. Yeah. And and why why we are recommending that.

Okay. So again, the the in the meeting with the prosecutor, uh Kevin, uh the judge, and the sheriff, they're all in agreement. Okay. We we wanted to make sure we had their endorsement. They're all in agreement. That's the location for the prosecutor's office. So now we're looking and again these numbers are purely conceptual numbers. Okay, I think there's a good chance that it could be less but in these numbers also there's a lot of hidden costs. I shouldn't say hidden but it's it's cost associated with design and uh cost association associated with review uh value engineering okay all sorts of hidden costs that's not just hard dollar construction cost but that's what that's that's what uh but I feel pretty comfortable with the numbers that we presented million3 to million five total cost. Uh, is there a chance it could be less? Oh, yeah. I hope it is. We're going to work towards it being less. But, uh, I'm going to be honest with you. I'm I'm I in a situation like that. I usually try to give the worst case scenario. Okay. And I feel pretty comfortable with that. If we get going on the project, if we wait a couple years, we One advantage we have though is we already own the land.

There's no land acquisition. Yeah. That was my concern with that on top. I mean, you know, I would think 1.5 million would be buying the land, preparing the land, and building the building. We already own the land. So, that seems like a really high figure.

So, let me let me make a comment just running a a residential building that is now being used as a commercial building. And every time you go to do a change, if you go and install a residential door, a 36-in door, exterior door, that door is $250. That's just the price of the door. If you to meet fire code requirements and meet occupancy and to meet safety standards and you go in and install a commercial door, they start at $750. That's not installed and that's no hardware. That door can cost you as much as $1,500. Okay. So that's to to to compare and say your building cost in residential is comp comparable to what you're doing commercially. It's not. Okay. So that's why we look at bringing an expert in with Dan and his background and saying what is the actual res you know

I'm not a house I'm not a house builder but I have developed land before and so lots. Okay. I have built houses and and the infrastructure cost is on for for a a raw piece of ground can be very astronomical. Oh, I was just going to ask the delta between a commercial code uh commode versus a residential commode. I think he doesn't want to pay. Well, there is there is there is a difference. Yes, there is. flush things. It's a handicap thing,

you know. You see you see the higher you see the higher toilets, you got to have those. You got to have stalls. You got to and and you got to stalls got to be where you got enough room to get in there and get a wheelchair around and that kind of stuff. So, that's the whole regulatory framework. It's all that. Well, I'm just I'm looking at this door.

Door closures. You don't have door closures on a residential house. I think part of the question is paying for the $500 government hammer that we've seen in the past which we don't want to have to do. So again, that's why I want to get to that because we're looking at a different delivery method because one of the things that I have looked at as a commissioner and going forward with this is I am I am not impressed with the delivery of the last couple projects that we have had with DLC

and not that the contractors that have worked for them and that but I've not been impressed with what's happened especially again I mean we so not only did we have se issues in the courthouse with regards to there was an elevation issue that was not caught during the design phase that the county bore the burden of. We had a flooding issue that we just fixed. Okay. The trim that is in the actual courthouse does not and by the actual contract in his review is supposed to have matched the trim which is a white up trim in the actual other offices. We have pine there are issues with regards to quality of the work as far as putting in the actual windows and things that nature and the way they were designed. And now we just learned a week ago when we had the power outage in this county that the DLC did not design nor specify in their specification connection of those two things to the generator on site. So when the power went down, the security area was unpowered and the south port was unpowered.

So why do we keep using DLC? That was my question.

Dan, I got a question. Um when so if you were, you know, put your unretired previous previous previous previous previous private hat back on um and you were building a commercial building and you had and it was for yourself and you had just a rock bottom budget to do it and you needed to build a 3,700 square ft commercial building as a private developer to meet all the commercial codes just and you were going to rock bottom it. Now you got to have security entrances. This is a this is a secure facility. Um I'm assuming you've thought of alternative options here that I'm expecting not to be super palatable to the to the county as a whole, but what would that rock bottom option look like if you were in that position? And then the question becomes, okay, well, you could do that as a private developer that had a long-term income on that property, but if you were gonna sell that immediately to a government, what would you actually price it at? Because it's not going to be no profit and then you kind of help us see that picture of what that would look like if you could. Well, you you're asking a question that's impossible for me to answer and and give you a firm number, but if I was to build this building and rent it out, okay, when you're a developer, you you you look at the construction cost versus and you compare that to what the income is. Okay? It's what you call a cap rate. Okay? I got to look at the cap rate. Okay. So, if that building cost me a million dollar or the building cost me $2 million, I don't care as long as my projected income is going to offset that

cap rate. A cap rate of, you know, I always like to be at five 6% cap rate. Okay? Cap rate is includes all your all your uh cost for construction. If you got a loan, you're the the the interest and the carrying charges associated with the with the loan as well as the operating costs, maintenance costs, and updates and all that. Okay, that's how determine what the rental rate is on something. Okay, you really look at it from how much rent can you get out of it and then you back into those numbers. But, uh,

if you were flipping it, what would that look like? And paint that picture for us. Well, land cost is the big difference. Okay? You know, I I I I don't I don't mean to be argumentative with you particularly regarding the land, but you know, where I built a land cost for that particular site would be4 million dollars. Yeah. Easy. Okay. Yeah. Now, I don't know what it is down here, but it'd be a quart million dollars in that location. That's probably a little more maybe. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it I think that'd be the minimum.

Uh I remember the first time and this is back years ago when I was active in development business. I could not believe that a particular corner that we had um up in up in Marian County was on the corner of a of a of a very welltraveled road streets and McDonald's paid us a million dollars for like a one acre or a little bit less than one acre power. So, and I'm like, are you kidding me? You know, now that very same property, bare land is probably $2 million, you know.

Well, let me get you. I That was a tough question. Let me give you an easier one. $3,700 ft commercial building, rock bottom price, no brick. I mean, we're talking what I mean that what we've got now is $350 a square foot. I assume that's Hold on. Just let me finish. 350 a square foot is what you got now. What would you I mean what would be I mean if we said hey we're broke we're borrowing what's that number one thing I want to push back on that though is Darren did you just let him answer

because I want to premise that with the problem we're facing right now with the prosecutor's office is that we did the rock bottom bare minimum what we could do get by with shoestring budget now we're paying for that. So, I don't want to go absolute rock bottom shoestring, but to your point, yeah, I mean, so go ahead. What What do you What do you think? I I I believe $250, $300 a square foot. Okay. Wait a minute. I I got to step in here for a minute. Um the council approved the $4 million loan.

The council approved the $4 million loan. what the decision as what they're going to do or not going to do does not rest with the council. I believe from a statutory standpoint that is solely a commissioner's decision. It is not the council. So the council has no input on what what is built, where it's built, how it's built. This this today is nothing more than an information proposal is all it is. Okay. But so for us to debate it Yeah. But to what you've repeated over and over again, aren't we the financial respons that on the front end on the $4 million loan? There was no there was no building to do that on, Jim. Darren,

we don't have We just now have the plans for the building. So now we have the building to make the question on. Okay, stop for a minute. before we renewed the four the ordinance to create the $4 million four-year note. Let me Yeah, go ahead. Wouldn't a better approach had been had we have looked at an actual what is it actually going to cost before we did? No, we did not. They threw out numbers. There was a two$ two and half million dollar numbers. We did not have these numbers until we until Darren, I'm not going to engage. Okay. I simply

What's the point? What then? Why did you bring it up? Well, let me say something in between us two is is we did not do that early on in terms of due diligence to great detail. Fine. We may not have been in that position, but we can see is the commissioners are the commissioners utilizing the money properly for our next round to say okay, we will preempt that and say, "Hey, we saw some anomalies here. We want to clarify that this time.

So Dan at 250 250 a square foot that's 925,000 and that would be just ultra rock bottom you know uh plus contingency. So you're looking at I mean you know that's a $375,000 difference if I'm looking at the math right. So it's it's pretty I mean what kind of what that tells me is you're actually this is a pretty tight budget already if I'm doing that math right. um at 3 at 350 a square foot if if rock bottom's 250.

So So can I just one second? You also have to take into consideration that this building will reside in the confines of Nashville. So one of the reasons that we made the proposal that we did with regards to brick base and those kinds of things is that was what was approved for the the jail. That's what has passed. It needs to be similar to the jail. If it's going to sit in the jail lot, it needs to there needs to be an aesthetic tie. So, and so can and sorry. No, you go ahead.

The other point why we looked at the consideration in the location is because there's underutilized parking at the jail. Okay. We have absolutely no parking at the courthouse. There is no security built into the existing system in the existing building. You can walk by Ted Adams office right now on the street and behind between the So, let's Yeah. Um it's ahead it's the best estimate that we could do right

this is just a statement I want to say first off I want to appreciate you coming to us and explaining the whole process what you are doing what your thoughts are etc we've not had that in the past and I want to say thank you for that because you could just go forward because we have you know approved the bond I appreciate you coming and letting us debate it. While some people don't want to debate it and it's not necessarily for us to debate, at least we can ask our questions, at least be heard. You've heard us and I appreciate it. I appreciate that.

I know it sounds like I'm being combative, but I I really appreciate and I'll second that as well. Thank you for the information that he's being combative or that you appreciate it. No, I appreciate the information. I appreciate the information and it appears that the commissioners and everyone's done their due diligence on this. So now does the bot require council approval or no? No. No. Okay.

Um if there's any other senator, it's unless there's other questions regarding the location of the prosecutor's office. I'm going to go into the actual construction delivery system that we are recommending. Okay. Bot stands. This this isn't regarding that, but it may relate to the overall regarding DLZ being an entity in terms of working on this. I would preface them to say you guys pay for what you didn't do in the courthouse because we've seen things in there that should have been done if they want to bid. So DLC won't be involved in this

DZ. So at this point in time again let him explain this this this delivery process to you and then once that you'll probably get a better understanding of why I'm saying it's not likely that they'll be engaged. Okay. Okay.

I go ahead. I guarantee you that it won't be as old around. Uh the BO project it stands for build operate transfer. Okay. It is a legisl it is a it is a legislative approved construction delivery system. It was established uh the code I think was two mid mid 2005 2004 something like that. Everyone got all excited about it because they thought it was such this new unique way to do things. I'm going to tell you, it's not a new unique way to do things because when I was in development business, I did I think four fire stations, three two or three government office buildings and the Hutman County Jail under the very same concept that they now have passed. uh we uh and at that time we call it the lease purchase procedure for government entities. Okay. Uh we probably would have continued to do those, but there was administrative change in the governor's office, which meant there was a different attorney general and the attorney that the the new attorney general uh interpreted what we were doing, not exactly the way it should be as it relates to prevailing wage laws and things like that. And that's the reason why we quit doing it. Uh but it's it it's a concept uh that is basically what it amounts to is a political subdivision. The county uh can pursue a public private partnership because that's really what is it is it's a public private partnership for the development of a project. Okay? And when I say

development of the project, this private partner would be responsible for the development, the design, and the construction of this facility. Um, it's a it's code it's it's Indiana code 5-23 if anyone wants to look it up. Indiana code 5-23 that governs the BO transaction it it u when I say it governs the B transaction. It tells you how you have to do it. The steps in the B project the process is the first thing you have to do is the county commissioners have to adopt the B statute in the Indiana code. that was done at the last commissioner's meeting. I believe

it was done in the commissioner's meeting at the end of February.

Okay. So, that they have adopted that. Just because they haven't adopted doesn't mean they're going to do it, but you got to adopt it first. The next step is to after you've identified your project, okay, the next step is to uh put out an RFPQ. RFPQ stand request for proposals slashqualifications to potential developers. Okay? It's not a competitive bid situation. It's purely a negotiated situation. I have done uh most recently couple years ago the new Edinburg fire station. If you've been down 31, the one looks like a big barn. Okay. They wanted to keep it in a horse horse pattern because that all used to had a bunch of horses run in. That was a B project and that was the first B project that the town of Edinburgh ever did.

Uh, hey Dan, real quick. You said not competitive. Does that mean not required to take the low bid? Exactly. Okay. Thank you.

And I'll I'll get into this as well. Um, so you you put out the RFQ. I've already prepared a rough draft of what the RFQ might look at. It hasn't been reviewed by by county legal or anything else, but we are pretty much ready to to put the RFQ out uh subject to legal review. uh when their proposals are received, the proposals are going to be from developers, okay? Not contractors necessarily, okay? Developers. I have a list of three or four developers that are very experienced with this. I actually had one developer that I think he said he did 200. Was it 200?

240. He did 200. He's done 240 of these in Indiana

in the B concept. He pretty much wrote the book on this. The particular gentleman that I brought in that I have worked with and I've known for a while uh and made a presentation to to the to a couple of the commissioners to understand exactly what the process is. Uh so we develop an RFP RFPQ uh and we get that out to developers that have that experience. Then they submit a proposal. Their proposal and their evaluation of their proposal is going to be based on experience reputation. It'll be based on uh cost hasn't come to anything yet. Okay. Reputation, experience, and uh uh the qualifications. Qualifications from the standpoint of whether or not whether or not they have the financial backing to do this as well as qualifications as far as similar projects and comparable projects. and uh contacted those other communities that they have done this with and get that uh their recommendation or their opinion of it. So once once the commissioners then select a developer to represent them on the building, we haven't spent any money at all yet. We have spent no money. Once once the u uh commissioners have selected who they feel comfortable working with for this project. Okay. Then then it becomes a process that uh of of the of the developer to to then

get back with us and they present it's called the scoping period. Okay. During the scoping period, which is the first step, during the scoping period, the developer is going to provide for us a cost estimate. Okay? It's going to provide us a plan. When I say plan, I'm talking about construction, not total construction, but a good what we call in the industry design development. a design development plan cost and a site analysis. Okay, so this developer spent on this project probably only $100,000 to get to that point. We haven't paid them anything yet. Okay. Then the commissioners would evaluate those plans, the concept, the cost and the next step would be if they decided to proceed with this development on this project. Uh then there would have to be a resolution uh at a at a public meeting to proceed with the development of the project. If the commissioners decide no, we don't want to do this.

Go ahead, bud. Can we bring order to the room, please? You've not been recognized. I wasn't speaking. If the commissioner I can giggle.

Can you vote? If the commissioners decided at that point in time they don't want to proceed with this developer or they don't want to proceed with that project this project see they walk away the amount of money they spent is lost. There's no reimbursement. There's no more cost to us. They walk away. We say no we don't want to do this now or we don't like the way you're acting or whatever. Or you're laughing while I'm trying to talk. Whatever. Okay. Yes. So, you're saying it's only one developer in position of that or multiples will be doing one developer at this point in time. Okay. One developer at this point in time. It's expensive if they were I'm sorry.

It would get expensive for multiple developers to have to be doing

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, this one developer has has has burdened the entire cost associated with this project at this point in time with no guarantee. Okay? And you say, why would he do this? Well, that's the reason why we got to make sure we got a developer that can swing that financially to get through this point. And the reason why they can do it, the good developers can do it is because they're confident of their abilities and they've done their preliminary research associated with with the county. I'm over here looking at it through the lens of a developer and I'm sitting here going, if I'm working with a political subdivision to where there are political differences within a commissioner's office and I deem that commissioner's office to be somewhat unstable, then I think I would be extremely reluctant in making that capital investment into that community with a potential outcome of that unstable environment of saying, "Well, we don't change their mind."

Well, your price goes up. Well, I'd walk away from it. I would There's there's there's there that's that's that's a risk that they have. It is.

Uh yeah, but uh you guys are good enough to evaluate that based on the election cycle and all sorts of things whether or not they are really invested in this. Dan, it seems like, you know, step step three, I guess, you know, the RFPQ is put out and returned by, you know, four builders and the commissioners are asked to select without seeing the cost or the design build plan, uh, which comes in the next step, which is the scoping period. you know, so you're truly, you know, they're going to pick the most qualified, highly referenced, you know, um, best financially backed person. But, you know, and where does the negotiation occur, though? I didn't hear that step in there somewhere.

Okay, let me let me elaborate on exactly where you're going with this. Okay. If if if if the project doesn't continue after we get the proposals or or get get the the uh scoping period completed and we've got these documents, okay, per Indiana code, those documents are all the counties. You fire the guy, it's all these documents are county. Okay. So that front ending cost for design and cost estimates everything I mean it's it's it's over $100,000 the engineering all that sort of thing. We have those documents and we can can do whatever we want to with them.

Yes. A lot of what Scott's saying is if if we don't have any competitive bidding where is our leverage? Good. I'm I'm getting there. That's part of it that we keep the product the work product. Yeah, you you got the product. Okay.

When the project is once the project goes bear with me, let me go through the whole process. Okay. And I think some of these questions will be answered. Okay. So once scoping period is completed, okay, then by resolution the county commissioner say this is the firm that we want to work with. We're going to proceed. Okay. Then we get in the design phase. Okay. The design phase will include a committee appointed by the commissioners per Indiana code. Okay. And that committee is involved in design all the way up three. That committee probably be being in a commissioner and pro and a prosecutor probably. Okay. We will be involved in all of the design of that particular project. Okay. Regarding the sizes of the rooms, the location of various offices, uh all that. Okay. The developer now has hired an architect and an engineer to develop these documents and work with us, the committee to design a project to our satisfaction or to the to the to the countyy's satisfaction.

One quick while you're on that. You you answered one of my questions that I was holding on to while you're here. Are there developers who do the architectural and engineering aspects themselves or they all contract? I don't know of any developer that does that. Okay, that was my question. There may be, but there there there's there's architect engineers that try to be developers sometimes. Okay. Okay.

But not the other way around. So the design is complete now. the design is complete to the satisfaction of the committee that commissioners appointed to to to represent them on this project. After that is completed then we have the resolution the public hearing at public hearing resolution okay to proceed with the next step. uh at that point in time we receive a performance bond and a payment bond from the developer. Okay? That way we know that on our land out there's not going to be any leans associated with the developer not paying for something. Um then we start construction. During the construction process, okay, it can be structured a couple different ways. Okay? And I don't really want to get into it because it can be very complicated. It can be it can be structured and stamped. One way is the developer goes and gets construction financing. He pays the bills. Okay. Another way is possibly a draw down on the bond. Okay. To pay the progress the progression of the construction. Okay. There's a lot of different ways it could be done according to the INA code. with the project just completed. There's a final walk through now right now spending money and the building is completed on our property. I over I I passed up one thing which is really incidental but you say okay well how can how can how can the how can the

uh developer build on our property and get funding to do so. Okay well there's a temporary easement. They're building on a temporary easement which allows them to do that. So the project is completed. Now they say to us they say okay we're done there's a walk through punch list total examination the first one is done by the architect of record to establish the substantial completion date and the outstanding items associated with the outstanding with with the substantial completion. The other one, the most important one that we care about is our walk through. Okay, we walk through and walk into this area here and say, "Wait a minute. You told me those are going to be pillow windows. They're Anderson windows."

Okay. Or pine trim instead of oak trim.

Or pine trim instead of oak trim. I don't suspect that's going to happen because if I'm allowed I will be very involved in this review this. Uh but if we see something we don't like or this is cheap carpeting. We never knew the carpeting was going to be that thick. We thought the carpet was going to be that thick. Okay. Whatever. If we see anything in the walkthrough that is to our satisfaction within reason. We can't come in and beat the guy up. But within reason, okay, it's going to be corrected before we take it before we hand you hand over keys. When the keys are handled over, okay, now your actual cost begins. Okay, based on whatever the negotiated term is uh regarding the bond and the cost associated with it. So basically that's the way it works. Okay. Now, the cost is going this historically cost is less. And I'll tell you why historically the cost is less is because when the government puts out designs, they've hired an architect, they've hired an engineer, they designed it, they go out in the competitive bid. Okay? It's really hard not to accept the low bid when you competitive bid. There's arguments all day long, but I'm telling you, I've been there. I've done that over and over again. It's hard not to accept the low bid if if the company provided a bid bond, okay? Guaranteeing his bid. So, you don't know who you're going to get stuck with. You don't know if you're going to get stuck with someone that has the capable capabilities as well as the qualifications and experience to do that kind of a project or not.

uh the private developer will be taking competitive bids on different segments of the project. Okay, the framing, the masonry, the whatever HVAC plumbing, electrical. Okay, it's to his benefit to get that cost down as low as possible, too. Why is that? Because he makes more money off of the

He's going to make more money. He's got a developer fee in there. When he gives us a guaranteed maximum price, he's going he's going to give us a guaranteed maximum price at the end of the at the end of the scoping period. Okay. He's got a developer fee. So, he's he's going to compete. He's going to compete and make sure he gets the best price. Yes, sir. Would it be fair for me to think of as a developer as the general contractor? and the general contractor outsources a lot of the subs to do a lot of that construction process. Is that fair? Yes. So they're really pretty much development process

really more of a general contractor because as a general contractor I would not want to have W2 employees for every step of the process. These developers won't have anyone hammering nails on the project. Yeah. Yeah. They won't have anyone hammer. Yeah. couldn't afford it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir. I see value in what you're saying. My curiosity is still where is our leverage and how do we exercise it? Leverage related to do competitive bidding. You can say, "Hey guy, we like this and you like that. Why don't you lower your price?" We're we're beholden to this guy pretty much seeing from the beginning.

We're beholding the guy, but the guy told us more because he's already gave us guaranteed maximum price that we accepted, right? And we have it now at the end of the project. But I'm okay. That guaranteed maximum price the the leverage or the compet competition factor was before that you're saying or it's similar like we just get this one guy based on reputation and not specifics of the project. Is it true? Maybe I don't understand that part. Well during the scoping period he's going to create what we call design development drawings. design and development drawings will be things like

architecture all the architectural you know it's going to have brick and carbon and whatever so his his guaranteed maximum price is going to have that

basis okay and these guys are so no going experience at this they they know what the cost is going to be uh it's our leverage is really comes into the fact that we control the design as if we accept the design development drawings. Okay, we we accept the design at that point in time and if there's any variation to that design then he's got a problem. Okay, now Kevin mentioned this a little earlier when he referred to the courthouse project. the courthouse uh project, you know, the drainage thing that should never happen. I don't I don't I I'm not going to badmouth anyone. I'm going to badmouth the previous administration, but there was obviously no one in charge and watching over that project. Okay. As soon as I walked up there and someone said, "There's a water problem here." Okay, I went out. I took some measurements. I looked around. I thought, "Okay, well, here's a catch basin supposed to catch the water, but it's 10t away from the curb." And the water comes around the curb, and that curb's lower than the catch basin. Duh. Okay. There's a curb along There's a curb along whatever that street is. There's a curb along that street right there that used to have a sidewalk through it. They cut the curb out and never filled it in. Well, that water's cut right around too. Okay. No one paid attention to

Didn't we have somebody seeing it? I mean, I wasn't nobody, right? I attempted to get an otr in there contracted oversight and they and they had, if I not remember, if I remember correctly, if it's structured like they have with the law enforcement center, they had one site visit. I had an OTR brought in to look at the stuff we got thrown out of the commissioner's office. I remember is a fact. Mhm. I remember.

He pointed out numerous things. He says, "You guys painted the cinder block and it's still weeping. You guys got pine window sills that are not consistent with the plans that say consistent with the other building which are white oak things of that nature. The windows had cracks in the side of the frame. It was negligent.

Well, I'm confident that this process for this particular building we won't have those issues." Now the only reason why the the uh the cost could increase from what the guaranteed maximum price is would be if the commissioners the county decide to make a change. Okay, if they decide, okay, we really want that wall to be moved out 10 foot or we want some other change. Okay, so it's real important that during a scoping uh portion of of of this construction process or development construction delivery system is that there's a good understanding of what the design development drawings are and that will be 100% open communication with that developer and that architect. Again,

a wall doesn't even have to move. you move the wall half, but you're still re-engineering the entire building.

You could affect the whole structural capacity, structural integrity of a building if you if you if you move a wall. So basically that's a summary of what so now it's the county the the construction ownership of the construction is transferred to to the county and it's on our property. We own the building and now we have maintenance associated with that. There's typically a one-year warranty in construction on on on labor. Uh as far as material and equipment, it depends on the manufacturer. You know, uh there's a one-year warranty on the on the labor, but some components of a building, the warranty period can be as much as 5 years as it relates to furnaces, air conditioners, equipment. So, that's what the commissioners are looking at is that BT process that he wanted me to go and Kevin wanted me to go through with that so you understand. Any questions?

Yes, Mr. Kim. Not going to hold you to this. Would it be possible that um we got what do we got left? 8 months and 26, 12 months and 27. That would be 8 and 12 would be 20 months. the January one of 2028 that you could have a ribbon cutting ceremony. We'll have a ribbon cutting before that.

Is that your go? Is that the thought? Okay. All right. Our goal was to try and get through this and on my one is to try and get by the end of end of April the decision so that we can start the actual engagement and look at discussions of who's on the committee who's going to set the design and at that point in time get it finalized right and per the just one engagement that we have with the his expert he said if we can close this off within that time frame it could be as little as 14 months no more than 18 months to put that building in place to get it done. Yeah. Cuz the actual physical with a guaranteed price.

Yeah. With the actual physical from the minute you the back the minute the dozer goes in to do sight prep, you know, start digging for sewers and water lines and all that stuff and the foundation, right? Um the that's probably construction is probably something to right. But 6 months probably eight months total. Okay. It's probably eight months construction project. Yeah. Then if you could put but it's probably 6 months because the ideal because the ideal window would really be in a perfect world would be what June to middle of October. Let's get the rain.

This time this time next year we should see a building that's pretty close to being completed with the exception of asphalt landscaping all this stuff. Thank you. Yes. Another question. I heard months ago or so there was a problem. The water company wanted to charge the law enforcement center some additional sump for water and or sewer I believe that was going in there. You know how that would relate to this building cuz now you're going to have a more use from that. You might want to look into that. I don't know exactly what the details were on that but I think we pushed it back and says no that's not pertinent to us. But those are the kind of things that can cause little problems or big.

Yeah. Well, the sewer capacity, okay, would be the first thing that we'd have to look at is is is the water arm. I'm sure there's no problem as far as capacity, but sewer capacity be one of the things that one of the first things we have to look at because we're tying on to basically the same. But, uh, I'm pretty confident that based on the based on the sewer lift station there, it's a big lift station. sound pretty confident that the serve pass is fine.

Where does this the site uh a couple OCDs working on me here, but can we can if a corner of this building goes into the flood plane? Is it there's a is there a waiver on that as long as the building is above the flood plane and or do you have to go through Yes, you're still permitting process.

It's a big lengthy permitting process. There is a way to do it. It has to be, I believe, to the foot above the 100year flood plane. Okay? When you drive down the road and you'll notice some low area and you'll see a a manhole sticking up 8t above where the ground is. That's why because that's in the flood plane area and that has got to be above. Same thing with the building. But it is we don't want to mess with that though. We want to get out of that area. Uh and even if we have to move closer in and tear out more parking lots, that was my next We want to get out of there. We can put all the parking we want down in that flood plan.

You can put parking. We could actually put this in part of the parking lot area kind of straighten it up. Put it more in line aesthetically with the jail and move parking if we have to into the flood plan. That's exactly right. Okay. That's that would be what our what our civil engineer would the first thing the civil engineer would look at is exactly where we could build angle angled buildings really mess with my OCD any other questions for me thank you commissioners thank you very much

appreciate again thank you very Yeah. Yeah. Good job. Yeah.

Hi, Sher Mitchell. Wow. Why did I just listen to an hour of that? I mean, you guys have no input on how this bond money spent. Is that what you're telling me? No, I haven't. You do have input. Yeah. So, you can take this $1.3 million project and turn it into a $500,000 project to remodel the prosecutor's office that it's more than a $500,000

whatever. I'm making them up obviously because we don't have any um estimates for that kind of thing. the the cost to get us an estimate on that would be an additional cost that would probably be thrown away because there there are physical uh work solution issues that cannot be resolved with the prosecutor's office where parking for one um other issues I've been to the to the courts to the court three times in the last week. I had no problems finding the parking space. A lot of people do. Yeah. I I

this this is also bigger than the current prosecutor's office. I understand that. Um what what jobs is the prosecutor not able to do in his current um building? Security is a big issue. Security. Yeah, that's a huge How many times has the prosecutor had an attempt on his life? I can't speak to that, but it only takes once. So never. You don't know of any instances? I know he's had tourists walking at the at the log jail, come up on his window looking in. Three people sitting there standing in his window. That's not a security issue. That's tourist. That's tourist. If somebody can come up and put their face on his window, they can do that at the jail.

No. Yeah, they can. They're they're a security. How much of our population is senior? I don't know the specific number. Around 70%. 65. Yeah, I think 60. So, we have old people just going around beating people over the head and robbing them, do we? Yeah. Only takes one.

One with a hatchet. Um, wow. You guys are in trouble as we all know um with your bond debt rating. It's dropped by two notches. Correct. We all acknowledge that. Um, do you think that a bond investor will appreciate looking at your $1.3 million building when you have um bridges that uh you can't put 1,500 lb on? Do you think they want to see that? I think you've exaggerated some of it. But

what did I 1500 lb? Kevin, how many bridges do you have? The lowest rated brid the lowest rating on a bridge is two ton. Okay. It's 4,000 lbs. Okay. How many bridges do you have in critical? There's only one bridge that's in critical, which is Mount Liberty. The other one that was in critical was the one we just replaced. So Mount Liberty, correct? And was it 6,000? 6,000 6 ton which is $12,000.

Oh, you're right. I was exaggerating, but I haven't gotten my $1,300 or 1300 page report yet. I'm waiting on that. Um, but you have critical bridge work that needs to be done. How you going to pay for that? We are working on that. Why don't you use this money? Because we have all kinds of needs. You don't need a prosecutor's office. You want a prosecutor's office. There's a difference how much that guy is your opinion but we have done some analysis. The security the asbestous the parking there are issues. It's it's basically a building that was taken I think out of Camp Adterbury

years ago for this. It's about time something is done in that area. We need to service that. You need to service your bridge so that the taxpayers here can drive over their roads. We're working on that. We don't care. There is no prosecutor's office looks like. We don't care. But we do care if we can't drive over our bridges. We care a lot. It seems like your priorities are a little fried to the taxpayer. Maybe not to you people

who have destroyed our bond rating. By the way, do you are you all aware that if you have one more significant um finding on your audit in 2025 or 2026 that you go on credit watch? Do you know what that means? Any of you do you know what that means? Tell me what it means. Darren, what does it mean? Darren, I'm not going to get into the specifics. I can tell you. We're not We're not here to get into this. Yes, we are, Darren. This is the people's money, right? But and we're sick of this, right?

And we're stuck with all of you because there's no one running against any of you. And we're tired of it. We're tired of you spending our money ridiculous. You hire consultants to come do your jobs and they suck. And then you hire more consultants and they suck. and you are killing us because you can't set priorities and you don't spend our money wisely and we're over it. Do you think I'm alone here? You think I'm the only one that notices this? I'm sorry you're getting your tail rigged today, but I think it's long overdue.

I think we're ahead of you on that. Since that we recognize those problems, we are now putting in policies, process, and procedures to say, "Let's put a basis in to prevent those from occurring in the future." Now, it is not going to happen immediately. It's going to take years, and we're doing that. Took you years to Well, we're stopping the problem. We are stopping the problem. It's taken decades to get to this point. Yes, I know. I've watched it all. Eight years I've been watching you. Eight years. It's been more than eight years for decades. And we're working hard

and I've seen you $400,000 quarter of an acre at the bottom of the library. Commissioners pass it one day, you pass it the next. Can't tell me what the building's going to look like. Nothing. You make irresponsible decisions over and OVER AND WE'RE TIRED OF IT. WE DIDN'T BUY THAT. WE didn't buy that property only because the the guy SELLING IT BACKED OUT. NO, THERE WERE MORE than there were more reasons. You can't say that. Yes, I can. We could have evaluated and says no, we still do not want to buy it. We we entertain. It doesn't matter. Gary, you passed it in one.

No, it does matter. We did not take action on it. Sher, you can't impart that because the guy reucted the offer. Anyh who, we want you that was an exploratory issue. That wasn't a that wasn't a commitment to purchase. There's a difference. There's a difference in what you're arguing and what you're and what you're saying and what you're accusing us of is there and what actually happened. Yeah. So, so my bond rating hasn't my bond debt rating hasn't dropped. I made that up. That has we are working on uh internal controls right now to remedy that internal controls. But yet you're going to spend money.

Internal controls was the biggest issue in that bond rating decrease. We are actively working on that right now.

I read it. But you but you can't change what's going to happen when you have a significant finding in 2025. You cannot change that. And by the way, what credit watch means is that you will no longer have a debt bond rating. You will have to go to private institutions to borrow money from here on out. If you spend this $4 million ridiculously, the chances of you getting any more money in the future without it costing the taxpayers, not you kids, the taxpayers, ridiculous amounts of money, it it it's not going to happen.

Yeah. Well, there's 15,000 of us out here and only six or seven of you. I am just as concerned about it as you are. Then why haven't you done anything? We are doing something about it. It takes time and there's several people involved in this that have to get together. There are multiple offices, multiple buildings, multiple elected positions that have to come together and cooperate. We are getting all of our processes in order to get everybody to cooperate. We finally have an atmosphere where we are working on cooperation. That's what it's taken up to now is a spirit of cooperation that has not existed because there's been infighting and pettiness.

How long have you been on this board, Darren? Since 15. 2015. Yep. So, 11 years. And that atmosphere has been present the entire time and for decades before that. Like I said, right now we have the most cooperation that I have ever seen since I've been here. So, I have hope that we have the ability to get past some of what we've gotten past.

We are putting things in place to do that. I think we appreciate your but you're not acknowledging the fact that we are putting things in place to resolve those issues. They will not produce fruit immediately, but they are going in place to establish that. Like Jared said, internal controls very strong program in that. One example is the health care the health care issue. We did that several years ago. It is just now producing food. It we are we have been under budget on our healthcare for the first time since I've been here.

Let me remind you that when I started this in 2018 that Beth Malry was my auditor and you had $2 million sitting in a rainy day fund. 2 million. And the who let all that money out of that account? That would be yields. That was covering the health the health insurance system that we had that was out of control. That has been fixed since 2018. We are now in a surplus situation on who fixed the healthare. We didn't. You did or they did. We did. Cooperation. We provide oversight council. We appreciate your opinion. I think we do need to move on with other business. Yeah. Yeah, we do. We have other stuff on the agenda. So, I appreciate

that guy talks for an hour and a half and you can't give me 15 minutes. That's interesting. He was he was on the agenda and this is our meeting. So, I understand it's your meeting because that would involve the taxpayers for them to have this meeting. Yeah. Good luck to all of you. Thank you. What a lovely someone. Oh yeah, he's here. Okay, hold on. Do you want to take a break, Darren, or No, no, I need I need to again. So in the spirit of continuing our effort in communication which is appreciated

which is which I you know the commissioner's office is making efforts to do that. So we had the conversation and the budget you went through the exercise of passing the numbers with regards to the the um working conversations that we had about increase our professional services and all that in the last council meeting right and dollars. So litigation was one of the things where we said we're going to struggle there. A little disappointed that we didn't get the numbers out. I'm going to come back. So just a heads up there. We are putting together some finetuned numbers.

Yes sir. Can we as a council and commissioners um I would really think it would well serve us well to go back through and for the council and commissioners just to look to see what we you know have spent you know with with you know uh financial

advisor any professional services so reading financial for example last year I I think it would be move us to take a hard look at the invoices that we were build the billable hours broken down by department. You know, we've got Susan Beavers in there. We've got, you know, I think we pay Barnes and Thornberg 48,000 a year in retainer and then there's anything above and beyond that adds to that. But I'd really I think it would be in the best interest of the taxpayers for the council and the commissioners jointly to work together to kind of establish where that line is where we can kind of what we can allocate a year with regards to professional services. um because that's expensive and you know and Scott brought up you know we brought up an issue with you know what do we you know for example I think we've got a bill right now that's outstanding um and I'm trying to remember what it was

Irwin and Sheileely we have 120 grand in the 2026 budget in the council that we could easily pay that invoice out of you with me but I would I would rather What I I think it would make sense last bullet of this conversation,

but but I'm thinking top down, okay, big picture on an annual basis between the council, you know, not only that, but I think we pay legal fees out of planning and zoning, but professional services. So, any kind of accounting, you know, financial advisors, uh, you know, and legal fees as a county as a whole, because it all comes out of the same bucket, right? I mean, it comes whether it's allocated to the commissioners or whether it's allocated to the council, it's most of it still comes out of that general fund, right? Because there's one big bucket. It's $10 million.

And so out of that, how much do we really want to allocate and and really come up with a good forecast, you know, for example, for 2027 because we're going to be moving into 2027, right? Correct. Yeah. So, so, so just a note again this is a this is a topic that this draws passion from various areas not intended to try and draw is again so we you know we have and again I can only say so much because the information that we're talking about it's not litigation but the dollars that are associated with what we're running into right involves personnel

right so if you want to have an understanding of that we can do that if I believe if I'm not mistaken that Susan's online we can handle that under an executive right or discussion discussion right the kind of that so some of the that information can't be shared here in I get that I get that all I'm referring to is legal services financial advisors that you know are we going to spend 300 grand a year 250 400,000 a year knowing that there are going to be isolated situations that occurred in the first and second quarter of 2025 that ramp wrapped up that cost,

right? Okay. So I again we do everything that we can and that's what we did last and again why the numbers so the question that came out of the council meeting was well why why are we adding 20,000 to to the litigation money that's was the question you asked Jen so at that point in time we'd already been 3 months into the year

I understand that what I'm saying to you though is is that from my perspective I'm looking at top down big picture okay countywide there's 26 departments all total total receipts Last year in 2025, there was $70 million that came in, you know, and so it's it's, you know, we have to look at that big picture. Uh, and then this and now we're in the weeds, which is your accounting, your financial advisor, and your legal expenses. Because whether the line item is in the council budget or whether the line item is the commissioner, it all comes out of the same bucket.

So I think with what Ed is working on and what they have, all that work towards that as a member of the council. I'm speaking on my I'm not speaking on behalf of the council. I'm simply speaking on my behalf, you know, and it's like this $20,000 bill that we've got needs to be paid. It it has been paid. Yeah. So, does you pay it out of the line item out of the commissioner's budget? That's correct. Okay. Which then through is going to throw you guys in trouble, which is means you're going to need more money. Paid out of yours. Some was paid out of

Okay. So, you know, and what we may want to do is simply go in and pull some of the money out of the line item budget, do a transfer out of the council, push it over to the commissioners rather than doing an additional appropriation. And so, I'm going So, in the time that I have been where I'm at doing what I'm doing, the county's planning aspect has been hindered because we have placed little we have placed little value on professional services. That man right there is going to save us money. He has already saved us. He's already saved us $29,000 this year, right?

Because we went back to DLZ and said, "I'm not giving you $29,000 to do something that you did not do properly in your engineering. And that was because of Gary Hwitt." No, this is owner's representative during the courthouse process. Right. So, so I activated that. You started that. That's your gift. So, give me the trophy. We'll get you the ribbon. I'll give you the ribbon. All right. Save the money. We also saved 26,000 another time, but gave half of it back.

Correct. It went back. So, the litigation. So, what Teresa is going to do is she's going to go and take a look at where we are because when that happened the other night with two commissioners in a room, I cannot come forth and speak as commissioner. He's he Tim's our body president. He's there. So there's I'm telling you right now, we're going to come back and ask. That's fine.

Okay. But I have a question on that. Okay. So, so let's say legal fees itemized in the terms of you got litigation. Okay. We don't need to penetrate that. We sort of know what's going on there. Or you have personnel services. We don't need to penetrate that, but just going towards that. But yesterday there was a thing brought up. Okay. How much is spent towards the music center? We want to find out, okay, is that a valid battle to fight and what's going towards it? things like that. Can we quantify quantify the music center? Well, how much legal services is going towards various things, litigation, personnel services? I don't know which part of the legal center. So, that would fall under the professional service aspect.

I know, but can it be itemized to say, okay, this is about the legal center, this is about something else, whatever. So, I'm going to push back on that because again, that falls under the purview of the commissioner. We own the contract for the the rank and music center, right? That the the the actual part of that, right? We own we we own what

the actual contract is set in place that that defines some of the operations of it. I think what Gary's saying is what I as a council person maybe what he's suggesting is we don't want um optional legal expenses to be exceeded while we have mandatory legal services being you know now falling behind and so because we're overspending in these kind of potentially optional areas and so I think he's saying hey you know don't ask us for more money when you're choosing to spend money where it's not needed, right? Or at least explain it if you are, right?

So, the intent coming back for that is to give you an explanation of what those funds are for. That is the intent. Okay. We try to do our best to communicate first, right? But can you get itemized or is that not feasible? You want to see an itemized list? You could ask the auditor to go in and actually pull it claims from Barnes and Thornberg. From Barnes & Thornberg, from Dave Chile. I I I had somehow heard that maybe Bar Thornberg didn't give us itemized. Absolutely. They do. Every claim that I approved has an itemized list of what those activities are. Okay. It's just a matter of utility money. Are we throwing the money? Let's Scott throwing the money in the proper places. Whatever efficiency they is there any problem with that? You guys have a problem?

I'm going to I'm going to push back on you. Proper places. We the commissioners are asking for dollars that go through to operate and do certain things. So for example, I'm going to throw the thing back saying personnel. We make a decision when they know that that that that's an employee situation and it's it is our evaluation that in that that it is the best interest of the county to deal with this being thrown at us with regards to OSHA with regards to EFC and those things. Right? So all that stuff. So there's there's there's there's a perspective to where the I'm saying the discussion can happen. But again, at the end of the day, we have to you have to allow the executive body to run county.

So the question is, do we give you cart blanch or is there something in between? I'm not saying that we No, that's what I'm saying. Let me let me say it. Do we give you cart blanch or is there something in between where is some degree of accountability that we can do our fiscal job? That's all. We're not trying to control it. We just want to understand it. Okay. And again I am willing to go through that discussion. Well I want more discuss results.

You can say the same thing. In other words you're going to have to kind of help us understand what's happening and I don't have a problem. Yeah. My goal which I've heard here today was to increase communication amongst the two offices. You have you have in professional services you have discretionary and non-discretionary billable hours right so what just let me finish please and for example you know I raised this with the council

the only person all right on the council that should have the authority to contact Susan Beavers at 200 bucks an hour is the president of the council Period. All right. Now, the issue is is whether or not the president of the council rather than the c the president I'm not picking on you. You just have title. Okay. His title.

It's the title. I'm talking about the title, the responsibility of that individual. Now, for that individual to go over here and could have read a document to try to comprehend the document, chooses not to read it because they're intellectually lacy. Mhm. And so what do they do? They shove it over to the the attorney and say, "Here, read the document and tell me what it says and we end up getting a bill for 2,200 bucks." That I have a problem with. So legal services, accounting services, any services that they are billable hours, we need to be very guarded about those billable hours. All right? And we should be very cautious of of and and we're not what I what I take offense to as a taxpayer. It's not a 1800 hotline. So I just pick up the phone anytime I want and just start rattling off because my understanding of the legal profession and I'm not picking on the legal legal because the accounting is the same thing.

Professional services. Well, they Yeah, professional services. the minute I dial the phone, they're going to bill me for 15 minutes whether I talk to them for three minutes. And what I object to, and see here's the catch 22, is that you all have the discretionary authority to pick up the phone and call Barnes and Thornberg anytime you want. All right? I have no idea what's going on with those conversations. And what you can do is you can easily rack up $10,000 in legal fees and then you come back to us and we have to pay it cuz we have no choice. You back us in a corner. So I'm just I'm just voicing that we don't have to discuss it. That's a concern.

I know. But here, let me let me address that concern because the way that we've instituted this in the commissioner's office is our attorney Mars and Thornberg comes back to us if that does if anything that we are having conversations with right regards that does not confide or reside within the retainer. They tell us that that is the case. We and I will say this with Tim because we do that. We basically go through the exercise of in the administrative meetings that we have and it is brought to the board as to whether we proceed forward with that or not. So it is not a single commissioner doing that. We have to have consensus of the board in order to incur that cost. Do you have that policy in writing?

We don't have it in We don't have it in writing. It's in by statute. Okay. Right. So we're following it. Okay. Okay. So we and again there's the struggle of being able to do these things and don't and please don't misconrue this. Don't take this as I'm trying to beat up on you. This is not I'm just voicing using the collective you when he looks at you and says you no he's using all of us trying to manage those expenses and try to keep the expenses as you know keep a lid on them. Not me. I was trying to beat up on you. So we want to take a 10-minute recess. Yeah we do. I do. Can I can I Yeah, finish your thoughts. Sorry. Go ahead, Kevin. Because I need to get that. Yeah, go ahead.

So, one of the topics of discussion that I had other than our audience members being and that kind of stuff, but um so that was one of them. The WIS was the second topic or the second agenda item. Um, I'm requesting and we will put it in paper or put it in the proper context to have the county council reimburse or basically reappropriate the additional monies back to the commissioner's office so that we can maintain that because that man right there, we have to pay the bill, right? We've paid it, but we would prefer that get some money back in your account. the money back so that we can keep working on.

And unless there's any objections, real quick, Julie, and the county council, I would think it would make more sense if we can do a line item transfer out of our budget for professional services, transfer that money over into the professional services. Put the money back into general fund and then take it from general fund. Is that how you do it? Yeah, I would prefer us to do that rather than taking any more money out of the general fund. However, it has to happen. Yeah. Come on. Commissioner, Mr. President. Okay. Well, so the next the last thing. So, do we actually do that in the meeting, Mr. President, or we just going to take it down the road? Why can't we just do it? We can do that general meeting. A couple weeks. Give Julie enough time to get it done. All right. Bring it back up again if you want. So, can we just like vote on it? Yeah. You have voting rights.

All right. Well, I'm going to make a motion that I'm meetings have voting rights. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to make a motion. Deal with it right now. All right. It probably needs to be advertised since it's going from one entity to another.

Hang on a second. Bear with me. Bear with me. Uh, page eight. If I can see it. I got to get my eyes fixed here. Council professional services. Where's the 120 in there? Uh, advertised budget. Julie, it looks like it's line item 35,000 or is it can hang on. I'm just trying to I'm going to make a motion and I'm trying to find the uh actual line item so that there's no miss there's no confusion on it.

Jim, just some some guidance. The motion I would be looking for is the motion to uh excuse put together the transfer to be voted on at our next regular at our next regular meeting. Okay. All right. So, let me see if I can What's the line item for the uh I can look it up if you need it. Please cuz I know it's I know it's all right. So, well, write this down. Somebody write this down,000, but write this down. um is 30 3,300 or 30,300. Okay. Okay. Adopted budget we had 132 grand is what we put into that line item that's in the council.

Okay. So line item 30,300. And then let me go to the commissioners real quick and find that one. Um I've not become a fun expert. And here is the commissioner's professional services. Looks like there's two there. There's the 67. Yeah. So the the commissioner's budget, it's the line item 30,000. 35,000. Line item 35,000. Sounds right. And was it the bill's 22 grand that we So the total what was to the total before that was or we just put it just put the 22 21,000 back in there. Yeah. Because they're going to they're telling me they're going to have more. So

Okay. Let's just We took that You just Yeah, cuz you 645.30. That's the total. How much? $21,6 22 grand. Okay. And you paid the you paid this invoice. Did you split it between the two? I split it between the two. Oh, man. I'll take care of it. Okay.

All right. So, here's my here's my uh here's my here's my Okay. I'm going to make a motion that at the regular meeting coming up that we uh line item transfer out of the county council which is department 61. We're going to transfer um $22,000. That'll give you more money. All right. 22,000 out of line item 30,300 to the department 68 which is the commissioners into line item 35,000. All right, the 22 grand. So that actually put you guys up about 10 grand.

Thank you very much. That way our next concern that way you don't have to come back. Our next concern was white handbook in the job description. Second. Yeah, we need a second. Last thing, this is an FYI. Okay, we just had our first discussions with IU Health with regards to the ambulance contract. Let us get this done. Yeah, we need to make a motion. We haven't got a motion. We have a motion. I have a motion. Get something done here. I have a motion to transfer from department 61 line 30,300 $22,000 into department 68 line 35,000 of the commissioner's budget for their personal services and we have a second all in favor I all opposed

okay and that's to be finalized regular meeting that should be a quick vote what's that student is that Susan I apologize. I didn't know I was on the on the speaker. Sorry. I was still muted. That's technically going to be and that's what I just texted to Jerry. That's technically going to be a reduction of appropriation in the county council budget and an additional appropriation in the commissioner's budget. Okay. And are we are we good on on our timeline to get that done?

Um reduction can happen here on your Monday meeting in a couple of weeks. the additional that has already gone to advertisement and it has to be at the DLGF 14 days before your um sorry where's that note on that 14 days at least 14 days prior to your public hearing um so I I don't know I'd have to ask Julie about her timeline there like where are we yeah we have two two and a half weeks until a regular meeting it goes to the DGF today can is it it's 14 calendar days or 14 for the DGF yes 14 calendar days. 14 calendar days.

Okay. So, we're good on that for April 20th if we get that in very soon. Yep. If if we get it in today. Yeah. Today or tomorrow. Derek Derek, while while Susan's on the line at the last special session meeting, I left. Maybe I made a mistake, but Susan was going to draft an ordinance and we were going to pass an ordinance to kill stipens to terminate stipens in the county. That's it. Uh uh that exact thing isn't in the salary ordinance, but that was part of the I wanted to say I was talking about that would talk about

killing stipens except for other than the sheriff and the not the pabo the assessor mandatory ones. Yeah, there's mandatory statements, right? Yeah. Are we going to do that or is that fallen off the radar? That that was that was fully included in the actual salary ordinance, wasn't it? That all st There was wording in there that all stipens are going away except for mandated. I thought that was a separate salary or separate additionally standalone ordinance. We can actually add it to the actual

I think we I would feel better if we just had a separate ordinance that addressed that issue so if it comes up in the future you go here it is. It's right there for reference so you can quickly reference gone. No more salary. Yeah. Just so all 180 employees are clear that we don't do stipens anymore. Okay. Okay. So, are we going to do that or no? I'll have that come. All right. Thank you, Susan. Thank you.

Okay. So, we just had So, next last topic, I promise. Okay. Again, comm communication and making sure that we're on the same pages is a hard thing to do, but we we're going to do that. Okay. So, we just had our initial discussion with regards to IU Healthcare regards the ambulance ambulance contract. It is up for renewal. It is a 2027 renewal. They provided us with three options. So, I'm not going to discuss the other two, but the current configuration that we have is we have two advanced life support ambulances in this county that are being that are 7 by 24 365 days a year

and we're paid 550 grand a year for $540,000. All right. Okay. they have come to us and basically that and that was one of the options that they proposed if we choose to maintain that option and again it's going to be tough to not it's an additional $290,000 and that's based on lack of use it is okay so what do we have any statistics on previously did we go dump down what are we doing

so so the so what has done is they basically gave us their data they're on their run information that's provided to us and one of the things we actually asked them to do is go back and give us a heat chart so that we can actually see where that 145 calls or where those actual 1045 transports they actually did 1,045 transports last year. What did they expect? 5,000. What do you mean? You said it was like 11.9% or something. So their targeted target utilization in order to break even is 50%. And we were doing what? 11 11.

So when when they came in, did they get statistics to think they could service us for 50%. I don't know. I wasn't here. No, no. I'm just curious. Somebody may find those numbers somewhere to say, "Where did we lose this? Where did it go? It's so out of whack." 11% is dramatic. So you're going from 540 to how much more? $830. $830,000 a year. That's Kevin. Did that Did those transports I mean have have you So Columbus was Columbus was cheaper than that. Maybe we should go back. No, it wasn't. Wasn't it? Why? Because of the extras. They also because of the extras or what? A variety of reasons.

We could get the information, but I agree with Tim. It was not cheaper. All right, Tim. And and I mean this is your domain. It's not ours. Um, but I'm going to throw this out and it's just something that we could explore.

I have a two people that I have known for years and years and years. They Decar County Westport, if you know where Westport is. All right. um and we have an opportunity where we could schedule a meeting, you know, and a group of us could drive over to Westport and meet with these people. What they did several years ago, um because these these two individuals I'm referring to have been involved in the volunteer fire department business forever. They actually went out and I don't know how many ambulances they have today. Uh and I don't know what the total payroll is uh but they are running a full-blown private sector ambulance service over there and they are making money. All right. So I sit here and I hear 850,000 and with 830 I'm going round up. Just say 850. Okay. But at 8:50, you know, should would it behoove us to at least go have a conversation with these people to learn and look at, you know, look at a feasibility of could we not bring in an in-house ambulance service that would, I guess, operate out of emergency services, right? and we just self-fund it and we get rid of these outside contracts because what and I don't claim to be an expert. I don't, you know, I I don't even know what I don't know. But all I do know is is these guys are making money. And because where they're making money is in that area, they have contracts with Cincinnati, uh, Greensburg, I think Brookville's in there, Louisville, and they actually the

revenue supremes come from hauling people to these hospitals and stuff. So, there's some money to be made in that industry. Yeah. I don't have a problem with exploring those things, but given that it's 2027 here,

yeah, we don't have enough time to do anything. This would be more 2829, right? But all I'm asking is I don't know what I don't know. And should we do an exploratory research, even if we do the research and we look at it and find out that no, it does not make any sense, that's fine. But who's to say that we could not look into it and say, well, no, maybe that works. Maybe we could cash and what I'm talking about is cash flowing the ambulance services um you know in a perfect world to where you actually make money off of it, right? Rather than being an expense. I I don't know. I agree. I think it should be explored.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I brought this up over the last couple years and we just but it's a big project. It's you know it's going to take some time. So the so again just the so that there's not a second shoe that drops in the proposal and if we choose to maint but then so the 2027 contract would be $830,000. The 2028 contract would be $830,000 plus 6%. One year contract at a time three year.

Woo. So, if we sign the contract for 800, I'm gonna round 850. Okay. If we sign a contract for in 2027, that's a three-year gig. Well, then that would be our incentive to get out of that at the end of what 20 whatever that is. 27 28 29 28,000 every year or for the next I'd go explor. We don't have the time, but we could with a goal of maybe 2030 look at of how do we correct 2030. Yeah. You never know. Okay. We've asked A recess has been asked for us. We're going to take 10 minutes. Kevin, I got Thanks, Kevin. I got one question. So, you say we've got 1,045 transports. Is that just from our county?

Yes. And so, here's my question. I think you should ask them. If we are paying for two ambulances 24/7 in addition to the,045 transports out of our county, we want to see what our ambulances transported people in other counties. 29 29 calls trips. That's it for the That was the mutual aid. That those were the mutual aid runs. 29. So only 29 times did one of our ambulances leave the county. That's correct. That's what they're reporting to us. Wow. For for Yes. Correct. Correct. That were not Brown County calls. Yes.

Interesting. So the other number that they shared with us again so that,045 is actual transports meaning from call out to delivery to a institution whether it be Bloomington, whether it be Columbus or whatever. There were 675 what they have what I would call a call off. In other words, they were called or dispatched from either return to go to the next location and and that did not turn into an actual transport to That's a question from the 1045. That's correct. And they only get paid if they transport. That is correct. Before you asked me to put a dollar value on that, I'm here because of those kids. Yeah.

I was dying and didn't know it. So, I'm not I again, I know it's a It's It's a valuable asset. Well, Joel, I could have got out of the council meetings. Okay. Sorry for taking up so much of your time, but I thought it was important. I thought and to basically make sure that we continue to be on the same page and going forward with the prosecutor's office and what we're trying to do. Thank you, Kevin. Appreciate it. We'll send you a bill for the extra time. Sure. I didn't even know what your other stuff was, but actually, I don't care. 10 minute recess. very much.

We're we're live. All right. Meeting being called back to order. Uh we have now the financial discussion of the budget timeline and I suppose that ties in with the dead horse of the salads. Any update on that? Um I have an update on that. The your your the list of things that we've changed in the salary ordinance has been given to uh Lori Wagner and Sheila. Okay. Um we have been we've been on hold with everything until the invoices get paid. That that has been a process of getting worked out. So

Okay, great. at at at the point where they get their payment, we will continue service with that member now and then she'll she'll review the changes that we need. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate that. And that's really all I have on this hour anybody else has anything. Darren, the only thing that I uh object to, and again, I'm not being trying to be difficult, so and you can all go, we'll do that beforehand. Oh, not again. We got another Yeah, we shut up. Uh, is that

we made changes. A select group of people got together, had a meeting, made a decision. All right. And what I've yet to receive, the last special session meeting, there was a dollar amount of how you arrived. You said, "Okay, 3%." And then you went a little over that. I get that. But what I didn't get in writing was specific of each how many employees with what department. Here's 2025. Here's what the increase was. And I never received a one-page report that shows, you know, I don't even know how many employees we bumped. I don't know who they are, what departments they're with. And I don't understand the delta between 2025 and 2026. So that difference to in other words to come up with that total 300.

I have started on it. I just haven't. I've Yeah, that's to me because keeping and just FYI, keep in mind I am big picture. And that's the big picture of what you want to see. Yeah, that's the big Yeah. And once I've got that, then I can go, okay, I see what you did. Makes sense. Now I can ethically vote to approve it. But if I don't see it, it's like on the ordinances, you know, I just I feel from an ethical from my own ethics, personal ethics, that how can I vote on something if I don't know what it exactly is that I'm voting on, right? And it's kind of I just can't bring myself to do it. So, it's my issue and I'm just sharing it with you and you know, so there you go.

And my frustration that bubbled up on that is I I was under the assumption that we had that we had that all worked out at the work session. So,

yeah. And I walked away from that first work session understanding kind of that big picture. Hey, what we did is we took 3% of the labor cost. We ended up going over a little bit and then so I I was good with that that mindset, right? That approach because that's the approach say, well, how much do we do? And so what you all decided was, well, we'll just do 3% of the overall labor cost, you know, and then we'll go through and select specific positions, right, that we're going to bump up because my concern just going forward for 2027 is I think if we're all thinking alike that that the goal with the fees is actually to get 100% of all the employees at the 50% external

if we can afford it. That's the issue. Well, That's the problem. I don't think we can afford the 50 cent 50% external, but there's going to be some How do we How do we do that? There's going to be some Can I interject? Absolutely. Okay. Gary, myself, Julie, who am I missing went with us that day to read Financial? Patrick was there was Oh, Patrick Neander. So, when we went down there, I was there for one. I don't know if it was that one. Okay. We went down there cuz I was at the first one. No, I missed that one. We decided we would do approximately onethird of that 50%. Because we knew, okay, Jim, that we could not do the 50% to the people who

were on that low end and we felt like that we needed to bring those people on the very low end of that one-third and the other people were not going to get right a raise this time around. We also I thought Susan kept track of that information and I might be and I don't mean to throw her under the bus um but I thought she was keeping track of that amount and that may be my misunderstanding of how much that was. So maybe she has that and we just haven't gotten it from her or maybe she didn't keep that. So what you all met about I don't know but you know sounds like the similar thing our thing too which Darren and Julie and I discussed here the other day was you know Irwin and Sheileely want to help us so that we can keep you know things going so that you know the the people that yes got the low one that these people do get something but we don't all want to come together and all be even again either because we're we'd be back at that 35 pay grade kind of system. We don't we don't want to do that. So I think you know once we get them in place and paid and all that there from my conversation with her and again she called me I didn't call her. Um they can help us figure that out within our budgetary system.

Oh can I add to that real quick disclosure? Um, Brad Stocksdale has a 2017 Ford Explorer. All right. That will work for the corner's office. Okay. And what he needs to know is whether we agree to fund him to replace the Ford Explorer with the new vehicle for the sheriff's department. Yeah, that's in line with what we discussed. Well, keep in mind at 50 grand I don't think it's going to touch it. I don't know if you've priced vehicles or not. No, he don't. No, I know. Well, yeah, it's Well, to give you an idea just but but part of part

he's got a Ford Explorer. It's got the radio. It's kind they can just give that and then the process going forward is just look to the sheriff's department and then you know every time they got one vehicle they can roll it out over to the corner wholesale the corner vehicle pull the equipment out put buy another one new one for their as part as part of their planned rotation of vehicles because that they've got that with the commissioner's office that they've got to schedule rotation but it may you know that vehicle I don't know what he's going to buy and we can talk to him about it And uh because then we'll have to do an additional appropriation. So we're not currently budgeted for a vehicle. No, not for this. Uhuh.

Commissioner's office has throw that in there. Uhuh. No, because that part of the lease if you think back and budget getting leases rolled into purchase, right? They asked for 50,000. We put a hold on them. Correct. Yes. Correct. Yeah. And so it's it's it's so what we'll have to do is we'll have to do an additional appropriations for the commissioner's budget because the commissioners owns all the vehicles. The way I understand it they do. Okay. So we'll have to do an additional preparation for a line item for the sheriff for Brad to go replace this 2017 Ford Explorer. Okay.

Which for the sheriff's department that that is the point where it's probably beyond needing to be replaced. How many miles is it? And I think he said 138. Well, but hang on a minute. Keep in mind. Yeah. 138,000 mi on a 2017. That's not bad. As a police vehicle is a rotate out. Are you kidding me? Right. But also keep in mind the corners. The corners that this vehicle the corner's got. I mean, they're going to be lucky to put 6,000 m a year on it. They're not going to put tons on it. High mileage. Regardless, if a sheriff's vehicle has that many miles on it, it needs to be replaced. that well it's likeund I think don't hold me to that it's in that 135 145 range

because not every death that corner goes to does he transport bodies he it's the funeral homes yeah they don't yeah they don't transport everybody because a lot of times it's we'll call the funeral home this person was expected to die they have they have a doctor going to sign off on that person not everyone is a corner corner needs to be there just to document the death is there a of, you know, so I'm going to throw that out. I don't know. You know, I can get a hold of I mean, you guys, we're not taking a vote, but we're kind of census. You guys good with that approach? Yeah. Yeah, that was what we All right. So, I'll get a hold of Brad and find out have

because he goes and buys them out of Salem, Indiana. Tom Jones or Rick Jones or Jim Jones or whatever it is. I can't remember. Is it John Jones? Is that what it is? Yeah. pretty big size operation. Um, so I'll let him know so he can get a price and then we'll need to do an additional appropriation and then Well, well, Julie, we'll have to go through that. Good to go. Let's go to the next item. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Rey, are you there, Jerry? Yes. Sorry, I had to unmute myself. How are you guys doing? Good. How are you?

Good. Um yeah, I just wanted to get on on the same page. Um as far as you know, our involvement this year, I know we were pretty involved, you know, last year. Um you mentioned kind of doing some different things this this budget process. Um which it feels like, you know, these first few months have flown by and you know, we're already getting into the budget um process here soon. Um cuz you know as some of you know I I had emailed trying to uh schedule the first finance committee meeting and then you know you had responded mentioning coming to this. So yeah, I just wanted to get on the same page and and see what um you guys needed specifically for us um going forward.

As of as of right now, what what we did this year so far is we we have pretty much agreed to disband committees u because a seven body council is is you know committee size anyway. So there's really no need for us to break down into smaller committees for everything the way we have them. So as of right now, council is working as the as the financial committee. That's going to keep everybody in the loop. Nobody's going to be left out of anything and it it just keeps us all in same. Okay.

Anybody disagree with that? Okay. Um, as of right now, um, Julie going through I mean you you and Ed are working on numbers. Yeah, we're working on numbers and we're trying to set up when we're going to do the uh budget hearings, but the budgets will be turn we'd like to send them send notice out first and have them turned in by the first of July, 1st of June, 1st of July. In general, how's it going with Ed? Is he helpful? Wonderful. Good. I love his reports. Wonderful. He's wonderful. Yeah. And I read his email this week, was it this week? Yeah, I think it was this week because he sent out a whole B.

He did. Um, but it sounds as if that when we did the original install with Wow. Mhm. that what he's doing now is working with Lao, working with Hugh, and really going back and and essentially setting the system up. That's what it sounds like properly because we did not have the skill sets, the time, the energy to because that's a large project. It is. It's huge. That's huge. Yeah. And for the for the record, so it any uh clarification you needed for anybody watching, listening, Ed Wedilia, he is a candidate for council and he's been working with Julie in the auditor's office.

He is under contract. Yeah. He has he has significant background in this field and and working on processes procedures and and so that's what he's been doing for us. You said he's under contract. Yes, he is. What does that mean? He signed a contract to help us. He's not being paid. Unpaid. Thank you. He's unpaid. He's unpaid. Cuz I was going to say I thought he was unpaid, but you signed a contract. So that correct. It's got to be an official entity official between the auditor's office and and commissioners. of commissioners and and okay okay for legal reasons a contract had to be signed but it is it is it is a

I mean he is essentially a I would describe it as a forensic accountant that's exactly what he is I mean he's so far down into the weeds man it's like it's good it is but it's like way over my head is definitely he's so far into the weeds cuz when he gets done he should tell us exactly how many sheets of toilet paper we easier. Yeah. So, as that all ties into Rei, uh right now we need to discuss, you know, what what we expect from REI, what we want from REI going forward for this budget process. I think

we have we have some issue legislative issues. I believe they can help us with um SB1, how that all has evolved and what we see going forward with that. Maybe some projected numbers. Well, I I would like to see us first of all, I guess my question to the council is why and what are we trying to solve for? That's what I'm asking. Okay.

Because in my mind, you know, as a financial planner, I'm not a forensic accountant. Um then to me, I'm looking at it and you and I put this published this is that and I'm tired of hearing about you know the credit rating, okay? Because the credit rating uh if we can manage our expenses, increase cash reserves, build our rainy day fund, then internal controls. Well, that's all part of that massive part of it,

right? But the the issue is though is is that if I you it's like for example if I use that 90% rule. Well, let's say the RAD says comes back and looks at it and says that the revenue for the general fund because there's there's property tax, miscellaneous revenue, and income tax. Right. Okay. And then I've heard you brought it up today and then I heard Tim Clark bring it up yesterday with regards to the US GDP. Okay, I didn't bring that up today.

You did too. You brought up the economy. Okay, I didn't GDP, gross domestic product, our economy, you know, we got this little hiccup that we're going through right now. We'll get through that. All right, and fuel cost will decrease. But, you know, we're looking at anywhere from a three to a 6% growth rate in the GDP. So, I don't see the US economy slowing down. Matter of fact, and keep in mind, we have to drive that the US GDP because we have a $ 38 trillion national debt. Okay, that's really the story problem nationally. So, I don't see our economy dropping off, which shouldn't affect our our income tax revenue coming into that general fund. But my point is this. Let's say Rey comes back and they look at it and they say, "Hey, 2027 revenue for the general fund is 11 million." So let's say it goes up from 10 million because that's what they project for 26 to 11 million. Well, if I go in and take 90% of 11 million, right? That'd be a million1, right? 10% of 11 would be a million1. Then that means that our budget really needs to be at what? 9 mill or right at 10 million. 9.8 8 million is what the the actual budget coming out of the general fund is going to be because unless we focus on that to try to increase you know to build our reserves to 50%. Because we really can't put and it's like right now I you guys I bet you if I sat here and wanted to make a motion that I'm on a motion that we do an additional appropriation right now in 2026 I want to take a million million five out of the general fund and put it in the rainy day. What would all you guys go? What would you say?

No. Why? Because it could just be sitting in there and then arbitrarily used. Okay. Because what it does is we've got we finished 2025 off with what? 4 4.3 4.3. Okay. So, that's good. That's a positive, right?

Well, that 4.3 gives us a It gives me anyway a false sense of security. Okay, we got 4.3 over there. We're okay. We can do these additional appropriations, right? But if we were to go in and take a million five out of that, slap it over into the rated day fund, then it cuts us a little short. The other issue with budgets and and you know, line items. Okay. If you all give me a hundred grand and a line item for my department denied. Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Well, well, here the council today we had 130 grand in a line item for professional services, right?

Well, Gary, we should spend more money. Let's just go ahead and call and we because we got 130 grand and Well, but it's you you either use it or you lose it. It goes back into the general fund, right? But Right. So, I've got 130 grand in the budget. I guess let's spend it. I never worked my budget that way. People don't, but I just hang on a minute. I'm not picking on anybody. I'm just saying in general,

you give, you know, and I talked to Cheryl about that. She was, you know, she she she was in Anyway, she's been in corporate world before she and I started working together. Uh, and when they got their budgets, you know, at the corporate private sector works the same way. You know, every department's going to get their if we allocate money to a line item to a budget, right? then by God we got that and we're going to spend it because the other thing of it is is subconsciously especially with the commissioners and I'm not pointing fingers but if they've got a hundred grand in there for professional services they also know that if they run over that that we as a council don't have any choice we have to pay Barnes and Thornberg we have to pay we have to pay WIS we don't have any choice we had to pay the IT bill for another 11 grand. We don't have any choice.

No, you don't. Okay. So, an issue is is that I would love to see us if if what we're going to do is we look at 2027 knowing that we're not going to get there, you know, and 28's going to be hard and 29's going to be hard, right? But at least if we're looking to say how do we keep a lid on the expenses so that everybody within the county is aware of it. Increase our cash reserves. Try to place ourselves in a position to where we could grow the rate a day. Make sure group medical doesn't get out of hand. We got real lucky last year. Real lucky last year. Very lucky.

Very lucky. Okay. Now that may not hopefully it holds true for 26. I don't know. It takes three or four employees and guess what? I know what it takes. I know you do. So, I my my moral of the story is is that this budget process, as long as what we're trying to do is collectively work together and just simply be think of it, you know, it's like with me, you know, I had to write that check for that freaking Gold Wing. Oh,

okay. And that was not I hated to write that check. I wrote the check, okay? And you know how part of the way I justified it in my head? I paid 21340 for that stupid VW. I paid 27 grand for the golden wing. That's 48,000. I couldn't have bought a Mazda CX50 was going to cost me more than that.

So I looked at, wait a minute, I got two for one. And I'll get rid of the Harley, get rid of the BMW, and that put some money back and it didn't cost me as much. So I would challenge all of us to be thinking of it in terms of it's our it's taxpayer dollars. Let's manage it like we were managing our own personal finances. And if we can manage our expenses and hopefully the revenues will continue to increase, try to keep a lid on those expenses, increase our cash reserves, get those to 50% on those four primary property tax funds, which I don't have that memorized, but and the one thing I would like to learn from Rei because I don't understand this. If the health department is paid out of 1159 which is funded with property tax

and not just property several things. Well, but if you there's four funds that are that there's four entities I'd have to pull the email that Susan Beaver's gave us. Yeah. Okay. is that if if if if one department if I'm just going to pick on the health department for a second if their budget just gets like totally out of hand then does that pull money property tax revenue out of the general fund because the health department's taking more of it we're they are they their tax levy is set they have a separate tax

right what we're messing with I don't what I do not understand because I've never taken the time to drill down and do the work that's required for me to internalize it but that you take those four funds there's property tax levies for those four different entities and then you bundle those together and that's the overall because the school corporation's taking 60% of the property tax, right? Yep. Okay. And what I don't know is that if this one goes higher here, does that pull out of this? You know, is it all tethered together? If you spend one, it lowers the other bucket, blah blah blah. Yeah. If I I would So, what I would like to see from Rei Jerry because I'm assuming this is Jerry, not Randy.

Jerry. Jerry is I would love to see us because we could take a whole threehour period just talking about legislation that's coming up and and what our revenue forecasts are on some of these primary funds. Well, and speaking of legislation, Jerry and Scott, I've been getting all these, as I think you guys have, um, meetings and questions on, uh, from Association of Indiana Counties on this town and county council must committee. Yes. The lit and all that. So, somebody needs to answer that. And do we need to be going to these meetings to learn does it affect us? I guess

before we jump to I don't even know what you're talking about. I can sum up I can sum up what he's saying and what she's saying and I want to get back to Jerry. Well, that's what I'm saying. So, hold hold that what Jerry there's a question from Jerry right now.

As as far as the max levy funds, uh yes, I mean if you would we always think of it as a pie of money. Um so if you know health uh fund for example needed more um property taxes then yes that would be you know otherwise less that would go to other funds. Um but yeah it it's it's that fund health fund general fund uh let me see here reassessment and then bridge falls under there also. Um so yeah I mean if if health which I know that uh cash is coming down a little bit this year. Um, so and we already have in the plan to allocate a little bit more property taxes there. But yes, I mean any any of these funds that fall under the maximum levy, I mean if you allocate more to them, it's going to be less of the pie that goes to the other funds,

right? And Jerry and just council in my mind is that we've got 27 28 29 and then 2030 and January the 1st of 2030 Brown County government will not have any debt. Period. School corporation will, but Brown County government won't. And so where I'm in the back of my mind is that if we can build the rainy day fund, okay, and get some cash in there, then perhaps we don't have to borrow any more money. We'll have to put numbers. I I understand. But that's a goal. I'm just saying that's a goal.

I understand the concept. I completely agree with it. But we have to put numbers because the the the uh the summary that of the bond expenditure so far that the commissioners gave us if we if we did not have that bond debt all of this would have come directly out we don't have the money to pay for it. I just want to say come directly out of the general fund. So So we have to put numbers together to right and so for me I was able to write a check for the gold wing. Why? because I keep my expenses far less than what my revenue is, right? And the other thing Jim and I talked about once is we look at this and we say, "Okay, how much can we shove in this so we don't have to do much next time?"

Meaning get everything we can out of it and hopefully not have to have a bond rate, smaller bond next time, but all this stuff. But what's frustrating is you come in the meeting, what's frustrating is you come to the meeting and we've got another $300,000 we got to tack on top of the ambulance. That's what I'm saying. There's stuff that's always coming out and there's nothing we can do. We have to pay it.

If we eliminate the issue, the the the the possibility of the bond, then we really put ourselves in a position again where we can build up that rainy day fund. But then if we have to hit that rainy day fund, then we deplete the rainy day fund again. Kevin, now I have a question on the rainy day fund and I don't know if you guys can answer this or that is the when you put money same as the 4700 account. The 4700 account is a non-reverting account. Correct. So, it's a lock box because that was the objection of the commissioners this year because we funded that in the budget at 2.7 million. Well, we ended up with a million, not quite a million in surplus in the 4700. So what we did is we've intentionally that money is still sitting in that economic development fund. Okay? And we got to stay on that like a hawk because next year I want that 4700 reserve account to be at a million. I don't want to go below that. All right. Just in case we get hammered with high medical claims. Is the rainy day fund is that once you put that money in there, can you not pull that money and reappropriate it back out?

Yeah, you can use it. You can use it for anything. You can use it for anything. Not any not how's it because I've never read Supposedly the commissioners or somebody had to pass an ordinance to establish a rainy day fund. Yes. And I've never read the ordinance and I've not taken the time to go to the recorder's office and pull it to read to see what it actually says. So if we do put money in the rainy day fund, can you get it back out in the event or what can that Let me back up. I think the better question would be what can the rainy day fund money be used for? And I've always thought of the rainy day fund kind of as a capital improvement type, you know, but Jerry,

my understand my understanding is any lawful purpose for the rainy day fund. So would it be fair to categorize it as kind of like a secondary general fund in a way? Yes, I I would I would agree with that. Okay. So, it's kind of a backup so to the general fund. So, let me give you an example. So, if you got 5 million in the reserves for the general fund and you got 5 million sitting in the rainy day, you got 10 million and over some reason some catastrophic expense shows up. 3 million above and beyond normal operating expenses. We can tap in to that. Yeah.

Lawful expense. Yeah. That that's what depleted our rainy day fund was the was the the cluster we had with the health and health insurance. Yeah. Group medical every bit of what is so the rainy day fund was wiped out because the group medical which is why I agree with the million dollar. Yeah. I I I think we should take a hard light on that. Is that your understanding Susan? She's still there. Yep. I'm here. Yes. Uh Jerry's right. any lawful purpose. I mean, it's an appropriation that comes out of rainy day. So, that would be an additional appropriation that would come in front of you. Um, I mean, it's not just like it gets spent. Um, it's it's appropriated by the county council anyway. Lawful

lawful purpose. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, okay. Jerry, you were saying something? No, I'm No. So, I I don't think I was. Sorry. I was like, I thought you I thought you were trying to say something. Nope. Sorry. Well, I guess the question for the council is what what do we want to what do we want to do going forward this year in the budget process with REI? What do we expect from them? What do we what's Ed going to contribute is my question. And that's the thing. We're working with Ed. Ed's working with Julie. So, how is Rei and Ed gonna complement each other for us to get the goal? When will we know that

budget? Yeah, another month. I'm gonna float it. Okay. Just an idea. So, go Yeah. Would it be valuable for us to take the 2026 form ones walk through see what well maybe not all departments but identify what departments does you know does it make sense select commissioners right

right um and walk through the line items because I'm assuming y'all going to have going back to the dog and pony show where it's three days and we're going to do that in that where we're going to have those line items. Okay, but I know but let me Okay, and we can what I'm going what I'm going to do personally is I'm going to do this personally because I've got all the form on. It's pretty easy for me to do it and I'm going to go through the line items and what I want to do is I'm going to write up questions. Okay, so and I'm not being for example commissioners budget and I'm not picking on the commissioners. Okay. fiscal.

But what I am asking is I think that there line item for the 2026 budget. There's a line item in there for $600,000 for insurance. Well, how did you arrive at that? How many different insurance policies do we have? Same thing with fuel costs. And so, same thing with Susan. Not picking on Susan, but you know how how what questions do how did we arrive at the line item number? This is a good point because qu and I have been talking and he's questioning some contracts for like $15,000 or things they've been given every year. And he says why? Yeah, we talked about what if we went back that what if we went down to a ground zero approach, right?

Ask all those questions. No assumption that went that it carry us forward, but why? Right? go that and say you know we're putting policies and procedures in place build it on that to say why should it go forward right and then see because one of the issues I have yeah it's not I absolutely categorically dislike the word budget I just despise that term right you you made I made that okay because I'm because I do cash flow forecasting with our clients and so and notice I said cash flow forecasting

because the challenge with the the documents that we get from the financial advisors, those are forecasts. You know, we say, well, it's a budget. No, no, that's a forecast. And so, if you get the 10 million forecast on the revenue in the general fund, if that number is wrong, you know, why was if we forecast 10 million and the next thing, let me give you an example. When I look at the gateway and I look at the general fund and I look how much money's been receded in over the last three years and then I go back four years, there's a huge jump. Well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How did revenue just take this huge jump, right? So if you get the forecast wrong on the revenue and then we don't put do our due diligence on the line items because I want to know you know how you know what have we like for example fuel you know we buy all our fuels supposedly off of Premier Egg down in Courtland Indiana. So the easy one on that is saying how many thousands of gallons of diesel and how many thousand gallons of gas and so then what we got to do is forecast what the price per diesel fuel is going to be price per and we can calculate that out and we should be able to be pretty close right but to me the if if if you know and I've not done this but I will say if I was a department head okay and every a year I got to do the stupid budget right then what am I going to do I'm going to pull last year's form one and I'm going to do a copy paste and I may go through and make a few changes, right? But how much time and energy am I really going to put in there to really quantify and make sure those line item numbers are accurate?

You with me? Yeah. Because human nature is I don't want to do it. I got if I last year's budget worked then we'll just copy paste it. Do it again for this year. Right. Right. And so and it's not that I don't I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm not trying to beat up the departments there because I would do, you know, I told Brad, you know, if I was the sheriff, I'd be in here working you guys left and right because I'd want 150 grand because I'd want an M-Class Mercedes for my daily driver. Don't give him any ideas.

I'd be in here every meeting going, I need an M-Class, okay, that last longer and I'd give you a bunch of stuff that, you know, eventually wear you out and you go, God, give the guy money, let him shut up and go away. So, so I, so I would like to see us, you know, as we go through this process and and you know, yeah, we got to do 27, but don't forget, you know, depending on the outcome of November, you know, we got to do 27, 28, 29, 30. And my to me is what where are we going to be January 1, 2030? What's the 2030 budget looks like? What's our cash reserves going to be? Can we place the county in a position to where we don't have to borrow any money? Because my fear, you know, that the the law enforcement centers that that bond's paid off. It's gone. Well, my fear is somebody rolls in here and goes, "We want to build a brand new highway department and it's only $10 million

only." Only on sale today. And here's where we want to put it. Okay? And then guess what? And then then in 2029 20 because what are they going to do? Rei Okay. Rei is going to be in here going, "You want to do levy stabilization?" You know, because remember levy stabilization is is I almost got my car paid off and my payment's only 500 a month, so I'm going to go ahead and trade it in, get a new car, and try to keep my payment 500 a month. He was using Rei synonymously with the collective U.

Yeah. So, well, I mean, fac code. You can funds can be used to cover operational expenses or emergencies requiring the same appropriation processes as other public funds. Yeah. So the rainy day. Yeah. So we could think of the ready day kind of like you got the general fund cash reserves but then we got this little savings account that we tuck away money in and we know that if this gets too low we could access that. Right. Right. Yeah. But every time we access that we deplete that.

I know. I know. I know. And but until we get our our our receipts, okay, our receipts are exceed our dispersements, right? Which is the first challenge, you know. So for 27, you know, I would really like to see us. I mean, it'd be great if we could boy, if we could just be in the black a little bit, you know, not a lot, but just try to get a grip on it and then hope inflation kind of takes, you know. Now, back to the original question. What What do we What do we want and expect out of Rei right now at this point? Do we know? No, I don't. Until we get numbers from Ed.

Yeah, I don't think we We don't But can I say this? But but if we're if you know they they they need to have a heads up on what to expect from us. But do you guys all have this that Rita gave us the last final adopted budget? Why wouldn't we just sit down and take the time to kind of walk through 26? Because 27 is going to be pretty close, right? I mean, it's not going to be anything different when we get the 27 bud when we get our budget binder, right? It's going to have and this is what we we need to work this out. We're going to have what the last three years budgeted. We're going to have 20 24 25. We can even go back 20 to 25 years if you want.

We're gonna have 26. What we budgeted every line item, every department, every fund. The 20. Yeah. Is that what Ed's working on? That's that bind that binder we get. As usual, we used to do it that way. Yeah, we did. That's what we're going to have. Every every line item is going to be in there. You can go through everything you want. Mhm. Well, I'd like it's going to have it's going to have 23 24 25 budgeted, 25 actual spend, 26 budget. I don't know if we want to do I mean we can do 26 to date but it's not going to be accurate because there's some stuff that doesn't get spent until October

November right that's just a wasted wasted compliment. Well, to answer your question, to me for Rei, in the near term, you know, maybe the next special session because this we're getting ready next session be right because it's April. Okay. Would be to take that time to go through and focus on 2027 revenues, revenue projections. Yeah. Because if we get the revenue projection and how leg and how new legislation legislation Yeah. And what cuz I cuz I think didn't we have a meeting last year with Ry that that the the the whole what's it called? SB1 SB1. Yeah.

Okay. That that takes effect 28 27 28 29 the whole just like a big stone and looking at the effect on revenues because my concern is and I'm going to be a you know I won't be very nice. Uh I do not want to increase the income tax rate. No, absolutely not. I just don't I just absolutely not opposed to it. I just Yeah, I just don't want to do that at all. Yeah. Okay. So, that is that is is that what we're expecting from is that what we're wanting from REI is the 27 27 Let's look at the revenues revenue estimates.

Yeah. And how we write down how how legislation is tax levies kind of is affecting us on Yeah. I I to me that would be very beneficial to me. Okay. You know, because if we get the revenues wrong, then you know, it's now we've got lucky in 25, right? Yeah. Because we ended up with, you know, some surplus and and and our reserves grew. So that's good.

But then were we inaccurate? Well, but see the year prior to that was Greg Geratoss and he sent one PDF and it had they were printed out on poster boards. She had to have posts cuz their pages were so big. So, we did. It was like on 17 by7. I'm like, I ain't printing that out. It cost me 300 bucks. So, does that sound good to everybody else? Can I ask a question? Well, yeah. How about this? Yeah. You okay? Jerry, are you still there?

Yes. So if you were our financial consultant and you'd been waiting three hours for us to discuss this and the question came up that you know we are now sitting in early April and the budget process is bearing down on us. Um and the question was what should we as a council be working on for our next meeting and meetings after that? What would you say?

Uh for me um our intentions with the first quarter um finance committee meeting uh was obviously show you what year end looked like. Um obviously discuss the budget process, get on the same page there, and a big discussion was going to be the legislative updates. Um, now you know we mentioned it you know throughout the year last year but never really took you know a meeting and solely focused on that. Um I think it was more you know the level of income tax stuff it's down the road. Well, now there's some changes which I'm sure some of you are aware of um with the House Bill 1210 where you know it did change it did push back the income tax stuff but then there's some other options for some municipalities which it actually doesn't affect you guys because you guys don't have within the county don't have any municipalities over 3500 that could elect to go to the countywide rate. But without getting into a bunch of the details, I still think that's very important for the entire council to understand. Um, and you know, cuz you guys are going to have, you know, the power obviously to create these, you know, income tax rates to make sure, you know, the units within the county are, you know, taken care of. Um, so that's very, very important. Um, so that was our intentions during this first quarter meeting. you know, show you year end how this year is trending so far, you know, through March and then focus on the legislative updates and a game plan for the budget. So, follow up to that. Susan, same question if you're still there.

I'm still here. Yeah. So, what would you advise at this point in the process?

Yeah. I mean, I I do agree with Jerry like the the year- end stuff for me. Um, that's not where I am, but the updates on SB1 and how that's going to affect you and getting your process for how you're going to do the budget this year so that it gets rolled out to every department head and elected official so nobody is surprised, nobody is on a short deadline, everybody knows the plan, everybody knows when they're going to come in and talk to you. you know, if you didn't learn anything from the past couple of years, they want to come in and talk to you. Yes. All right. I think that's exactly what we should do. Just my thought.

Yep. I agree. Yep. Agree. Would you take a motion to adjourn? Okay. We're 15 minutes past what we're here to do. We're here to I have said from the beginning, I don't care if it takes six, seven hours for us to do what needs to be done in these meetings. Purpose of these meetings is to get stuff done, not kick it off. You're worried about the timeline and getting stuff done, but you want to adjourn meeting so we can pick it up at the next meeting in May. Don't take this the wrong way, but that's really poor meeting management. Well, if there's stuff that needs to be discussed, there's stuff that needs to be discuss between poor and realistic. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, our our me did we answer the we want to continue with Rey. Well, that's thing I'm not getting I think we're working on getting that answer. Uh what we have is our

we have our April meeting for the 20th. I don't know that that would be Jerry uh correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know that it would be beneficial for you to come in on our regular April meeting on the 20th to discuss this. Our May work session meeting is May 7th. If everybody agrees, we could devote that entire work session. even if it goes to four or five hours to discussion of everything that we need to discuss with Jerry about legislation and the budget process moving forward.

Jerry, at that pro at that point a month later, how much farther behind does that put us? Because once we get to May now, you have additional items you want to get in front of us and probably Susan too. So, we're just kind of stacking ourselves up here, aren't we already?

Okay, here's another option to throw into that mix. Um, we could do a week from today, next Thursday, we could do a special work session meeting, 9 to noon or the 16th, whatever. I guess that's that's dependent on Jerry's schedule and his availability. I I I mean do you guys other than you know we have year-end plan update um do you guys want a an update through the first quarter to see how you know revenues are trending expenditures are trending um do you want to see that I mean if so I mean we could it obviously be on reconciled financials but you know we're through March um we can update those um put together you know a presentation that summarizes year end first quarter and the legislative updates. Now, obviously, our financial plan will have revenue projections in there. So, we can dedicate, you know, a slide or two to 2027, you know, revenue projections because I know that was mentioned as as well as something needed. Um, I mean, we can put that all together for your next executive session. Um, I don't think it's going to put as far as, you know, the timeline or, you know, anything else. I think Scott, you mentioned like by May, you know, is it going to be is it going to stack up or um I don't necessarily think so, but I do entirely 100% agree with Susan as far as everybody being on the same page from, you know, department all the way up, you know, to you guys as far as the process. Um I think it probably is good that you guys are all the finance committee now. um so that there's no you know miscommunications or anything you

know there um but that definitely needs to be ironed out. Um but even if it is the May meeting where it's like okay this is the exact process um I would still think that would give department heads you know all of May all of June to put together their form ones to meet the June or July 1st deadline that that Julie mentioned.

Okay. If we do it on the would would there be a benefit to say in or would it be possible? Would that would that give you enough time for us to have a council financial committee as the financial committee of the entire council a special meeting two weeks from today? Or would that be too short a notice for you? Or do you you think we'd be be good doing it at our first May work session meeting? Darren, let me ask you this. I mean, is there is there a reason why we can't do budget work in our regular council meetings? I mean, our regular Monday meeting.

Yeah. Well, why wouldn't we do budget? What's the most important thing we do? Why do we have to wait a month to work on the budget? We can get a quarterly update in our regular meeting. The public could hear it. You know, there's no reason we can't do that in my mind.

Right. But but that's and I'll I'll ask for your input on this, Jerry. That's a that's a 5:30 in the afternoon meeting which is outside of of regular office hours. Um and you talk about time management. Um those are regular session meetings where time and order are a little more um is is paid attention to a little more. This gives us the freedom to actually have the conversations where Jerry can come in instead of just giving a presentation and stepping out because of time management. Well, my problem with that is we've paid our consultants 3 hours to be here and they didn't speak until 11:55, right?

So, having them here to sit here to listen to us ramble is not cost effective. So, maybe it makes sense to have them at our regular session meeting where we can have them for 20 minutes. He gives a quarterly update. Well, that was my question is if we do our if we do another work session meeting, it's going to be devoted entirely to that and there's going to be no other input from anything else. I would just ask that if you're going to schedule a six or seven hour meeting that you tell us before scheduling a six or seven hour meeting.

I can't schedule all day when it's a three-hour meeting. So, just respect be respectful of everyone's time. Everybody's got stuff going on. If it's a three-hour meeting, it's three-hour meeting. If it's a six hour, just tell people and then let's try to stick to it. I mean, I don't think that's unreasonable. said it from the start when we came up with these meetings that they're not subject they're not strict three-hour meetings. If they run over, they run over because we have stuff or we'll do another meeting next week and then we'll have to bring in consultants again for another time. That's my concern. And Darren, the only thing I'm going to add is uh it's I have a lot more energy coming in here at 9:00 a.m. to noon than I do coming at 5:30 at the end of the day and staying until late because I run out of energy, run out of patience.

I recognize that. I understand that. I think Gary was trying to say something.

I was just going to say as far as you know, the topics during this next meeting, it probably would be better during you know, a work session. Um I can and and you know, I I don't disagree, Scott. I mean, if you guys want to put you know, us first on the agenda uh to you know, get through um to, you know, save some of you know, our time um in billing. I I'm that I'm fine with that. Um but I I mean if if you guys want the the first quarter information all in the legislative information still year end also in revenue projections I mean it's quite a bit um it'd probably be better during the work session. I'm not opposed to in the future if it is just simply a you know 20 minute you know quarterly update if that's guys if that's what you want during a public meeting but probably the magnitude of these topics and the questions that you guys will probably have it's probably best during the work session um and I would be fine to come into the the May one that give us time to get the financials from Julie's office and and update that and put together the different or the presentation which we can focus on um because obviously it'll be a lot of information um but I'm all for that if you guys are yeah and I want to add this one last statement um you know I think it would be you know highly best practice to review especially on a quarterly basis um maybe not monthly but quarterly to see where we are with funds and line item balances that's what Ed and Julie been working on. So where we

Okay. Can I finish my No, I started this. Let me finish my statement, please. And then you can speak. I'll still give you the same answer. Go ahead. Because what we're solving for is come 1231 of 2026, we don't have any red ink. That's what we're solving for. Okay. You want to talk about the credit rating? Well, if you want to create up the cling writing, you better make sure you don't have any red ink. No, the only thing you may have red ink in or we're hoping is the reimbursement grants. Fine. That would be it. But that's where the red ink

but but but so what we have to monitor again, if we're going to look at reporting, what are we trying to solve for? Doesn't mean any good to look at a freaking report and okay, that looks good. Then you just go on, forget it. So, because what we got to do is say identify where are we starting to get in trouble and what's it going to cost because we'll have to do an additional appropriation. Correct. Right. To be able to make sure we have no red ink anywhere. Well, I would say every quarter, but November would be an additional one. Right. But now that we know where those departments funds are getting low and I guess the question is is when does the check engine light come on? I would say the check engine comes on.

Now the Now the answer that I'm going to give and I'm still going to give we have the we have the ability to do every bit of that in-house with LA.

Eric is working on setting up two computers for us over here in this Hold on now I let you finish. Let me Eric is working on setting up two computers over here in this corner office for us. We can go in there any day we want pull up and run any report we want and get those exact answers. But if we as a group don't keep it front of mind and we as a group aren't all on the same page knowing that no red ink, no red ink, right? You could go in there until you're blue in the face and nothing will ever happen. So it's it's because that, you know, part, you know, it's, you know, again, I'm not saying this to be critical. What I am saying though is just simply, you know, how can we improve? How can we improve? Continuous improvement. Okay? you know, and we've got I think there's room for improvement to where we don't let things fall through the cracks.

Let me pause you on that. And I don't know how we track it and keep ourselves on track to we don't let stuff fall through the cracks. Right. We need to get back to Rei because we're paying, right? And I need to go to Bedford. I really want to get out here and go a seven hour meeting. Put you on the main meeting and let's go on. Okay. Gary, does that give you enough time to do everything you need to do? And is that is that good enough time for planning? Yeah, that works. Yeah, definitely on our end for sure. Okay. And is council in agreement that that will be the entire focus of of our May work session meeting? Yeah. Okay. All right. Anything else, Jerry? No, I'm I'm we're good on our end.

Okay, Scott. Second. All right. Well, thank you very much for Thank you very much. Yep. Thank you guys and I'll see you in May. All right. All right. See you, Jerry. Have a great day. Yeah. All right. We got a motion to journ in a second. Did we have anything else that anybody wanted to discuss? We good. Gary, you got anything you want to tell us about? Nothing. Okay. Now, like you guys, you saved off your facial hair. We did, didn't we? Yeah. Now I will take I did. Scott second. Or you can make Scott first. Me second. Good. It don't matter. Yeah. Out of here. All right. Going to Bedford. What you got to go to Bedford for?