Montgomery County Council - Regular Meeting

You should have gotten a copy of that. Approval of the claims for our attorney, as well as Peter Franklin, as well as accepting and acknowledging the receipt of the same series transfer report and the cash balance report, which you should have gotten a copy of that as well.

Choice Grimble so moved to approve.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Is there any question or discussion on any of those items? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Any public comment on an agenda item? Hearing none, move on to money matters. We have some additional appropriations. First up is RDC. Okay, yep.

Becky Peach for the Commissioner's Office. So for the RDC, we did not request an appropriation this year for the RDC 2024 capital fund. So we have some final payments remaining for grade X that need to be paid, and that's what this is for.

Okay. Do you have anything to add to that, Dave? Okay. I'll entertain a motion for that.

Motion to approve. Second.

A motion and a second. Is there any other questions or discussions? Hi, Gary.

I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Okay. Next up, sheriff. Future sheriff.

Matt McCarty, Chief Deputy at the Sheriff's Office. The first thing we have here is the money that we normally get from Southmont, the 1737.50. Instead of going into that, the SRO line, just put that in our overtime line so we've been paying overtime to cover our debt that's been out with the pregnancy. And the next thing we have is, this is donation that we got from Nucor for our drone program. And Sergeant Curtis had taken that money to purchase some accessories for our drones. After placing the order, the stuff was put on back order. So we canceled that order. So we're just asking for that money that's being reimbursed from us from that company to put it back into our line.

Okay. I understand the SRO is back at work now. Yep. Yep.

Been back for two weeks, two to three weeks. Okay. Good.

Second. Second.

I have a motion in two or three seconds. Any questions or discussion for the sheriff or for Matt? I'm sorry. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. And then recorder.

Nancy Cox, recorder. I hope to switch my software vendor next year for the calendar year. And that means I would do a conversion at the end of this year. The conversion cost would come out of the recorder perpetuation. Eventually it will be. I'll probably gain it back. It's a cheaper software, and they do more in-house, so they're not outsourcing, which makes it cheaper for us. Okay.

I have a motion and a second. Any questions or discussion?

I had so much ammunition. Thank you.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? And then Superior 1 Drug Court, do we have somebody to speak to that? Or what it's for? I mean, it's obviously for Drug Court. Andrea, do you know by chance? Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

It says a community foundation check deposit. So they're putting it into the drug court line item amount to reimburse amounts spent for drug court testing.

Okay. There's some kind of a pass-through deal or something.

Okay.

Okay Move to approve A motion a second is there any questions or discussion on that? All those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed and then next up commissioners again I

Okay, Becky Peach again for the Commissioner's Office. So this is for some additional repairs that need to be done at two properties, one at 405 Chestnut for a system check, and then the other on installation of an AC unit at 410 Washington Street. This 2,500, the total grant for this was $450,000. It was a $50,000 match for the county. There's gonna be another appropriation, we found out, coming in July for the additional, the remaining balance of this grant and the match. So this is just part of it to get these current bills paid, but we have more bills coming. Gotcha. I'm not sure on those. I've had to look up those addresses. No, I'm sorry. I don't know offhand.

Yeah, there's only been about $10,000 in additional appropriations for county general so far this year.

The paperwork is hard to see what was appropriated. We figured we were going to have in the budget for 26 versus this cropping up just here today to say we're going to need another 55.

This isn't county general, though. Are you just talking generally?

Yes. Okay. This money is going to come from where?

It's a grant. This is from the grant, the owner rehab grant.

She said it was our $50,000. We had to match it, $50,000. And that's what this money?

I don't know where the match is sitting. I'd have to look, Gary.

Oh, no, you're fine. She said that we have to match.

Tom do you remember where it's coming from yes so there's a local we have to do a local match for the owner occupied rehab grant so yes it'll need to be come from some local source of revenue was it not budgeted it was not budgeted I did not know sorry

You're telling me, you're telling us that this $2,500 is a portion of that $50 that we're putting in. Correct. So it is new money.

Yes, we'll have to come back with an additional appropriation next month for our total local match for the project.

Okay. So it's really coming out of county general. If not this rehab grant. It's coming out of funds unappropriated.

Now, is this part of the program, the Thrive West? Yes. Yeah, so the grant might have been $450. Our piece of that is $50. Our match is $50.

Yeah.

And then, yeah.

But this just is coming out of the grant, not out of our portion of the proceeds. I'm just trying to clarify.

Yeah, because I know part of the program is people come in if they, If they're qualified for the program if they need roofing repairs or air conditioning they apply for it. DIRECTOR DEWOLF I understand that.

I was wondering where the money is coming from.

We've got $350,000.

DIRECTOR HARRIS So just. DIRECTOR DEWOLF Where's our $50,000. Why didn't we budget. If this says it's going out of this grant we have to add $50,000 to the grant.

DIRECTOR HARRIS That's on the commissioner should have budgeted that before they proceeded with the project in my opinion. I I. Don't know. And yeah, evidently, that's what they're saying.

We're spending an additional $50,000, time this is done, that wasn't budgeted for 2026.

I'm not opposed to it.

I just want to clarify, because this says it comes out of a grant, and it's not. It's coming out of...

So the $2,500 that Becky's asking for now is grant money to finish some projects that they have open. What I guess is not budgeted is the matching money, which is the 50-some-whatever-thousand, and that will have to be appropriated from somewhere if you choose sometime in the future. I should have been done before the project started, in my opinion, but I said that already.

Move to approve.

We have a motion and a second. Is there any other questions or discussion on that? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We have a transfer elected officials training fund. Travel expenses.

We have a county elected officials training fund. Money gets put in there from the recorder's office. I don't remember exactly but when things get recorded money gets put into 1217 and that's to allow for county officials to pay for their state called trainings and we're running short in the registration line which is good and bad news so we would like to appropriate another thousand dollars into that fund. Each elected official has required, except for the council and commissioners, each elected official has required training, and it's different training requirements, but yes, this is to pay specifically for state-called training. So, yes. It's called by the SBOA. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any other questions or discussion on that? All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right, moving on to new business. We have a PTO issue that we need to discuss for the sheriff's department. Who's going to start with that?

I'll start with it. Okay, so historically speaking, when someone leaves the sheriff's department and goes into another county department, we have paid out their PTO. And then they start fresh as a new employee in that new department. And the reason that's been done is because the sheriff's office has a completely different PTO schedule than everybody else in the county. So two reasons, um, one, it's hard to, I don't, we've never been given any instruction on how to make that conversion other than this. And two, um, Other departments in the county only allow 40 hours rollover. They can't absorb 150 hours of PTO into their departments. It wouldn't be, I hate to use the word fair, but it wouldn't be fair to the other employees in that department. It wouldn't be fair to the department head. And frankly, it would make them less employable to another county department. In my opinion, as a department head, it would, It would be tough to absorb that. The other side of that is it's extremely expensive to pay them out from a termination at the sheriff's office. So we currently have two employees who are terming out of the sheriff's department or moving out of the sheriff's department. and moving into county departments that have the standard PTO schedule. So we were moving forward with paying them out their PTO and then starting them fresh. And we questioned the procedure with the new compensation committee. And I was told that we didn't have that authority so that we need to come to you and ask you what to do. So that's what we're doing. come to you and ask them what to do we have like i said we have two employees um one employee let me get it i have it it's a monday on a tuesday one employee has 121.5 hours which would equate uh 3174.92 in a payout The other employee has 147 hours, which would equate $3,841.26. So our choices, if it, I mean, I don't, the two choices I see are we can pay them that money and that would come out of the sheriff's budget. And that may put them in a bind later in those lines. or we can allow a rollover and they can move to their new departments with those PTO hours, which, you know, might put the new departments in a bind with time off. And if we do that, I need to know, are we, how to handle, I mean, are we, If they don't use all of their PTO this year, are they down to then 40 hours on a rollover? Those are the questions that come to mind.

And we should probably have a policy on this. We just don't. So when I was asked, I said, well, we don't have a policy. It makes perfect sense to me, but you better ask the council for authority to do it, which I think is the appropriate thing to do. But then it makes me think that when we revise our handbook later in the year, we might think about putting that in as a policy so they don't have to come ask you every time. But if you don't do it, then the new employee goes to that department and they quickly have to take a lot of time off, which doesn't do the department any good at all because they will have to burn down to less than 40 by the end of the year.

So the recommendation is to pay it?

Yep.

So we would pay out the hours that they have currently, and then they would start as far as PTO goes as a prorated amount on the years that they have. So one has eight years of service and one has four years of service. So wherever they fall in that line, well, I have it written down here. It would be the eight years of service. They would end up with 64 hours of PTO for the rest of this year. and then the other employee with four years of service would be at 45 hours for the rest of the year. Until the beginning of the year like the rest of us, yeah.

Yeah. That's, yeah, in talking with Dan when we, Last week was just the cleanest way to do it.

Right, and the uniqueness of it is in the law enforcement area, they don't really use – they can't predict when they're going to have a – an accident or a flood or some, so they tend to, their officers tend to have higher PTO balances because they're not always free to use their time off. And so the, and they have special rules under Fair Labor Standards Act that allow them to carry over more. So it creates this unique situation when they convert from law enforcement to a normal position where The department has more control over what's happening. Both highway, our highway department and our law enforcement sheriff's department can't always control how much people are working, and then that creates a more severe problem.

I will add this does not happen very often at all. Normally an officer moves to a different position outside of the county. This very rarely happens. We just have to. Happened to have two back-to-back, which is why we approached Dan, because it didn't feel right.

Sometimes to get to PTO, if you don't have that, you have to have more people. You have to have more staff. So that's the other thing for the highway and the Sheriff's Department, too, is fill in those positions or 911, whatever.

I have a motion and a second. Any other discussion on that? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? All right, next item, we need to give our department heads kind of some guidance as far as pay raise percentage for planning purposes for the budget. And instead of me just throwing a number out, I entertain some ideas from you all for discussion.

The April CPI is 3.8%. For now.

Toe goes back up. I don't want to be a brat. Hang on. Tom's about to have a fit over here. Tom's about to have a fit. You're not using your microphone.

I want to be like Brett. With the cost of everything, you know, 3% seems minimal, but then not knowing where we're going to get this money from is a concern. So, you know, do we start at 3% and then surprise people if we can give more? I don't know. Would we rather give more as a surprise or be the bad guys and take it away?

They're asking for budget, right? Yeah.

Right.

It's easier to go higher and dial it back than it is to go low and crank it back up.

This is not setting the budget. It's setting the budget. It's only putting it together. It's guidance, yeah. An initial. Steve, you got a thought?

And just to reiterate what Jen said, because she didn't have a microphone, if whatever we, we always budget high because we can't, we can't go higher after we've advertised. So that would, if that helps your thoughts at all.

So it would be better to go to 3.8 than if we need to dial it down to 3.5, we can?

Or three, whatever it takes, yeah. We can cover ourselves that way. Like you say, you can't go up.

So you want to just do it at CPI 3.8? Is that what you're saying? Any concerns? Like I said, it's just guidance at this point. We can always change it as we need to, but it gives them an option to go. So let's look at 3.8% increases in salaries for your budgets, just as guidance. Hopefully we can keep it at that. But we'll see where all the rest of the numbers come in, honestly. Okay.

I do have a question here. Yeah. Our consultant helps us with our salary matrix. So are we getting that updated?

I told Tom I would do it and I don't have it done yet how's that for throwing myself under the bus I don't have it done so I don't know if you've asked WIS to do it or not you have not okay yeah One of us will get it done. Yeah, it's not a new study. It's just getting the numbers out there. So it'll be part of what we do for the budget. So we'll have a 3.8 column and we'll have a three-point column so you guys can kind of see the difference in how that goes. We'll start working on that now that we have some guidance.

But should the consultants update the matrix, though, that we're working with?

That's what I had told Tom I would do, and it's being worked on.

Okay.

Yeah.

Thanks. On this budget increase, one question. Does the state put out what the maximum increase in a budget is for 27?

The four points, the 4%? It's 4%. Yeah, it'll be 4%.

So we're underneath of that. I didn't want to make sure we were above what that maximum was. That's a good point.

Yeah, they've locked in at 4% for a couple years. I don't remember what it is, but.

I figured it was about where it was. Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions on that? Okay, moving on, supplemental lit report.

Okay, you guys all have a sheet that looks like this. There'll be two of them. The top one is the auditor's projections and the bottom one are Peter's projections. You might recognize it from last year's budget. This left side is the original budget projections that we did locked in in about October. And we're looking at county general only right now. And we were looking at eating into cash by about $1.2 million. I wanted to give you guys an updated projection that includes... settlement and it also includes a supplemental lit of $750,000 and some change. $750,000 and some change. So we've updated what we actually had for beginning cash balance in 2026. We've updated our revenues We kept our expenditures the same. We've had about $105,000 in additional appropriations. I know that goes against what I just said, but that includes an $88,000. Thank you. Encumbrances. And then... unused or overspent appropriations. I took the difference in what we had to begin the year as far as expenditures go, what we have right now and then did it at 98 or 98% or took 2% off of that. Because we never spend the entire budget or rarely spend the entire budget. So I'm assuming we're gonna not spend about $350,000 in County General And we're ending a little bit better, not a ton better, but it looks like my projection right now is that we would be at $1,069,159. And I did the same thing with Peter's numbers. Again, the left side is what he originally projected at the end of the year. And then I took his fiscal plan in April and filled in the numbers for that. And he went from being cash positive $333,509 to eating into the fund about $500,000. So what this kind of shows, you guys know we're always a lot more conservative than Jeff Peters. we're coming, we're getting better and he's getting a little worse. And I have a feeling we'll meet somewhere in the middle of these two numbers at the end of the year. So it's not surprising to me, these results that will be somewhere in between eating into the cash, you know, half a million to a million dollars. So, and that was expected.

So question about the supplemental list? Uh-huh.

Let me get that number.

That was an additional 750? Uh-huh. So if we had total revenues of $15,375, you add $750 to that? Mm-hmm. That should get us up over $16.

We assumed some supplemental in the revenues, so it's always a percentage. So what we have in the revenues, how I did that, I took what we've received to date through the end of May, divided that by five, and then multiplied it by 12, and then took 98% of that. Um, that's how I did the expected revenues. And then, um, on the levy, I just did, um, the actual levy less 2%. So I did not just add in the 750,000, if you will. So, I mean, it will, here it is. I got the number right here. Um, $715,378 and lit just in case you're wondering. the lit fund got $697,839 in supplemental. So it's not just adding to what we said we were going to have because we had already assumed some of that.

So the additional, how much was the additional then that you added?

Additional on the lit? $715,000. I'll tell you, I just had it in my fingers.

I'm just having trouble getting from $15,375 to $15,747.

I mean, I could show you, but I don't have it here. I can send you the spreadsheet that I did it on, but we don't just add $715,000 to that. It's an overview of all expected revenues. Again, some of that was assumed... when we did our original assumptions.

Basically, you project some of that out, is what you're saying.

Yes, yeah. So it's not a net 750. No.

OK. No, sorry. That was very loud.

All right, thanks.

Thank you for that information. Any other questions for Mindy? Alright, moving on. Resolution 2026-12. Mr. Taylor.

Yes, each year your redevelopment commission is required to take a careful look at its funds derived from TIF to determine whether they have a need and are committed to using all of those revenues. If they are not using them or don't have a need, they're required by law to make a decision whether to pass that AV on to not the revenues, but the AV, onto the taxing districts that comprise the district. Of course, as you know, your RDC has had several projects, the water project, the upcoming Nucor Bridge project, the temper projects, and they have a planned project to make improvements at Comfort Drive and Nucor Road right at the railroad crossing. So our RDC has been extremely busy, and they've made a judgment, the same judgment they've made for the last year seven years that they don't have any excess TIF revenues really to speak of. They've got it committed to bonds or will be committing it to bonds very soon for the bridge project. And so they've made a finding that they do not have any excess AV. They're required to report that to you and ask you to approve that determination. This resolution encompasses your approval of their determination. You have to take action by June 15th. And so this resolution comes to you, and RDC is asking that you approve their determination.

I move approval. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Is there any other questions or discussion on that?

Just to further what Dan has said, that RDC is really busy out there. They make a lot of investments. those things have created. I think if I, not else, the year delay, almost a year delay in the bridge is going to help a little. We're going to have a tax revenue in between that we weren't counting on. So it's a delay, but yeah, it's still going to cost us. But that's what's going on out there. It's really a busy place as far as expansion.

Okay. All right, I got lost here. We had a motion and a second, right?

Okay, I'm sorry.

I was talking to Dan. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Hold business. We don't have any. Funded organization reports. Any funded organizations? Any department heads got anything? Jake's always got something.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I hopefully you guys are all aware of what the governor's doing with the gas tax. He has suspended it again. We're up. He's going to be up to 120 days, which is the max he can do for the state state statute. We've heard that he's trying to push it for longer. My ask of you guys is to reach out to state reps. Senators were trying to get them to supplement the revenue loss. AIC, Accelerate Indiana Municipalities, Build Indiana Council, Indiana Association of City Engineers, Indiana Association of Highway Engineers and Supervisors, and Indiana County Commissioners have all wrote a letter. I don't know if you're affiliated with the Indiana County Council. Their name's not on this. So my task to you guys is get something with the association so we're all standing together. Last I heard was $130 million revenue loss. If we don't get that supplemented, that's three months of our revenue. We're tracking it. Don't know what it's going to look like. So Tom and I have a meeting tomorrow. We're going over budget. If we don't get it supplemented, obviously that's going to impact projects and work being done on roads. So please reach out. If you know a state senator, rep, that they will support backing this and supplementing with revenue from the general fund from the state. If not, we're going to be scrambling.

Somebody have some verbiage they could provide us?

I got the letter right here. I will send it to you guys.

Yeah, I think that's an issue a lot of people don't understand. Everybody's cheering to not have to pay the gas tax, but there is a cost to that, and the cost is at the expense of our roads.

The governor made an announcement that he was going to try to get some money out of Rainy Day and this and that, but that's easy to say. You know who's going to get the money first. It's going to be NDOT's going to get the money first, and then the locals will get if there's anything left.

Yeah, exactly. He did say in press conference on June 2nd that he was going to supplement, but it's going to take an act of legislation to pass that through the budget committee, and we don't know where they stand yet. So, like I said, he is talking about trying to extend it again for the month of August. These ladies know that August is our least amounted revenue anyway because the state takes everything off the top in August. So... I don't think he can legally. We're trying to figure out who's going to sue him. I mean, I mean, that's been the trying to figure that out. So I just I want you guys to stand with the associations. I was a little disheartened to not see Indiana County Council on that letter being honest. I don't know why. I don't know who your rep is or what, but it's going to take us all to stand together as a local agency to beat this and to get it supplemented.

Thanks. Jake, you might update the council, too, on the road plan budget. What you got going on there?

So since the cold mix paving plan, the next 30 roads that are in line that's been scored, obviously that's supplemented to change the way we score. But that has been sent off to Jeff Peters as well as the equipment that we feel like we need or need to replace. That's all been sent to Jeff Peters. From my understanding, that will be on July's council meeting of options for you guys to look at. But that's all been done. We just finished up paving 900 west between 800 south and 950 south. We're currently on 100 south now, wedging it. Obviously, with the rain and storms, we're behind schedule a little bit. We were hoping to start chip sealing June 15th, but we've had about 35 trees down in the last few days, so that's kind of slowing us up a little bit.

Any update on the environmental on some of the projects like Nucor Bridge or the bridge south of Ladoga?

The three bridge projects, from my understanding, environmental is going to pass with ease. We've gotten some remarks back, sent them back to environmental. um new core i have not heard an update we have a meeting tomorrow i do believe for an update yeah well they're working on 234 they're in town now so everybody's wondering when that one south they're scared to death it's going to be during harvest so it's it don't go let till november so we should be after that okay all right thank you you mentioned the storms did we have any i know there was some flooding damage in adjacent counties that we

Is it okay here?

I think we had two roads closed due to high water, but they receded pretty well. They've been fixing washouts, but nothing major like Fountain County.

Okay. Thanks. Jake, can you update them on the bridge that we just ordered yesterday?

So Bridge 80, which is over here on 300 North, between 100 West and 175 West, it's designed. We went out to bid for construction. Milestone got that. It was... Don't quote me. $130,000 under engineered estimate. So we got really good bids. Milestone did get that. It's going to be a 150-day closure. Hopefully that'll start sometime in the fall. It'll be a good winter work for them. Okay.

Thank you. Yep. Any other department heads? Elected officials? Mindy? You look like you're reaching for the button.

I'll go. Just to give you a quick update, we did get settlement approved from the state this morning before the meeting, so we'll start writing checks for that today. And we ended up, the county will get 6.8 million, and county general, it'll be 3.6 million. So that will start happening today. And then I just want to clarify something that I brought up at the last meeting, or actually Nick Cashon, the veteran service officer, We talked about a veteran's deduction and it was discussed that the veteran service officers were told that it would be 100 percent deduction on 100 percent of the value. We have been advised that it is 100 percent deduction and this is for 100 percent disabled veterans only. 100% deduction on cap one value only. So I just want to make that very clear to everyone because I know a lot of people are talking about it, Bron's been all over the news about it, that it's 100% of everything and that is not correct from the DLGF currently. I'll just add that. So I mean things can change but This could cause a lot of frustration for our veterans, which is unfortunate. But I just wanted to clarify that in a public meeting and also just let everybody kind of know what's going on. So 100% disabled veterans, 100% of cap one value only, which cap one value for people not in the property thing is your homestead plus up to an acre surrounding. So that is what I wanted to share. That's it.

Tom, you got anything? Dan, go ahead. I've given you a handout, a one-page handout, a summary of some of the 294 bills that passed the legislature that might be important to you. And so you can see on House Enrolled Act 1161, it was one of the local government bills that had some really important things. One is there is a new law that affects your appointments. And so you'll see that when you make appointments to Planning Commission, BZA, CVC, RDC, and Health Board, Community Corrections, it used to be that there were different standards about how they could be removed. So now they've changed this. Now they've said... As long as the council is the same as when the appointment was made, you can remove a member for any reason. But if the council changes... from the time of appointment, then the member can only be removed for cause. So this is a pretty big change if you want to remove someone. That's a rare thing, but you need to know this. Secondly, you'll see that in recognition of the fact that a lot of counties are adopting compensation systems and schedules, they address the issue of how the county administrator's salary is determined. So the law previously said the county commissioners could hire a county administrator, but the county council decided how what the pay was they tweaked that just a little bit to say that if the uh... county commissioners make a salary recommendation that it fits into whatever your model is that the commissioners get to make that decision as long as they're using your model so that's a little different uh... it's actually what you it's consistent with your practice but it's designed to prevent the council from if they don't like the county administrator saying his salary is going to be a dollar And the commissioner saying, well, your salary schedule said it should be $5. That's what it's about. Then the C under that new bill is interesting to me because you have for a long time had an employee handbook that's pretty thorough. The employees have to sign it. Supervisors have to perform evaluations. You already do all this, but it's now going to be the law, which means some counties didn't do that. Interesting to me. I knew some counties that didn't did not have an employee handbook. So that's now the law So you'll you'll need to keep that and then lastly there was some Concern on behalf of local elected officials that if we have all these handbooks that somehow they weren't going to have control over the discipline of their employees and the state legislature made clear that that was not their intent that elected officials retain that power and Senate Rule Act 291 was expanded. There were some protections for elected officials, you know, to not have their address be public. That was 291 really designed to extend that to retired judges and given local recent events, I think we all know why. And so now there's a more formal process that if a judge or retired judge requests that their personal information be uh... removed from public uh... view uh... whoever that agency is who has a whether it be recorder mapping department or whatever it is uh... they have to acknowledge it within a day and remove within three days so that's what's new after you see it right away uh... and it's just a safety issue house and reluctant forty four says that is that relates to disabled law enforcement officers it says that If they are eligible to stay on our health insurance, we have to let them pay the same as if they were in active duty, which, again, you're self-insured. You make your own rules, so that just tells you what that rule has to be. That's a good change because some counties had a higher rate for disabled law enforcement officers, which seems to have made no sense to me. 1184, again, your practice, you have a towing policy, but that now is the law. That was never the law before, but there were huge liability concerns about this because towing companies get really been out of shape if you don't use all of them. And so that's now the law. 1210, House Enrollment Act 1210 then made two changes that were, one was just interesting and the other one's important. The one that's interesting is you know, when the 2025 Senate Roll Act 1 came out, all the municipal advisors worth their salt said, yeah, that's never going to work. The math is wrong. And they were pretty critical of the state legislature. Well, the state legislature didn't like that. So they now say that if you have an agreement with a municipal financial advisor, you have to post it on your website and send it to the DLGF. It was a to me a retaliatory sort of bill to send a message to municipal advisors, apparently not to ever disagree with them, which I don't respect very much, but that's now the law. And then secondly, the must law, which you may have heard of, but now as we get into 2027, the local income tax regime is going to change and there's going to be a maximum rate in our county of two point nine percent you get one point two percent as your maximum but then ultimately you decide what the the local income tax council goes away and the council decides what happens what is the local income tax distribution to uh... townships non-civil authorities like uh... fire districts cities and towns And so obviously the cities and towns pushed back on that pretty hard. They don't want you guys making that decision. So they set up what is called the Municipal Unit Strategic Task Force, MUST. And the new law said that prior to October 1 of this year, you may convene such a committee who would negotiate the distributions of LIT for all units of government. You are not required to do this, but you may do it. And if it's done, a representative of the council would meet with the fiscal officers of the cities and towns. Not the executives, not the legislators. The fiscal officers would be clerk treasurers. So that is something that's open to you that you may do. Any agreement must be unanimous, so I would say good luck with that. But you'll hear a lot about the must law, and it is not something county councils ask for. It's something that cities and towns ask for. So at the last minute, it got put into this bill as a way to say to cities and towns, you'll have an avenue to express your opinion. concerns our guess is of course every taxing unit will want to be at the maximum on the lit because of the changes on the property tax side and i i couldn't blame them but um ultimately unless changes are made to the law that those decisions are all going to come around to you next year and just to follow up on that we are in discussion with cities to or with the city

to get together with a meeting probably in, where are we at now, August time frame, I think, yeah. That way we've got some numbers ahead of us and stuff like that, so we'll keep you posted on that. All right, we'll start down there with Mr. Kading. I'm sure he has something to add to the party.

Just a couple things. Congratulations to the Southmont County softball team for winning the regional and going to the semi-state on a year that... was a pleasant surprise and congratulations to the coaching staff for doing a great job and the fans. We had a tremendous group of people follow. And if you're gonna go to Ferdinand, if you don't know where Ferdinand is, it's almost on the other side of the moon. So it was, uh, it was a nice trip. Also, uh, June 6th, uh, 1944 was D-Day and, uh, a lot of guys lost their lives, uh, and, uh, to where we can do what we can do today. And thank you for your dad, Joyce, for, uh, being there. And, uh, I had an interesting conversation at the Veterans Memorial Park. My doctor, Dr. Lovell, his dad was shot four times, survived, and he's got a brick there, and he hadn't seen the brick, and we walked out to the park, and he was able to see his dad's brick there, and it was a very interesting, quiet moment, so we just need to remember that because we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that, so.

See? Microphone.

Microphone.

One thing I was wondering, is there any way that this council, if they want to, show a unified front for the gas tax supplemental? Because this could be devastating for our roads. And we're already behind no two ways about it. We have been struggling to keep up. I understand the state's got a pretty good rainy day fund or extra additional. So is there something that we can do?

You could suspend your rules right now, and you could add that to the agenda and authorize the president to sign a letter of support if you wanted to.

We can do that. So I can move to suspend the rules.

Yep.

So moved.

We have a motion and a second to suspend the rules to add an item to the agenda. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Now make your motion.

I make a motion that we draft a letter to be unified to the state to add to this supplemental for our road tax.

I'll second that one. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion or questions on that?

Who all is going to receive that? I assume we can send that to the Senate.

Yeah, we'll send it to everybody.

Yep, good.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Jake, give me a copy of that and we'll work on it. All right, thank you.

Thank you. Thanks, Gary. The second thing I have is I've been noticing that our The other thing I had was our cash balance is pretty high. So we do that in July of last year so we can

We'll put that on the agenda for next meeting. Okay. Thank you. Joyce?

Along with D-Day, Sunday is Flag Day. So 250 years of freedom.

All right. Speaking of freedom, June 15th is the deadline to appeal your property taxes. So please, if you feel like that is necessary, please do that. I know I'm working on a process right now. Um, and this will be our last meeting before the 4th of July celebration. So, uh, you know, 250 years is a big, uh, big milestone for our country. Um, you know, right now our country is kind of at each other, it seems like, but again, we're able to sit here as a, as a small government entity and, and work together. And so I certainly appreciate that freedom and for all those that provided it, I know your dad and my grandfather's, uh, a lot of people left this community to go, uh, fight tyranny in the, in Europe. Um, A lot of us have served in different capacities, whether it's public service, law enforcement, lots of different things. So, you know, I'm proud of what we're able to do, even though if we frustrate you all at some point, but we're certainly trying to do our best on behalf of the people. So that being said, happy Fourth of July early, but go out and celebrate with your family and hopefully keep all your fingers. I'll take a motion to adjourn. Thank you, everybody.

I've heard about it.