Area Plan Commission (apc) - Regular Meeting

a big name. Basically, we've got an article for Yeah, I didn't know we wanted a energy.

Hey there. Wow, look at that. Good deal. We're good. Good deal. Does he have the others? You better be sincere.

I know. 622. Okay. [Music] How can you help?

Um, how are you? Told you I can hear everything. Screaming out first. I think you're not every minute additional is it just you or you and Kevin separate from you? Um

well did you hear what you know like So you said you right. It's notable. This is you're not going to vote on it tonight.

I was going to say it. California. [Music] Thank you. I appreciate refer back to the list.

I'll give you one. I'm going to get out of here. You deserve it. I know. I'm Susan will be on Zoom. Oh yeah. [Music] There's some stuff to pass out in there from from Ed. I got it. Okay, good. Thank you.

They told me I didn't have to do anything. I did not see for long. She may be in another meeting early on and I don't know what

are we ready? Yeah. to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the stands nationis.

Any additions or changes to the agenda? I think we're gonna move Teresa to the front. Yeah, we're going to move Teresa to the front. She's got another important meeting to get to with the RDC. So, let's do our approval of minutes if we can. Theresa, please. It'll only take a minute. All right. Take a motion to approve the minutes unless we have any discussion. I'll make a motion to approve minutes. Second. Okay. Going to take the role. Yes, Judy. Yes, Scott. Yes, Harry. Yes, Patrick. Yes, Joel. Yes, Jam. Yes.

Okay, you approved. Okay, Miss Teresa, you go.

Um, I gave you all two packets this evening. One of them is just a courtesy. Um the commissioners and I worked on our budgets and we did move money around in our funds and are appropriate to do ourselves. So we presented that to um Julie's office for moving. And after we did that, you'll see this packet here. This is what I wanted to give you the information for on additional appropriations. See, and there's one transfer in there from an account line to an account line. This is our last quarter of the year spending that we would need additionals for. So, I put all the explanations on this front page as to what all of those are. If you have any questions, please let me know or the commissioner know. And hopefully at your November meeting, we can work on you guys approving it. This is just information correct?

Yes. Request for Yes. for November. Yeah. Okay. Any questions? Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Next item is budget ordinances. Got three of them here on each of these. Got uh this is the second vote. First one is you want to say something? I do want to say something. Go ahead.

Um I I just want to make you aware that you're going to be about a quarter of a million dollars over levy. Um, and there's a lot of things in there that I don't think half of you even know about. So, I don't know how far you want to go with this tonight. If you want to approve it, that's great. It's I've balanced it, it's perfect. But if you what you said about if you balance it, it's perfect. What do you mean? I've balanced everything to gay way. Everything's balanced. It all matches and we're a quarter million over them. Yes. or the general fund funds over levy. They're just over levy. They're just over levy. So all I didn't bring my papers up here.

All levy driven funds which would be general reassessment health and bridge. Yes. But you're also going to be we're you know you're supposed to do 15% leave 15% in the health budget for the next year and it's not got 15% left in it. So there's not enough in the health

you reconcile with read. Oh yeah. So don't get me started there. We won't go there right now. Take me on like Yes, I did. When you say you're reconciled, we're fine. They're fine. No, we're fine. Me and Read and you and Rey are fine on this. We match. Everything matches. Yes. Any questions, thoughts?

Well, I don't know why we're sitting here at the very last minute just now. Here we are at the last minute. question is close. So, you know, to me, we might as well just go ahead and prove it and submit it to DGF, see what they come back with on 1782. We'll just have to figure out where we are. Just, you know, that's all we can do. All right. Any other thoughts?

We can do Would you say again what you said? Is a It sounded like there was some kind of risk here and I want to make sure we're clear on what exactly that is. I don't think there's a a risk so to speak, but I just know we're going to be over levied by about a quarter of a million dollars. I don't know if you want to be that far over levy. We don't need any help. Yeah, I was just about to ask you. Yeah, thanks J being here. Yeah, well, I'm here for Phil, but but I've helped Julia through the process, too.

Bill, for this in the totality of the budget, we are actually it's 360,000 levy is what you're what you're proposing to adopt. 360

360 over levy is what you're proposing to adopt. that can be done like Jim said and it'll come out of the cash operating balance that you were anticipating in your general fund. The concern that I brought to Julia's attention as I was helping her review today is the health fund. the cash operating balance in the health fund, the way it's proposed to be adopted is under the 15% financially stable um amount that most financials advisors would like to see. 15% of your budget and it's it's about 11,000 outside of that. So that and that one can't be fixed. that one is where it is. If you adopt the levy the way it is today, then they will stay underneath that threshold. They can't they can't adopt more of a levy than what you um adopt or they can't calculate more of a levy than what you adopt. So those are the two items that um Julia and I talked about today that she's bringing to your attention.

Are the implications that we proceed or is there an option to

there is you have an option to not to not re to not recess your meeting tonight or to not um end your meeting tonight to only recess and come back on a specific date and time. that you can review and decide. You know, the cash operating isn't really the biggest thing because it'll just come down. That's what they would do with it. It's just a lot to be over levy. Um the the concern is that 15% in the health fund. If revenues don't come in, then we're talking about the beginning of 27. that fund could have difficulties funding the needs the first few months of the year because they don't get their major money until June in settlement. So that's one of my concerns. Are you referring to the 11 the health department 1159 1160

1159 11 you're referring to 1160 as a levy fund. Yeah. Right. 1159. Right. And you and you guys uh you were adopting all of it. Yeah. Just the levy fund. Yeah. Thank you, Jackie. Uh 11,000 under in health fund. Is this the one? I'm trying to put that into historical context because weren't we writing serious red ink in that same one? 11,000. No. Is that not 700 fun? The four. Okay. Yeah. Okay. This is not the same. So,

we've always adopted with a cash operating balance where it needed to be. And obviously what can be done is you could if if you recess this evening this meeting and come back you can move 20,000 from the general fund over there in the levy before you adopt and then re if you choose reduce that general fund or you can leave it where it is and the DLGF will just reduce it and tell you they've reduced it because it won't fund. Correct. They reduce the levy. What are the implications one side or the other if we do recess or don't recess? How does that hurt our health? You have you either have to dump tonight or you have to recess.

I understand. What are the implications if we adopt tonight? Does it hurt us somewhere? It could possibly hurt you in that health fund. If if the revenues and levies are not there, that first quarter, at least the first quarter of the year could be or the second quarter probably could be in trouble funding itself and you'd have to do an interlocal loan so that the health fund had enough money to operate because their money comes in from the property taxes and and all those areas. Yes. So if they're if they're without money, then how do they get funded? So it's $11,000, right? Below 15%. The only thing they get the first six months is fees. That's all they'll get.

So the first quarter they probably are going to be okay. It's that second quarter they could very well be in trouble if you adopt below that. Judy's correct. Right. So I suggest that we recess at the end of the day at the end of the day because we don't want to we don't want to cause them issues. And then the health department that's the fund we're talking about. Okay sir. Thank you. We're we're not talking about the health budget. Yeah, we're not talking about the front health department budget. Nobody from the health department is here. Well, their budget isn't being impacted. Their budget is is okay. It's that cash balance that they use to operate their budget that it it's where the impact could be.

So, the recess we still have to resolve it by November 1st. Correct. You have Yes. You'd have to you'd have to say I recess until a certain date and time that's in the minutes and then you could come back on that day and time and pass your budget. Have let Reie look at it have Julia make sure she's in balance. I mean numbers were changing at 2 o'clock today. So and you would recommend it be more appropriate to recess? I'm not going to recommend either to you because they're your financial advisors. I just suggested to Julia she bring it to your attention. Okay,

Jackie, I'm trying to and maybe I missed it, but where why are we just learning about this now? Well, for one thing, we didn't get figures done until I mean Julia and I were on the phone today and figures were changing in Gateway. So, um why I don't know because it's not my responsibility really to bring it to you. I brought it to Julia because that's who I contract with and and actually I have to thank her because she's been on the phone with me all weekend because I've been in here all weekend doing this.

Thank you, Jackie. What was the driver in changing the numbers? Pardon? What was the driver in changing the numbers? Was it numbers we were getting from the state or numbers from our value? The driver for changing the numbers of the numbers were not in into put into gateway correctly by us or by the state by reading. Okay. So they had we had to fix that. So,

and that adds up to $360,000 difference. Let's do this so we don't have to spend here forever. Uh, let's do the recess thing. I'll reach out to Rey tomorrow. Um, and then get to the bottom of of why we are where we are right now. Okay. You think we'll be able to rec re reconvene that and from recess this week or are we going to need until next Friday be fine because I'll be in I have to go to

Yeah, I don't know if I can get it done by this Friday because that's throwing me under the bus and I have you know I've got a a compliance meeting in my office on Friday at 10. So it's you know it's Monday night, it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Um so I mean I would prefer that we throw this out a couple of weeks. November 11 weeks, huh? November one's the deadline. We got a week and a half. Let's pass the damn thing now and then we'll just have to deal with it afterwards. Do it before November one. Yeah. Look, I you guys I'm do what you want. Six of you can make a decision. Uh I'm not going to make decisions under the gun here and get backed up in the corner. All right. Do it. So,

no. If we did it on the 30th, you got a week and a half. You're backing yourself. Look, this was, you know, I got an email last night, an email last night from the auditor. I think it was 8:00. I had to pull it. I got the email. I didn't know anything about this until, you know, late last night. So, I don't know why we're, you know, we have been talking about months on months of what we wanted to do and, you know, the process of getting this budget completed, but you know, here we are for whatever reason. Um, so I mean, you all do what you want. So, well, I'm not I'm I'm not in favor of passing it tonight because we could

we could always have a special meeting. We we could go we could recess. We could reconsider it and then say, "All right, we'll pass it as is, wait for the 1780. Let me finish." We can do that a different date. That doesn't have to be today. But if we vote to pass it today, then we passed. Okay. We can't. You're on the finance committee and so is Gary. But so if the two of you want to take charge and get to the bottom of it, three be my guest. Okay. But you won't have time in a week and a half. I'm not going to be throwing I've got too much stuff on my schedule as it is, right? So just do that with Julie. So yeah, you get a hold of Jerry Hex and get to the bottom of it.

So you could do an interlocal loan because they do run out of cash. So you give We approve it tonight. Yes. Interlocal loan. We'll see implications of that. It's they pay it back once they get their money in. So, it's paperwork pretty much. Yeah. Shifting money from one pocket to the other and saying they're going to take it out of that pocket when they put money back in. Okay. So, they just go ahead and take out an interlocal loan if we come if it comes to it. Is that what you're saying? If it comes to the point where they have no cash operating balance left, then that will solve the issue. That's when we approve this though and we're off by $360,000. What is What kind of ding are we going to get?

You won't. They're just gonna they'll just reduce it.

But first of all, we're talking about the 1159. You're talking about the 1,000. We don't have a breakdown of the total. But also keep in mind too that the other thing Julie, you and I have not done, we agreed that we were going to get this done by our regular sess regular meeting in November. Oh, we've got another probably a4 million to $300,000 somewhat in that range and additional appropriations that need to come out of the general fund, right? And of course, what we're talking about here is 26. We're not talking about 25. So, we have two completely separate different issues. So, right now, I think it would be in our best interest to go ahead and pass the budget tonight. We can do this office loan, whatever you call it. You know, it's a formality, right? Just basically a paper formality. Yes.

Right. So, we can do that and that gives us some time to dig into why we found ourselves in the situation we're in right now with with 26. Because the other thing coming right up is that we've got the 2025 that in our November meeting that we're going to have to make sure that we're going to do some additional appropriations to make sure we're we're in the black on 1231 of 2025. And I don't know what that total cost is going to be. It's going to be probably I'm going to guess 3 to 400 grand. It might be high. Hopefully I'm high. I think you're going to be high. Am I a little high? That's good. Okay, that's good. So, you know, that additional appropriation in 2025 obviously is going to affect the 2026 year end case reserve balances. Right. So,

we've allowed it in the budget. Pardon me. We've allowed it in the budget adoption. Yeah. Okay. So, I you know, to me, that's the reason I'm kind of an advocate. Let's go ahead and just we're here. Let's pass the budget so we so Julie can get the dang thing submitted to the DLGF. we don't have to worry about the November 1st and then later we can go back and do the patch to patch the thing and you know just continue to move forward. If not, if you guys go the other direction, I don't want any part of it. I'm not going to spend any time energy on this issue because I just don't have it. Um and if you guys want to take it, then you know there's six of you guys do what you want, but that's I'm just voicing my opinion on this specific situation.

Sound reasonable doing it in our local if we approve it tonight. Are we for sure going to be lowered by 360? They'll take it out of your cash operating balance. We're going to be approved for that budget and that's going to come out of our cash operating budget, right? Which is going to reduce our carry, right? Carry forward.

Just a quick question. Why is REI in our gateway data entering anything? I use our municipal advisor. Okay. And the challenge with this um is that you have you know REDI goes in and they pull the data out loud and then they populate their reporting system and then we the counts will have to go through all the line items as you know we got to go through all the departments right and make our adjustments to that budget. But really what we're trying to do is balance the budget hang on and build our cash reserves.

Julie was the one that found What is is that it goes to you go to you ask a question I'm giving you the answer it goes from you know that the data comes out of the it goes to read reip then it's got to come back to Julie Julie's got to go in and I believe manually key things back in to the system make sure and then you've got the upload it's F4 it's the form four that has to be filed with gateway on gateway correct Julie right and and we discussed this the council because this is the council's oversight. Okay. The council and the auditor and the auditor agreed that we would go ahead and have Randy upload the data in gateway. Just question why it was not

because the challenge with it is if anybody makes any errors then it creates problems because you're dealing with well you're dealing with data entry. So somebody keys something the wrong way then that's what creates problems and then it takes hours and hours and hours to try to go back through and reconcile to find out where the mistakes are. I can I just questioning I know Julie was here all weekend working doing that. Jackie, I was just going to tell Darl that or Darren that the cash operating that you're proposing is 2 million nine. So if you took that threeund,000 out of it, you it dropped down to 2 million6. You county general would still have a cash operating,

right? But what I'm saying is that they're not gonna they're not going to they will not lower your budget. No. Right. So we're actually going to be spending $360,000 more than we wanted to. So all all of our efforts to cut the spending have been thrown away by not necessarily. I mean not necessarily. It's just the cash operating isn't where you originally intended to be, I guess, because Right. But that that 360,000 is going to be um reduced from there. Yes. Yeah. So we are appropriating that extra $360,000 of our cash operation.

Yeah. That's why I approve this. Yeah. Yeah. Because we we basically need to cut 360,000 out of the budget. So you apart from the local you want to address the 360 and stick it out. Sure reason to do that. I don't know how to do that. I really don't. You don't know how we're going to do that?

I sure don't. I mean it's worth think so we know what's happening with the budget we're about to pass. just tell us what changed from the last budget the council saw. So you said I think I heard you say we don't know what's in it. So I want to know what in it what has changed and I think council needs to know too before we vote on it.

You you want me to go get the paperwork today? You could be here a while. Well, I mean, I would suggest doing whatever you got to do right now and then I'll go get it at the end of the meeting and we can go over it then so that some of these people don't sit there here all day. So, it's it's a multitude of line items. It's not like two line items or five line items. Is it like 20 line items? No, it's more than 20. Okay, I'm going to get it. Well, that's you, Julie. And the other question is, has anyone reviewed it? I mean, human error is super easy. If you're the only one that's done this and no one else has looked at it, Scott, please don't go there right now.

Well, I've been here all weekend. I stay till 6:00 at night. I get it. Who's got a point still? I mean, it's reality. So, it would be wiser if you're going to do this. We're going to do question it now. If you were going to question it before, you should have come in and helped. I mean, that would have been really better, right? I didn't know there was an issue. I'm sorry. I thought I told you there was an issue the other day. If we want to put that to the end and deal with everything else so we doesn't have to sit for that do that. Is that something you want to do, council? Okay, let's do that. You can go get that paperwork whenever you need to and we'll go on that in the end. In the meantime, we'll

There's two other budgets that you can approve, correct? Got the uh solid waste budget bill. I will take comfort in the fact I'm not a quarter million dollar le. Okay. However, um I am about 7,000 over levy, but we have plenty of cash balance toward that 26. How much over living? Uh actually 7,200.

Okay. But but again, we've got uh some pretty healthy half pounds to absorb that. We still got a fair amount of money in savings. Um a little over six figures, which quite like a side of course for catastrophic repairs for the aging. We've got

um I I've kept all the um all the salaries the same as last year for the 25. So that that stays the same. There's a little extra built into that in case we need to add one or two more part-time people. We one good thing is we have been getting slammed a lot of the recycle center more. Okay. We just the front line out front we can barely keep it empty. So I mean that's a good thing. We've had to add an extra recycle container out to Dear Run. Um because that be that's become our busiest spot now. Um, and that new container costs $8,000. But again, I mean, that's a good thing. That shows the countyy's recycling and it shows we can handle it.

You know, you get a bird barrel. Oh, that's not actually I thought the burn barrel was was within open burn organic. Okay. Yeah. But no tires. Tires. We took in 26 tons of tires. That's pretty loss. From who? Brown County is notorious for tires. Believe me, we we do more every year than all the surrounding counties put together all the tires in our county. Um, most people, a lot of people I knew,

that's what ravines are for. But I mean it's it's it's a solid budget. It'll get us through. Um commodity prices have not really gone up at all in the past 12 months. Cardboard, which is really our bread and butter, that has um stabilized around 8.85 a ton, but it was around 18785 a ton for a year. here. That's what how we're able to suck away a lot of money. I did uh what else have we done? We've stopped commercial business cardboard pickup. The reason being our box truck would facing a catastrophic return on that major transmission issue. So, we have we have dropped that program. We're finding a lot of those businesses are bringing it to us. We just got a huge uh shipment of of cardboard and glass from partners. So, they're bringing it to us. Um, and two weeks ago, Barfaluna County, they had a business pickup program and they've dropped theirs, too. So, not as many districts are really actually going around picking up recycled material anymore. We have uh left Mother's Covered on the list because it's right next door is a charity. So, we still got that and they've got a fair amount. But, um, again, it's a solid budget. Um, we've always stayed within our line items. We've always been pretty solid on that. Um, I, uh, a grant paid for the tires, so we'll be getting money back from Biden for about from about $7,000. I'll probably be coming back to appropriation on.

Any possibility of a grant to fix the box truck for repairs like that? No. That's a tough one. Replace. It's going to be well to five figures. I'd rather my brother. In fact, the truck's on wheels right now and we'll be lucky to get two or three,000 for any questions otherwise. Just just point out I think you mentioned this, but you're keeping your no pay increases is what you've included. Yeah, that's quite a

my else. Make a motion to approve the Brown County solid waste management budget. This is This is the ordinance or resolution for appropriations and tax rates. Ordinance resolution number 2025-10-20- 001 solid waste. You say you take a motion seconded even.

Yes. Judy. Yes, Scott. Yes, Harry. Yes, Patrick. Yes, Joel. Yes,

that's back. two sheets with that one.

Oh, yeah. There's a couple that I mean still All right. Next item is the ordinance or resolution for appropriation of tax rates for the Aland Township Fire Protection District. This is ordinance resolution number 2025-10-20-002 and we got a hearing on that also last month. Take a motion to approve maybe second.

Darren, yes. Stey, yes. Yes. Gary, yes. Patrick, yes. Kim. Yes.

Okay. Next item on the agenda is the salary ordinance amendment and amending this salary ordinance. Payroll line in the auditor's office will be changed. Compensation employee benefit manager with a pay grade of 14 with a salary of $44,931. The pay will be retroactive back to August 4th, 2025. Your payments of the DOC, Department of Corrections shall be payment for the law enforcement statements retroactive back to June 2024. This is the amendment. Questions that way. Julie, how much did we receive from the university?

Well, we actually got most of it in now. How much? Six bucks. I think it's 26 261. We had 65 and then they just sent us the rest of the black with that. No, we were in the black. on the back now because they only caught up to where they are this summer and then we're right back where we were. Oh, the second

um office look at what was suggested and did we look at what was suggested and does that match that suggested for the 8,000 was that was my question. I just wanted to know what they had suggested. Well, that was their that was their external midpoint. Their low external salary was 43565. Are you going to the compensation benefits person benefit the manager?

Is there loss to you? Thank you. They had 48 currency midnight. So almost 45 just too damn late. That's what 48.

Yeah. The external the external. Yeah. Well, no, because we said all along that we are not going to Thank you. Um, we've said all along, Gary, that we were going to compare it with what was going to

do. So, it's not a separate issue. That's why we've not made any decision on it. That we were going to do what Wis said that we were going to do. So, it's not a separate issue. And he just uh brought up that um what they asked for was at uh the higher midpoint and we haven't made a decision what we're even going to do yet. current employees. If we went with the external midpoint, that's where we have $837,000,000. How much again? $837,6.

That's for everybody, right? for the but we haven't we haven't decided what we're going to be doing yet for the employees what what area how much we're going to give what whether we're going to be at the low end or in the middle point. Yeah, we pretty much come to a consensus that we were going to do, you know, half. We were going to aim for about 300 300 to 400,000 overall instead of the 830. Yep. Because we can't do the 837. We're going to have a hard time doing 400.

We're going to aim for some proportion of it. And if we take this this position up to a 14, we have no wiggle room. And this is going above everybody else to the point where it's going to plateau and not go up for next few years because it's above what everybody else can get,

right? And that's not that's just not fair and equitable. I had sent a letter back in June and Judy read it and I got positive feedback from everybody that I made valid points. You want to hire somebody or she's already hired. I'm not saying she's not qualified because I'm sure she is. But you want to hire her at a pay grade 14. I've been here for 20 years at a paygrade nine. Okay. The only thing that's putting me semi maybe above her is my longevity, which from what I understand is going to go away possibly. I mean, this is a little ridiculous that you want to put these new people in that maybe they have experience in another job. I have a specialty job. I have to have a continuing education for my job. I cannot even data enter anything in my office without that continuing education. It's the only job in the county that's required that. And yet you're going to pay pay somebody a 14 and I will be a nine. My and I've worked in two offices. I have another deputy in the office that's a pay grade eight. Don't you think that's a little bit of an insult to your current employees? Every first deputy, poor Sandy is a nine. You're going to hire somebody in that office higher than what she is. I mean, there's something wrong with your thinking on this.

Is this a new position, Julie? Meaning new newly defined job description. It's definitely a new job description because she's not only doing payroll, she's doing HR, but she's not doing total HR. She's doing she's doing quite a bit of it. You'd be doing uploading benefits and those kinds of things. She's not doing mitigation. She's not doing those kinds of things or she Well, she should not be. She is doing it and it's always been done by the payroll person and they weren't at pay grade 14 for years. And if we if we do this, then we're going to goof up everything that we just did.

Yeah. It's up to you. If you want her to stay here and work, then you're going to give her more money. If you don't, then you won't. I'm not saying that's difficult because I think we have I've been through six of them already. This one's actually qualified for both jobs she's doing. We just paid to do a job for us. I agree. And if we and it should include and it does a bump for you, which is great, but we need to do it within the guidelines. We don't give one the midpoint and everybody else the lower point. We have to make a decision on what we're going to do. Fair and equitable.

Yeah. Can I intervene here, please? Is it okay? Go ahead. Okay. I said my piece. Okay. I can be outvoted. First of all, Diane, the pay system in this county is a joke. And I agree. Okay. I mean, you got 35 pay grades. Essentially, what's happened over the years is they've used stipens with absolutely no policy in place. How to issue stipens to the stipens expire? How do we do it? It's just been a hodgepodge and the stipens have been used to fill in the gap. And I understand that.

Okay. Number two, we just spent 50 grand with WIS to come in and do this compensation study. Um, I have submitted all that information off to Rei,

Judy, myself, and Patrick Nelander. We've got a deadline of December the 4th, which is the first Thursday in December for a special session meeting, which will be a public meeting. And what we have to do is we've got to work with REI to understand, you know, if we I believe we were going to pass an ordinance tonight adopting this new compensation plan. Is that true or no? Do you have an ordinance from Susan Beavers because uh Kent Wagner gave Susan an ordinance at the last special session meeting. So you have an ordinance to me. She did not send one to me. Okay. So we're not we're not going to touch that ordinance tonight. All right, we'll leave that off the table

because I don't feel you should be voting on. Well, this is I appreciate your input, but there's seven of us that have to we are the elected board. We have the statutory, you know, responsibility over the appropriation of the money.

All right. And I'm trying to explain to you, you know, the challenge that we have is that what we have to do is we're going to have to do our work. And there's an enormous amount of time and energy has to be put into this because we got to understand how we're going to pay for it. Okay? And if we can get a how much is it going to cost us to implement this new compensation plan? Number one. And number two, how much is it going to cost us? I know you're repeating myself. How much is it going to cost us to implement it depending on what approach we take? And then the other question is is when do we implement it? So as far as this this this on the table right now, Judy, you know, this is a in 2025. We have every employee at 2025 pay grades with no cost of living adjustment for 2025 and 2026. That's what's in the budget. We have not adopted this new compensation approach at all. So I think our decision tonight needs to be made on the 2025 pay scale. Whether that be I don't where's this person at right now pay grade

no she's a eight. She's a pay grade eight. So you know we need to make a decision at what pay grade or the board does what pay grade based off the 20 the current pay grade that's in in place. and we don't need to be making any decisions as to this new compensation approach because it's not in place yet. That I don't disagree with. Okay. Because then it is in the 36, sorry, it's a pay grade eight. It's 36,000 and something. I don't think we need to be taking them up to a pay grade 14 because all along it's a pay grade 14. Do you have it right there? Yeah, it's uh

what's the delta between a pay grade eight and a pay? You can give me the numbers. I got a calculator. 25 pay grades. There's 25 base pay listed here. Yeah, just give me what's in base pay for a pay grade 8. 8 base pay is 37089 089. And then what is a pay grade 14? 14 is 44. 44 930

930. So that is a uh 70 that's a $7,841 a year increase in wage. And if I divide that by 280 hours, it's basically $3.70 an hour. 77 cents an hour increase to take her from a pay grade A to a P grade 14. But does that take us up to the midpoint? And so the midpoint's 48.

No, I'm still upset about the fact that you're going to be an employee of work. You have sent me hundreds of emails. You made your point and I'm done. I don't we don't need to speak in the meeting also. And I'm I'm upset that you're trying to pay somebody who paid grade 14 when your first deputies are a nine and we have to take over for an elected official in their absence. I don't know how much more we can drive that through to you. So you're going to pay. So what do I just do? Mary's not here. Okay. No decisions can be made. No, I have to make those decisions for her. It's part of my job. But yet you're not paying me for that responsibility when an elected official says 16. I'm a nine. You're going to pay a payroll person that's doing HR a 14. That is an insult to your employees and the first deputies that work here. Sandy is not making that much money. That is an insult to her. She has to work in that same office.

We understand that. And as Jim said, our salary approach is rather primitive. We are on the verge of incorporating a new one which we hope to rectify a lot of these issues that you brought up. It's not there yet. Next year. We're going to have our meeting on December 4th. I'm hoping for next year. Yeah, we're hoping for next year. So then why are you trying to change this pay grade now when you're going to hopefully do this?

Because she's been through six people and it's import the the position is important to try and get things done. There is not of the state employees that work for this county, your position and everyone else's position. You you can't compare your position to this new position, this new job responsibility. This individual is responsible for all compensation for all 180 employees. They are responsible for all of the employee benefits. All right? So the level of attention and the level of detail and furthermore, we as a county and you as an employee, we cannot afford to have continuous revolving door with this position because that affects all of the employees. Matter of fact, we can't implement this system, this new system that we paid 50 grand for because this new system has to be implemented by this person that is the compensation employee benefits manager. All right, that job definition has changed. There's an enormous amount of responsibility and that needs to be competitive pay. If you're unhappy with a pay grade nine, that I would highly recommend that you go looking for other open positions within the county that you can get a higher pay grade. You've made the conscious decision, you have worked for the county, you told me for 15 years,

20 20 years. So you have made a conscious you have made you have made a conscious decision to work for the county for 20 years. Yes, I did. Had a pay grade that I thought wasable until you stand up here and continue over and over and over again and send us emails. Yes, obviously I am. I appreciate you voicing your opinion. You have your right to your opinion, but you are in the situation because you made the decision to be in the situation you're in. So, you've got to take a little bit of responsibility on your end instead of crying victim. Okay, I'm a victim. I'm kind of a victim thing.

But I try to explain my job and if you give me a moment, maybe I could do so without you speaking over me. This is a reoccurring over and over and over and over again because basically what you're saying is is that how dare you? This is a pay grade. How dare you pay her more money than me is what you're saying. Well, you're saying my job is not decor. Your budgets are messed up because our assessments are incorrect. As I mentioned before, let me tell you something. We are on the verge of incorporating a new system. Each job is evaluated as its compensation pertains. So then why are we not waiting till that takes place?

Because we've gone through six people. This is a fundamental position that we need to function in this area. It's unfortunate. I agree. Totally unfortunate. You just stabbed all your employees in the back. So, thank you so much. I really appreciate all your concerns for everybody because you're just being idiots. Thank you for your So, all right. So, where did we left off? We were what was it? $33.70 an hour. Um Delta between the 8 104s. Is that what it was? No, 70. You said 70 700 something.

Yeah, that's annual. But I took that divided by 20080. I mean, you look at it as an annual increase. You can look at it external as a, you know, the long and short of the pay grade 14 Scott is how much a year got it. The low external. No, no, no, no, no. Let's ask my question. Yeah. The low external is 43,565. If we do a 12 at 4182, that puts us under. It gives us it gives us the ability to step that position up when everything else steps up.

If we go with a 14, we are potentially putting this uh position above what we would what we would be going to. Okay. What is the 50% internal the median internal wage? The if my memory serves me correct, we have basically two choices. Well, we got more choices than that, but yeah, internal base was 44 364. So to true everything up, if you true everything up using their new classification,

but we're not going to be able to true everything up exactly. we're going to have to do some proportions of of this. Okay, wait a minute. See, I I was of the mindset that because this is we we know we can talk about this at another time. I don't know that we need to discuss it here, right? But just I'll finish my thought. Um then we do this countywide. We don't pick and choose departments and classifications. If we're going to implement it, we implement it countywide for everybody,

right? But we're not we're not going to be able to necessarily do across the county at the external midpoint or the exter or the internal mid. What we're going to have to do that I think that's what the committee was looking at is taking these numbers the total of them we have 870 837,000 right? So we're going to have to come up with a number that we can do find what percentage that is then go through line by line they only had 132 on there they didn't have 175 180 some aren't covered by the

right so that's a whole another story I guess to get refocused because you need to make a decision on this not you know continue to kick the can down the road um if you go back to the pay the payroll 14 Scott is how much a year? 43 621. How much? 43 621. 43621. 25. Look at 25. Oh, 25. Never mind. 24 is on there. Okay, never mind. Cover that. 44930. Correct. That's what's on the table. So 44930 is the 2025 pay grade 14.

Yes. 12. What is the the pay grade uh for this position the classification at the that you know that midpoint internal and 50% internal that is the 44 364 44 36 bill difference you're not looking at the right one because it was 48,000 I just looked at it no that's the that's the external sorry yeah that is the highest one that we were getting so what is the pay 13 mid points, but it says 43 43 623 43 what? 23

623. Yeah. So a 12 is 42 314 where I and I'm just, you know, being forthright with all of you. Um I believe the commissioner's administrative assistant is sitting at a pay grade 14. Is she? I believe she is that position that position the commissioner's administrative assistant is in a grade 14. The new one's a 12. The new one what is a 12 awarded a new one. Their new assistant that commissioners administrative assistant is a grade 14 right because that is a managerial position in my mind.

Okay. She's 14. And when I look at this this this you know compensation employee benefits position that is a managerial position as well you know well it is because that individual is going to yeah first of all they've got to deal with all 180 employees so they got all the emails coming in they've got to talk to every one of them any kind of changes that you know take place they've got to know

well no but I'm walking through this all right because we've never walked through this. So that is a managerial position. And so what we're going to do is look at manager positions, you know, not, you know, not not elected officials, not first deputies, but actually, you know, managers that manage something, right? Um that's in my mind, you know, that person is a pay grade 14 all day long because it is a managerial position with complete discretionary. an enormous amount uh it's a pretty breath and depth of the learning uh is a lot for that individual to learn and the challenge with this is that if you know if we continue to have turnover in that position let's just say this if we lose the existing person and we've got to go out and try to find another person and while that's going on does that mean we got to bring Rei back in like we did for two months or whatever

we cannot be very efficiently We cannot as a county implement this new Wagner Irwin Sheily compensation approach. FES I think is the acronym. Yeah. But let me finish real quick. We can't implement that if we don't have a really a person in this position to to implement it. I mean there's just no way. It will be pivotal. You can't do it. How are you going to do it? And you have to have a competent person. How are you going to imple? So, of all the six people, has she been like more competent than beginning? Yeah, she's very knowledgeable. Okay.

She's actually going to get this. Uh, she's already done the classes for the SHERM and she will be taking the test. Okay. So, could I say something? So, I am the first deputy of the auditor's office. I do not make a 14 and I am totally fine with her making a 14. Yeah. Thank you. She deserves it. She has already no resentment. Do you no resentment whatsoever? No resentment whatsoever. And she deserves that with what she has already done. It is a lot of responsibility. And I have no qualms about her getting paid more than me. And I've been here 35 years.

Thank you very much. Okay. Anything else? The ordinance is asking for 14. is not appropriate solution, but we're stuck with the old satellite salary ordinance for the moment. Make a motion. I'll motion that we uh uh accept the ordinance as amendment to the ordinance. Second made and seconded. I I need an ordinance number. Scott has a question. Did we just amend it, I guess. Did you say what was your motion? just accepted as a pay grade 14 an ordinance number for us

I'm working on that I would easily conf 10 20-2000 20-20 okay 2025-10-20 [Music] dash 003 if I you have like three other ones up there. I think it's one zero one 0 one and two. Yeah. Darren,

can we Darren, we made the motion Darren has a suggestion comfortable. Second. I already second. Second. Okay. discussion during 12. Do 12. I can't do the jump right now before we implement it. Let's take a vote and see what happens. I agree. I'm just I want to explain why I can't do a 14 right now because it's going to it's going to put it ab above the target that we're that we're aiming for.

And I don't want to try to aim that high with because I don't think and I completely understand. I don't I don't dispute or that you know the I I do not dispute the responsibility of that job at all. I understand the the responsibility of that job. I just don't want to put us in a place where we are above the the WIS target. I do too because then there's no she's going to be sitting there for a period of years possibly without a race. There's no bringing it back down. We've ratcheted it into a position where we cannot back it back down. So Okay, that may be a reality she has to face or that position has to face. Okay, that's all I have to say.

We have a motion and second. Well, pass this is on the amended salary ordinance and it is right. And then the second one and and sheriff I assume you're okay with this. They're already doing those. Yeah. Well, I just I just want to say that you know what we're approving here is that it says that the repayments of the Department of Correction shall be payment for the law enforcement stipens retroactive back to June 2024, which is when they started making sure that is all adding up. I I don't know why we even have to say that because we've already we just want to make sure it's in the salary ordinance so that they that everyone's aware that they are getting stipens from the DOC.

So, it's about the retroactive application. They're already getting It's what we It's what we voted on that just puts in the right formaliz.

We haven't received DOC money for months and months and months and months on end. We finally got a chunk chunk of cash in. We've been paying the stipens out of the general fund. Mhm. So this new stipen money that comes in comes into its fund, DOC money. That money needs to be moved back over and replenished the general fund, does it not? No, the money's No, the fund went into the red. So it just takes the fund out of the Oh, she just been right in that. Got you. All right. All right. Does that reimburseable? Yeah, I got Okay. She's talking about Is that Is that what we what we got in? Does that make it a hole? It did make a hole, but it is now we're back to

it brought us back up. PLC is in a rear salot, right? Yes. Yeah. Thank goodness for it. Hopefully they're good for it. Good job. Okay, back to motion made and seconded. Go ahead, Darren. I have to be a no because of the duty. No, Scott. No. Gary, yes. Patrick, yes. Joel, yes. Jim, yes. Thank you.

Motion approved. item I think above me. Yeah, you saw me.

I see. Next item is the uh AR owner occupied re rehabilitation over matching grant. This is a grant uh we looked at last quarter and we need to uh rectify some issues with that. It's also a grant is a matching fund that the county has to provide for and the community foundation has graciously offered us a grant of about 20 about half of that to $27,500 and Whitney is going to share with us what we need to do to fulfill it.

Yes. So, as you may have heard, the county was not selected for the last round of OR. We got some feedback from Okra and they said that they would like to see an increase in local match, which is why there's the 28,500 in front of you tonight. Um, and the county or the community foundation's generous donation of 27500 for this program. So, we're looking at an even 56,000. Um, and I just want to let you know that the application round has open now. Um, so tonight I'll need a decision on whether or not you approve. um and the application in student November 14th. I have gone through and texted everyone on the applicant weight list letting them know that um the county was not awarded and that we are looking to reapply.

And we How much did the county contribute in the last round? Was it 28,000? Um so last round you contributed the whole 55,000 55. So in the total was 55. So that was 275. So we're going up 285. 285. Yes. So the 275 has already been positioned in our budget. Is that correct,

Gary? We approved 55K to pull it out of the river mode because at the time that we passed the resolution on a 55K, uh we did not have a firm commitment from the foundation. Now we have a firm commitment from the foundation. So, all we need to do is reconfirm the 285 this evening so you guys can move on and try to get this because we already made a commitment to do it. Correct. Would you take a motion? Thank you, Jim. You're welcome. Our motion. Yes. I move we approve the 285 to be allocated towards the OR grant as presented out of the riverboat fund. Correct, Jim? Correct. Robbo fund.

I second. Anyone second got that? Roll call. Darren, yes. Judy, yes. Scott, yes. Harry, yes. Yes. Joel, yes. Jim, yes. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Hey, next item. Julie, encumbrance.

Yeah, I we haven't been doing incumbrances at the end of the year that was taken out with the last council that was there. I just wanted to know if you wanted to put it back into place for this coming under the definition of incumbents. Basically, if there is a bill that is due at the end of the year, you and I talked about Yes. If there's a bill that's at the end of the year that goes into the next year, they keep the money in there to pay that bill. That money rolls so they can pay that bill. So, we haven't been doing that. You're saying we have not been doing that.

And it it can wreak havoc on next year's budget. So, what what I'm used to and and is that incumbrance. Well, first of all, it's very important that what can be encumbered is very clearly defined and carried forward. Uh secondly, that encumbrance does not last forever. I think it's 60 days or 30 days. And if it's not, yeah, it's I mean it's it's limited. You have limited time.

So this is not a chance for anyone to say, "Hey, let's encumber this that that and the other." No, it's if it's under contract and we are obligated to pay it in writing, that is able to be encumbered. If it's not, then it's not able to be encumbered. I don't think so.

Is my understanding. And because what we don't want to do is just have I mean, not that Mark at Parks and Recre would do this, but just encumber the rest of his budget, you know? Oh, we'll just save that for something else we're going to decide to spend on later. I don't think that's what we're wanting to do here, right? No. Jackie, do you do you have anything to say to clarify this for us? Possibly. In order to have an incumbrance, you must have a contract or a purchase order or an invoice dated by December 31st of the current year

that didn't get paid in the current year. If there is enough money within the appropriation to carry that forward, then um they can request that be um encumbered and the council has to act on it. The thing that um you might be careful with it, you might give stipulations on what incumbrance you want. Um, spending down the budget at the end of the year is not a fiscal sound thing normally to do, but you you must have something. You can't just say, "I want to encumber my supplies." Yeah. Over to next year. There has to be an invoice or a purchase order or a contract um dated December 31st of the current year and then it's requested in the next year to be encumbered.

Jackie, this is Jim. Is this a state board of accounts issue or is this just a local county uh operational policy? It's your policy. So this so state board of accounts has nothing to do with this. This is just an operational internal policy as they will they have nothing to do with whether you do them or whether you don't. Okay? They only have something to do with when they see an incumbrance, they may pull the invoice to make sure that it's a legitimate invoice. Got it. Okay. What I would like and suggest that we do is this needs to be put on our to-do list policy

and we need to at a special session meeting. Gary, this we must sit down. This is an opportunity to address some policy issues and think this through and write it up and make sure we follow it going forward. I can tell you history, we stopped them when we weren't able to fund the budgets year to year and we were adopting budgets with a $100,000 cash operating. Correct.

When you continue to do those uh incumbrances, then that just totally it just consistently eats away at things. And so that was the reason they were stopped probably I'm going to say six or seven years ago and said we we just got to stop this. If you don't get it spent, use it out of the new budget. If you need money at the end of the year, come see us. We'll give it to you. But until that, try to live within your means. And that's that's the alternative. If we don't do an incumbrance, we just do an additional appropriation. You would do an additional if if the funding is there.

So if if things have come in the way you wanted them to, that would be fine. But if they haven't, then we would say no to it and they would just have to live with next year. like we did with Laura last year when she had those things that she had to pay for at the end of the year, but she didn't have the money because it was rolling. It was going to roll back in. One thing and um you know, if this is our council policy, you know, typical timeline, Jackie, 30 days, 60 days to pay that.

Well, I've never I've never known that there was a timeline on them. I know it can only be spent for that invoice. And so it can't be if they don't pay that invoice within however many days you want to allow them to get equipment, then you can then reduce it back down and deny that that incumbrance for lack of payment.

So two things I would suggest we do uh because what we are not trying to do is hurry up and spend money before the end of the year here nor allow anyone to do that. And so I would suggest the council kind of as a message to the department heads help them understand this is these requests are going to be under high scrutiny by the council and if they are not essential they will be denied because this isn't a rush to spend kind of thing. It's more of a you know allowing contracts to be to continue without disruption. And then I would also put a, you know, uh, 60-day cap on these with the ability for an exception to be requested. Uh, because we do not want a lingering 12-month appropriation

sitting there. What happened with Laura was her bill hadn't come in yet, right? And those things, yeah, we can handle those kind of things, but we don't want this to just be put in reserve for a year. Correct. be cut off like like the 15th of January. Maybe 30 days. I don't know. Maybe 30. I think we should say that in our motion if we're going to do something today. We need to We don't have to do it today, but I just I my question was are you you know is it a possibility that we're going to allow it at the end of the year? Thank you. I Yeah. Put it on our work session and remember for policy issue. Okay. Okay. Commissioner Patrick.

Commissioner Patrick. Commissioner Patrick. I don't see him on the agenda. Did I miss him? Oh, there he is. There he is. Stand up like a SW. We got a new t-shirt, too. Skipped over. Uh, this is a $6 million not make this high chart, but we'll see how I'll be for you, Sam.

Thank you. Thank you. So, as I approached you earlier in the year around March time frame, I said we are likely going to be challenged with regards to the dollars and funding that we have with regards to building maintenance and upgrades. So, hello, I'm back and we are challenged here towards the end of the year with regards to the maintenance and upkeep dealing with in the buildings. So as you can see on the left hand side the two funds are impacted or where there are building maintenance dollars that typically come out for various kinds of things is the economic development fund with regards to the account line that's a maintenance line and then the cumap fund which has a buildings line in it. So the appropriation that was allotted in 2025 was $185,000 between the two of them and the current expenditure is roughly about 120 $124,000 spent. So on the right hand side you see in yellow what I would call the 2025 pending expenditures. These are either things that are left to be done. One of those has not been started or some one or two of them have not been started but some of them have been have been started and will be completed. uh one of the ones for the Silicon Valley which is the building that resides between the um Purdue Extension Office along with the um Mother's Covered building is in dire need of sighting. It has been in dire need of sighting for the last two or three years. Um so that's an estimate that it has not been as far as a formal proposal done for that, but the estimates around $15,000 to have that done. The $9,000 we just last week had a problem where we had a water leak. is costing us about 20 gallons per hour day. That's been identified and it was scoped and you will see the construction taking place outside that's being dug up. So, we have to finish that work.

It's estimated at around $9,000. And in the conduction or in the dealing with that water leak, we found that the pressure regulating valve on the building that this particular building which is around 30 some odd years old, it's not functioning properly and needs to be replaced. So right now we're dealing with water pressures at around 110 to 120 PSI. So our guys did a very good job of making sure that the commercial grade toilets and sinks and things of that nature have had reduced flow to deal with the water pressure changes. And you'll see that some of our facilities around here are actually closed water pumps and things like that because they do not deal with it very well. So, that's estimated about $9,000 to get the repair fixed along with the replacement of that pressure regulating valve and then repling or dealing with replacement of the asphalt in the parking lot. Um, we also have had and it's been under contract and released $10,250 for the law enforcement center elevator that was approved and allocated and taken care of or is being taken care of hopefully within uh Brad, I don't remember. I think that service is almost finished. It's it's it's operational now. It's operational now. So that's two10 $10,250 that we have not received an invoice on yet, but should be coming here within the next week or so. And then the last item, which is water leaking from hot water, 250 gallon water heater in the jail. So if we take those three items, the 15,000, the 9,000, the 10250, and we apply that is the remaining unexpended, that leaves us with roughly $26,792.89 for the end of the year. Okay. In those two funds, if I go in, which I have to replace the water heater because we're dealing with water leaks and we're dealing with an unsafe condition. So, that's going to drive us into the red at 22,000 by $22,2711. My request is that you, the council, authorize the commissioners to utilize GO bond funds to replace that water

heater in the jail because it's not authorized under the current bond conditions or ordinance that you have in place. I thought we'd already consider that. We did talk about I raised it. I told you that it's a possibility we could have that happen and now I am here confirming that deeds do happen. Well, it's got to be paid. So, you know, I'm in favor of doing that. Yes. So much. Thank you. I need you to vote. Yeah. And actually, is Susan on the line? I'm trying to recall how, you know, we had an ordinance to authorize expenses out of bond and we need to

I recall her saying that all you basically need is have minutes where you made a motion and approved that motion with the majority. It it's it's up to us up to us to approve it. Okay. Let's make a motion to approve. It's primarily for the hot water heater. Correct. Make a motion that we approve the request and then if we need to do something later, we always fill in fill in fill in the blanks. Jim, what's the amount? Is that the 22? You're 22. What are you asking for Kevin? Basically, I'm asking for the $49,000 for the water heater be allocated out of the cob funds.

$49,000 out of the Right. That will leave me the $26,000 plus to give me to deal with any additional emergencies, which we've had quite a few this year. 49 grand out of the go. Seconded, Sandy. Roll call. Okay. Darren, yes. Judy, yes. Scott, yes. Harry, yes. Patrick, yes. Joel, yes. Jim, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I'm going to move it up to the front here so you can I know you get sick a while back. Why don't you try to figure out why I'm singing to you guys?

I'm going to sit and observe all this be. So, um, you all have a copy of essentially what the timeline of the situation that my wife and I had happened in November of last year. Can you guys hear me? Well, yes. Okay. Okay. So, you have a timeline. um over over time you hear things and if you don't feel like you can directly affect them, you kind of ignore them and say, "Hey, it doesn't really matter to me. It doesn't." Right? So this uh the the issue of emergency response like came very closer. Um there was a a very high probability that almost an hour delay of emergency fire services to my house um when the gas man broke off and gas was shooting up the side of my house. Had there been a spark um my house was okay. Had there been a spark there's a real chance that I would have been injured because I was the idiot that went out with a pair of pliers and tried to figure out how to shut the thing off. right? Not not advisable. So, you know, I I started looking at it and full disclosure, my wife was the 911 director here for 5 years. Um, so she has a real good understanding. So, two things. First off, great appreciation for the volunteer fire group. Um and second off um you know understanding that we have no paid fire

response in the houses during the day. It has come home very close to home. And so uh as you look at this you'll see that finally not finally let me put that back. I don't I handled and responded, but the procedure is to go through and try to find somebody. Now, these folks have jobs. They work. They're home. Um, a long, long ago, I was a volunteer fireman when Bill and Marley were the chiefs down in Van before I got moved. And I went on a few runs. The next day, you are totally exhausted from being on a fire alarm. And if you have to go to work, it's it's really really tough. So great appreciation. They do a lot for us. We also have an aging population, right? So the number of volunteers that we're going to have that are in their 30s and 40s is shrinking. So it's a bad situation kind of getting worse. I I'm going to go off topic a little bit and I'm going to make a comment. This kind of sparked me. That's a bad joke, isn't it?

Yeah. This kind of sparked me into, gee, I wonder if there's something I can do to help, right? So, I started coming to the council meetings. I started thinking um I spent most of my career finding money um and I spent most of my career working on efficiencies, right? And I wasn't always initially um applauded when I went into a plant, but eventually when we made improvements. So, I came here to try and learn, to see what I could do to help, perhaps find money, perhaps run for office, which I'm not now. Um, and what I found is this group has improved greatly. Uh, and I I'm not going to put you on the spot, Judy, but I was on the council many years ago, and I was the one no vote. I was the one to sign. We're a one person vote. You guys have done a fantastic job of of getting in and understanding and I know it's been frustrating. So I want to take this opportunity personally. Thank you. So why what am I here asking? I'm here asking that we start looking at data because in any entity if you look at data you data you understand data your data more likely than not will drive the best decision possible. Right? We have a lot of data. How how are the response times to uh to locations on here? I I put response times uh from the stations to my house. So, can we look at data and start understanding the issue? We pay taxes. I expect emergency services for my taxes. Okay. And in this case, I didn't get it. Um, so I'm trying to get this in as a budget item. I don't know how to start it. I don't know how budget

items start, but I think they start with an idea and somebody's saying, "Hey, let's look at So, I know it's tight and I know there's nothing that can be done this year, but um, we'll ask the commissioners and the council to start looking at what we can do." uh to make these improvements going forward. So, let's consider starting with a a a group of people that have great interest in this and trying to find out what we can do to make that change before it's it gets worse and it's going to get worse. Okay. Um um but a lot of you know I'm going to get a little bit emotional here. Um, I had a a 103.6 degree fever. Basically, every organ in my body shut down about a month ago. Uh, and I was a I was out for almost two weeks, completely unconscious. Okay. Um, I had that happened at my house here, the 30 minute delay or a 30-minute delay, I wouldn't be standing here. So, I mean, maybe it's uh some kind of message, but this has happened now twice to me. I don't want it to happen again, and I don't want it to happen to anybody else that lives in here and goes, "Oh, wait a minute. takes takes 53 minutes for an emergency response and I'm 12 minutes away from the fire station. That's just not that to me doesn't make sense. So again, you guys are doing a my mind you're doing a banged up job moving everything forward. Um I'm just grateful that that you're letting me bring up this up. Do I have an answer? No. But I believe if we start looking at the data and if we get a

small group of people together, we can start forming a solution. And maybe in 2026, we can find the money. Staff really good at finding money. We can find the money to staff at least one, two, or three houses. That's about $300,000. Doesn't seem like a lot. Okay. But it's it's a lot. It doesn't seem like much money to increase safety. So that's it. Thank you for taking the time. I apologize for getting a little bit emotional, but wow. Um sir, before you run off, um I originally was on when I moved here on the fire board. If Are you familiar with all all that around 2007?

Um when there was a when there was a fire district that was called That was the plan. Just what you were talking about. Yes. However, what we ran into was not really a council issue because we were finally, for lack of term here, neutered.

Um, and and what occurred was it became a turf war between fire departments, volunteers, who had this, who had that, who was in charge, who's not in charge. And that whole thing was put aside. Uh, so you somehow if you if I don't know how you would bring people together, it's like Hamas in Israel. I I don't know how that would occur. And secondly, I'm I'm with you because I've been in need of ambulances here myself. I I get that the response times are poor. I'm sure our insurance could be uh reduce some perhaps fire insurance, all of those things, but they're going to cost, as you know, money. But but just so you understand, I've been in the small business for 38 years. I even worked for the old Wishard Hospital ambulance service. So, the first state certified EMT they ever had, number one. So, I I get all of this. I've been around all of this. And and there again, we just approved the money.

Yes. Right. We can't even afford the salaries. So, now, Commissioner Clark's here and and I and we made mention at our previous meeting, some of these monies from some of these other sources um could possibly be used to fund some of these things. And for me, I don't understand why they can't. We have, if I'm wrong, could someone correct me? We have about 15,000 residents, per se. Is that right? Anybody know? 55. Okay. And then and now we have we have we have that, but and my other understanding is we have about 3 million visitors a year. Yeah. So therefore, you're right. Um when I needed an ambulance, um over here taking care of

it took a long time. And there again, if you had just one, in reality, you would have to have three because you'd have to staff it 24 hours a day. And then and then unless there was some agreement in all of this, then where are you going to station that one? Are we going to station it by your house? Just as an example, or someone else's house, right?

So then then you run into to equitable issues. So I was I think if the fire departments uh if there was really an interest that would be their responsibility and perhaps maybe like Mr. Clark has stated in the past and if you want to jump in on this please do about some of these other monies that we could possibly bring in from another source or other sources to be used for this very type of thing. at the least um ambulance service. Uh it it shouldn't take that long. And I know when I was working as a law enforcement officer, um I at my house when there were incidents, I never told the Brown County deputies that I was law enforcement, but I I wouldn't go out and help them. Um but sometimes there was only one. Is that correct, Sheriff? Sometimes there's only one in the county since I've lived here on on a shift. I mean, it happens. Fitness and also, you're right. We lack and and this in my opinion we this is not a safe county and not because of crime at all because of finances resources and all of that but there again we're struggling immensely to just pay the people. So if if we have a better way like say I'm I'm with you 100% in all of that but I don't know how that would be rectified but it would start with the emergency services with the fire departments and that agree with that. So, so, uh, you asked me if I was around back then. I was, um, and and this is factual. Okay. Um, the council had, according to the state and the legal meeting, um, on a porch

by Nashville to say, "Oh, we don't want to do this." Okay. So, I went to the state and said, "Wait a minute. You can't have the whole council standing on a porch having a meeting talking about funding the fire station. Okay. So, there was a lot of undercurrent and I wouldn't say I would say there was probably some turf wars in the in the fire departments, but that was being undermined by the council. Okay. And I can tell you that because I was there. I asked the state and the state said, "Yeah, you can't have that kind of meeting." I was also here sitting in that chair when Jeff McCain, and nobody knew Jeff when he first came to town, had gotten on the council agenda to talk about it. Okay, we went till almost 11:00 and Jeff McCain was sitting right there and I waved at him and I said, "Hey, Jeff." Okay. um are you really there or are you just a figment of imagination? He said, "No, I'm really here." And I said, then I looked over and I said, "Folks, this man has been here till almost 11 o'clock. The meeting was on the agenda. He followed the rules. Why won't we talk to him?" So, there was a lot of at that time there was a lot of under undercurrent. Yes.

Okay. And I can talk and you know, straight off the bat, but let's kind of put that aside. I think it's time that we readress the issue. Now that out there, but there again, you need a methodology and you need a plan. I agree. So, so perhaps maybe that's something you could work with somebody, but I don't have any professional authority.

Yeah, it sounds like you're presenting good good information here is topic worth considering and you are willing to flesh it out or pursue what it would take to fund this. I mean, find find out sources of money possibly and the value of it. So, if if you could do that, I don't know if Patrick would be interested in working with you on that since he's got experience in this or not, but that might be a start to see where this could go.

I think if I think if there was a honest effort on the council and commissioners to fund the departments in some way, shape or form. Okay. I think any of the barriers in the departments would start to decline. So it wasn't I I was going to say that the departments kind of got blamed for it, but it really wasn't. It it was an internal. So if we have if we don't have that anymore, uh I'd be happy to work with you if he was willing to work. But I do think that we need to have um absolutely can't move forward without at least a couple um of the fire department chiefs. you might want to talk to them and see if there's any that hostility that was there 16 years ago or so.

So, I I'll go back with one of the comments and then appreciate um we need to start looking at the data. How long does it how long does it take? Would you be willing to do that? Um yeah. And you sound like you have the skills and resources. Um give me give me access to a system and somebody to ask questions to it. I can pull a lot. All right. All right. And I don't know if you'd be interested in helping Patrick if you had a question or so as far as the council goes.

Yeah, I I wouldn't have an issue because I I did that for quite a while. Um so you can help. No, I'm just saying I if there was a sense of cooperation and those people that would be involved would have an interest. That's the same thing we run into in the council on all these things. As you know, like I'm with you. I get it. I totally 100% get it. But do they? So why don't you uh do that, find the lay of the land, and come back and report to us and see what we can if they're in pattern in which to move forward.

Oh, and I want to respond uh make one other point. The ambulances under contract also do runs. So during the day, if IU needs them to transport a person, and guess what? Transports happen during the day. We have the most tourists during the day. So we're transporting, they're transporting people, and we need an ambulance. Right. transport, private transports, they get it paid for. So that as a part of our contract, they're allowed to do that instead of having it manned here all the time. They will take an ambulance out of service to make just a general transport. Is that what you're saying? That's my

There's another there's another issue in the county and the community foundation had some health health risk seminars about this where some people use 911 for their doctor and they have to be transported. So it's it's not necessarily the best use of it. It's not costefficient, but it is being done. So if there's ways to resolve that, that would be helpful, too. Yeah, that's ubiquitous. I don't those are some of the issues that are involved in all this. I don't have a good contact at the community foundation, but I think the community foundation would be central. Yeah. All right. Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you very much. I appreciate what you're all doing. It's it's going to pay off for everybody here. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We get Mark, you won't take very long, right? Let's do that. I was thinking we may put him at the end. He'll be easy, right? No. No. Oh, he's not like paying him to be here or anything. Um, um, I sent out an email informative email. Yeah. Explain the situation. Yep.

Pretty fun. Yes. So essentially what I'm here for we had we about three years ago two and a half sorry my dates

whichever me uh but we constructed or we had constructed a cell tower dear own park and so with that we have uh lease payments that come in from u the organization that owns that tower monthly um whenever we had requested to have this fund uh like a deposit line set up for that less payment. Um there was some sort of an oversight where that was set up as a general fund line um as opposed to a non-reverting fund. So unbeknownst to myself, uh the payments that we'd been receiving were being deposited into a general fund line. So at the end of the year, uh, we were not aware that those funds were then going back to the county instead of staying in our So ultimately I'm here to request three things. uh one of which if we could establish a non-reverting fund as the means of depositing of these rent payments then transferring the existing balance that is in that 1 line 1006501. uh if we could then transfer that um 8,000 which is in there now we transfer that to the new non-reverting line once that would be established and then finally um ask that we could be reimbursed or appropriated the the funds that ended up going back to the county over the last two and a half three years.

How much is that? So that total was $30,333.34. That's before 2025. Yes. So the 22 22 correct. Yeah. So the amount that's in the existing line today um is 8,000. We have two additional um lease payments that we have not deposited yet. So essentially it' be the 8,000 transferred to that new line. We could have that set up.

You and I talked last Thursday, I think it was. Yep. Okay. And what I'm going to want to know is that commissioners, I think you testified that was it 2019 the decision was made to have the cell tower installed on the park and rent property. Yes. Okay. It wasn't until 2022 that the actual cell tower was up and running, constructed. Yes. Yes. Okay. And then it was sometime in 2022 was do you know is it a thousand a month even? How much how much is a,000 a month? Is it even? $1,000 even. Yep. And all right. Until five There's fiveyear increments where it increases.

All right. So there's 60 grand that will roll in over the next 5 years from back date it to 2022 whatever that month is that we first received the first installment. Right. Okay. And then when that cell tower was constructed, the consensus was that we're going to put it on parks and wreck. And the commissioners at that point in time made a decision that that revenue off the cell tower was to go to parks and wreck. Correct. This essentially what's happened. Yes. Okay. Well, number one, we need a complete audit trail of how much money the counties receive. What's the Where are the checks? And the checks go to parks and recck or the checks

checks are are sent to parks and wreck be then issued in. So you guys actually get a physical check made payable to Brown County parks and wreck. Then we entered into the system.

Okay. And I'm not sure why it's not AC, but anyway, um before I make any decisions, we made, you know, this needs to be set. It's which first of all, I don't understand why it's 2025 and October 205 and this was 2019 and 2022 and now here we are. We're just now wanting to deal with this. I mean, that I don't get that. It's amazing. Um but my understanding is that that money we need to create a 4,000 series fund a fund number one and number two the commissioners need to pass an ordinance rec with the specifics of what this money can be used on. Ordinance A, it's for exclusively the parks and wreck to be used exclusively by parks and recck. And then there needs to that that ordinance needs to speak to how parks and wreck can utilize that money and how what you can spend it on, what you can't spend it on. That needs to be in writing. That ordinance needs to be passed and needs to be part of that 4,000 series fund so that 10 years from now that somebody's not in here but at the council and there's mass confusion on what can be done, what can't be done and so on and so forth. All right? Because if we're going to do this, let's do it the right way and let's not do it. Let's clean it up. Make sure it's extremely organized. Make sure we think it out through so that we can do it one time and be done with it. And from that point forward, there's no misunderstanding on how this 30 grand or this 12 grand a year that you're going to get, what it can be used on, what it can't be used on.

Is that money stays in that fund? Problem constraining it. Pardon me. That's a problem constraining it to what it can be used or not. Um I mean ultimately that that decision when it was originally made was turned over to be made by the parks board. So um right but that decision is not up to parks and recary that decision is to the commissioner's office has to make that decision. So if the commissioners choose to give the parks and rec unfettered discretionary access and money to be spent on anything that decision is the commissioners

no it's not based on state board of accounts Jackie if you want to intervene here I had a conversation with state board of accounts and they told me it's a 4,000 series fund and the commissioners to are to set up the ordinance that oversees that fund. If it's the council, then fine. We the council will do it. Yeah. Either way, that is either the council or the commissioner's responsibil in in the counties that I've worked in and it's distributed and where the money comes from and what it can be paid for all within that one.

And all I'm saying is just let's get something in writing. Let's get it recorded that way three years from now, four years from now, five years from now, it's not an issue. Okay? Hey, we don't find ourselves here right now and you're having a good business with you. I thought I was supposed to get this money and now somebody else is telling me I can't spend it. That's the reason that you run. He's not saying you don't like being here. You know what I mean? We know you enjoy visiting. Sure.

Yeah. Well, why don't we do this, Jim? I I think whatever that rule is, and I don't know if Susan's on yet, but she would be able to tell us right now, hey, how do you do this? But I think at a minimum, we know money's going to come in. and it is going into a non-reverting fund. Let's go ahead and get on our next agenda. I if we possible, you know, we got November. If we could have it done by the Do you need this money now to go by something? No.

Okay. So, if we could have it done by our last regular council meeting in December, which I don't see why we wouldn't be able to meet that goal because that gives us enough time to, you know, get around to Susan, find out clear up. Is it the commissioners? it to council, clear that up, get the ordinance, you know, whoever, and then make a decision and get it set up, and let's just make sure it's squeaky clean. All the eyes are ner crosses. All I want to do. Okay. I don't have a problem with giving you the money. It's just let's just not find ourselves in this position three years from now. Yep.

So, maybe at our work session, we add it to the agend, here's what's allowed, what's not. Let's get it written up. Let's get it passed and that way. So add it to the next because actually if that were the case, Scott, if we put under special session in November, then the only thing we get that Yeah. the special session in November, um then at our November meeting, we could actually pass it. Yeah. Yeah. And then in November, it's done. All right. Does that sound good, Mark? Does that sound good? Sure. Appreciate it.

All right. Um I had a couple questions just real quick though. Um, one as far as just like the up to the discretion of the council versus the commissioners on what that those funds would be allocated for. So, currently we have two other non-reverting budgets. We have our non-reverting operating budget. We have our non-reverting capital budget. So I guess I'm confused on Junior saying you need to find out if this is something that the commissioners versus the council has to determine what you'll be allocated though writing the ordinance.

Okay. And all I'm saying is that if do you have any doc and this is a big this is a big is there this could take you I might take you more days but could you is there any written documentation visav minute meetings for commissioners meetings I'm assuming the commissioners made the decision to have well they'd have to the commissioners would had to make the decision to have a cell tower built on parks and wreck because the commissioner owns it right

there would have If you can check the minutes, if you can check the minutes for commissioners going back and if you could give Sandy some kind of a date range so that and then if she could find hopefully there's in the minutes of those meetings there's something in there that says hey we're going to give you this 12 grand a year dude you guys can buy lawnmowers you can do whatever you want to with it and we just document it that way there wouldn't be any you know back and forth on well you know I I believe unfortunately a few months ago we looked into this and there was no record in the commissioner minutes. We'll just have to take your word.

So yeah, thank you. Um I I'll scratch my head a little bit more and see if I can find dig up an email. Uh but I personally don't have it's 12 grand a year. Okay. So it's not I don't have I don't personally have an issue what you're going to do with it. Yeah. just don't plan any marijuana plants about parks. That's true. Our work session will be on November 6.

Last thing I was going to throw in just to your question about wondering why with it being two and a half, three years, we received the check each month from the tower company. um we deposited give it to the auditor's office to be deposited. Uh we get a sheet back where it shows that that deposit is made but not itemized current balance. We keep a balance on our end through parks and recre. So unfortunately it was deemed that that was going into a non-reverting fund. That's all right. It was let's just resolve it going forward. So you have a record have a record for it.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Next item is commissioners insurance and music center governance. Kevin before he finishes that. And this is a question that you probably will want to ask is if you're going to go the route of an ordinance, if I'm not mistaken, ask, especially if you're talking about funding, has to have two public hearings seat. So just whatever, you know, that's a timeline thing, I think. Any shortcuts? Let's just do this. No, no, I get it. I'm just saying. Yeah. That way it fits into your schedule so he knows. Thank you. Pencil in. Yeah. Two more meetings.

Okay. This is going to be I don't insurance was kind of a typo that's on there. I'm just going to talk about the music center governance. I sent you guys a summary of my the meeting minutes we had from the commissioners. I summarize that in the email. I'll just give you the highlights and then turn it over to you for any discussion they want to have. Uh number one is the B County Music Center as a county asset. Um the collateral for the loan for that music center as a county asset. So the revenue incubs again county access policy is the position is the officials collected officials should accept accountability on behalf of the non-appointed officials. And there's four primary areas I want you to consider. Um the distrib on the administrative agreement the distribution of excess revenue. Not going to debate the 7525 where it should go but that elected officials should be making those decisions. Board membership that started off with Maple Leaf Management Group started off with five members increase it to two added to large. One of those at large is a former commissioner and there's also an appointee on there from the CBB. Again, that's not a an appointed official. It's appointed by them so to speak. Um so um the suggestion is replace two of those positions with councilman and then that would give a four to seven majority on elected officials. Um another important feature I think on that is influence profit determination and I think uh Patrick you mentioned that one. Um what should be the profit distribution or the goal for the music center? Do we go for break even or we go for optimum profit? For instance, you can have the most uh successful shows subsidize the less successful shows with the intent. Get as many people into the seats as you can to support the tourism industry. But you shoot for more profit. Again, that should be an elected official decision on that on that distribution. How should be calculated? Um the other one's most

important is risk management. Um what what does that look like from reserve fund in case of an economic downturn? We had that in the case of COVID. I remember when I asked the council at the time what would we do in in a case of worst case it's like well I will just settle it turn back over the bank well that's not feasible when COVID happened you know the taxpayers would absorb that additional fun so again it's something that happened people are going to be looking at elected officials not appointed officials and so the bottom line there is is elected officials ought to have the accountability uh for the operate for those key decisions of operation music center that would require a change either voluntarily really on behalf of the of the Maple League management. Wonder any questions for me on that?

I just like to make one change to what you said. Uh during co the the the decision wasn't that, you know, if something happened, we just let the bank take it over and sell it. That was a comment made by one one councilman to to make a point that it's not going to be, you know, it's not going to fall on on citizens. I just would like to correct that. No, the the decision was not made that if something happens, we're just going to let it go back to the bank itself. That was it. That was hyperbole at the time. Yes. You know, Darren, I just wanted to I just wanted to correct that statement.

Yeah. So if this occurred the way you propose, what other changes could be made for the usage of the money that is made available through profit for us? Well, that's really a council call, but you have the distribution that revenue um one, what percent of that distribution should go to the county and then how do we want to spend it? That's a that's a council call. So we could use it for emergency services, public safety,

because I we see we just seem so shortfunded here with three million visitors a year. Um I can't believe that we couldn't get the citizens the the residents here behind something like that because we're all getting shortch changed and it it appears to be in my opinion the majority for the businesses. That's just my opinion.

Well, Patrick, you referenced sources of revenue. I think that was discussed at a workshop for the county council and the issue was on the uh the inkeepers tax we went from the 5 to 8% and one of the categories other counties exploited was quality of life and of course that's determined by the county and I would think public safety be directly related to quality of life but that's a that's a different conversation but that's a source of revenue um that it's probably dire needed and that amount could be decided by county officials correct

corrected officials Yeah. Um, just to be forth right with you, I've spent uh a considerable amount of time and have over the last couple years. Um, I've got all the documentation with that entire project from the beginning with me. Um, and what I've, you know, I want to start with for me to try to understand the why. All right. And and I've got copies of your email that you sent out twice to us. And then I also pulled the article that you posted back in 2019, I think it was. Yeah. May the 23rd, 2019. So I closed I've got that. I'm just using these two pieces as my reference.

Yeah. Thank you.

All right. So, um, in in your correspondence with the council, you make the comment, and I quote, "eleed officials are accountable to the citizens." And I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. Um, you know, this is true provided the elected officials are forthright with their citizens. U, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now I'm going to go on the my first question is you and again I'm going to quote the music center and the revenue from the inkeepers tax are a county asset. Can you define for me what your definition of a county asset is? Okay. Well, revenue from the incub required as state tax. So that's a state government to apply that tax. Um the county has chapter 14 in incub tax that's a county government uh identifying the requirement for the state of how that money should be distributed or what it can be used for. We have a treasur collected. We have an auditor to mansion. That's that's county government. Um that's a that's a county asset.

Okay. Not possible. What about what about the the actual the real estate? Well, we can go on there, Jim, but

the music Well, the music center is that I mean, see, there's to me where I get confused is that, you know, when I ask the question, how do you define a county asset? Um, you know, there's two definition there's two there's two different definitions. Um, you know, is it defined as a useful or valuable thing, person or quality? So, for example, I can make the claim that the Brown County State Park, the Hooser National Forest in yellow with Forest is a county asset even though the county doesn't own it. Um, on the other side of the fence though, um, is you're, you know, the definition of property owned by a person, company, or a government. So to me the when I look at the physical asset the real estate even better and when I look at that inkeepers tax while it is per state statute that inkeepers tax is actually a sales tax that is paid by the private sector and furthermore the it is the private sector that creates the the the you know the uh tourist rentals, you know, Brown County in the hotels, the seasons. So, that's a private sector asset that's being paid, the sales tax being paid by, you know, the private sector for the people that come to our county and want to stay overnight for less than 30 days. Uh, and I don't view the music, well, matter of fact, I don't at all. uh the county does not own the music center, the real estate and that inkeeper tax. Furthermore, per state statute, the county does not have the discretion at all of how they spend that money. That is the per state statute, the CBC has

that discretion. Now, the only governance that the county has over that inkeepers tax, you know, is the county council currently has statutory oversight to approve that CDC budget once a year. And if you remember here, it's been a few months ago that we had a unanimous vote from the council to recommend to the CDC board members, the five board members, that they create a governing document with the policies and the procedures of how they make decisions to allocate those resources once a year. Because an issue is is that since Scott was did the work and was able to take that from a 5% to an 8% I did the math in 2022 there was a million 161858 in inkeepers tax revenue in 23 it was a million 327512 and in 24 was a million 363245. So if I take that total that total for that 3-year period is $3,852,615. Well, that three-year average at a 5% is a million284205, which means that there's 25,684,000 in gross sales a year in Brown County that is spent on overnight stays less than 30 days. So, going forward at an 8% tax, we're looking at a little over $2,54,000 a year in revenue coming in. And what's interesting is is the annual mortgage payments on that that because there's it's a mortgage. There's actually the state bank mortgage because all the council did and I've got a copy of it here. I can read it if you like. That all the council did is they simply

pledged the inkeepers tax. That was it. And I think it was just phenomenal on your on on those individuals that put their heads together and made this thing happen because what they did is they took an a revenue source, pledged a revenue source, and then they created a separate entity that didn't exist before that. And now all of a sudden, not only do we have two million coming in inkeepers tax revenue, but we also have revenue coming in from a a non-for-profit business that did not exists before. And now we got another source of revenue coming in. It was brilliant. So So it it and what's interesting is is that the the 32% of the 2 million a year in inkeepers tax is all we need in order to be able to service the debt. And if you flip that around the other way is that that music center a we created a brand new revenue stream and number two the secondary benefit of that music center was to support the the the hospitality sector and be and and to stabilize and hopefully increase the occupancy rate during those winter months. And I want that occupancy rate to stay as high as I possibly can because if not then we would potentially lose BCI and the seasons and I would really be upset if those two entities went out of business. So the thing that's interesting is is that even if the occupancy rate and we had another black swan like we had in 2020, but let's say it's worse. Let's say we had a global economic meltdown and the unemployment shoots up to 10%.

We would even if we lost if our occupancy rate decreased by 68% and the music center was completely shut down and closed, we'd still have enough money to be able to service the debt on the music center. So, I wanted to share that with you because my my again it goes back to, you know, do you believe county government owns the music center and you believe that the county government owns the inkeeper tax and county government should control the the the music center and and the and the inkeepers tax. Yeah. Let me summarize, Jim. For one, on ownership, you use the term ownership. It's a it's a county asset. Um,

how do you define county? It took the council on for one. How do you define county asset? Is it a you know does the commissioner's office own the real estate? Own own technically no as you well know. Okay. But is it an asset for the for the county? Yes, it is. Um did it require county government, state government make that happen? Yes, it did. Did it require a vote by the council of the commissioners to approve this project? Yes, it did. Okay. And for the from the debt standpoint, as you all know, it's an Indiana slide of hand. if we're going to and and the music center was was was purchased under the same guidance as we did the jail. Um, we didn't issue we didn't issue any bonds, a separate mortgages, a separate entity,

mortgages, a separate entity with the with the jail was created to manage the jail. We do a lease to buy and so our lease payments are in are in the budget. That's a requirement for the county to pay those lease payments that we have. And the music center is the same way. They've de developed a maple leaf management group or Maple Leaf building to take possession of that land as well as the mortgage. So that's a separate entity. the state of the state the government of Indiana allows to have it per county. And when you talk about sales tax, Jim, um the count or the state is funded primarily by sales tax and income tax. And so it's to their benefit to generate as much revenue that they possibly can to generate more of those sales tax. The infrastructure for that is on the county citizens. How many times have we talked about public safety and and the sheriff's department has to support that the state park? That's that's county. all our infrastructure associated with this city. That's county. Uh so the county taxpayers are picking up a lot of the bills where they're picking up the bills for the infrastructure. They're picking up public safety. Um and we're not getting compensated for that. So now when we talk about this maple the management group of that, Jim, it's a it's an administrative agreement um that that can be changed that can be influenced. So the question becomes, do you want to allow those these kinds of decisions be made by non-elected officials or do you want have elected officials accountable? That's the call.

Well, I said I don't see it that way. I've got a different perspective though. Okay. Okay. And let me go on to my second question because what you're So, you're acknowledging that when you use the phrase county asset, you're going to use it in the same context that we could use the state park is a county. No, I'm not using that. That's that's So, you're using that's a misdirection on asking you how to define it. How's the state park? How what what control do we have at all if any over the state park county citizens? What control do we have over the state park?

And this is at the core of the issue. You're making the claim that the the Maple Leaf Building Corporation and the endkeepers tax is a ground county government asset. The ground county government owns it and should control it all is what your claim is. It's it's a it's an asset. It's you're going to define it. You're defining it as a uh let me look it up here. There's only two definitions and but you're defining it as the county Brown County government owns the music center and it owns the inkeeper stats. Well, you're talking ownership, which is a whole different issue, don't it?

And the other thing, Jim, is it is when that administrative agreement counsel the commissioners have have responsibility for that contract. They have ultimate. We we can change that agreement. We can develop a new agreement. The commissioners do. The county does. Well, that is yet to be yet to be seen. gen research with barns and while we're on that um you make the statement a county asset managed by unelected officials includes tourism business owners can provide a perception of a conflict of interest in the county is making claims to create the perception of a conflict of interest that you're aware of.

How's that a relevant question? Because you made the statement. I'm challenging you on your statement. you're presenting this statement as truth and I'm challenging you on that statement. Look at the who on the natively banquet group on the on the membership channel who looked at the looked at the uh looked at the list of individuals. In my opinion, this article that you put in the paper, you challenging and creating a negative perspective of the native leaf management group interpretation. I stated facts. Oh, did you really?

Yeah. Well, you know, there's good old in here on this article, and I could read the article, put it in the and put it in the document, May 23rd, 1990, but with a tendency to overstate the economic culture impact in the video in venue. Mr. Ghoul states, "The Brown County Music Center is a community project designed to be an asset for everyone." This is a disingenuous statement. This was not a true statement. Revenue from Inkeepers tax can be used for any project that promotes tourism. This is a decision that he and his fellow tourist owners do not have to make the power enforce. The county commissioners and the council who had to approve this project on behalf of the county citizens refused to hold public meetings to solicit citizens input or the desiraability of the project or to consider and discuss other options. I was opposed to the process that was used to fact track this project. And so to me, you were the one as a blogger, you've been a professional blogger for Brown County for years now. And as a blogger, you have been against this project from day one.

It's not true. And I'm just using your language here. This against the process. This is what you said here and stay until public meeting. And then I have another another thing I want to understand because I don't understand it. You made a statement in commissioner's meeting just recently. selling the meters to the music center is not an option. Market value at 3 million plus or minus. Where are you coming up with the 3 million? I stated that in the uh in the email I sent you. It was it was how where and how did you obtain the estimated value? You quoted where did you get the information to quote that 3 million? As I quoted in there, I referenced in your email, AMC Global identified that the

Did you pay for a business valuation report from AMC Global? We did not. We asked for an opinion. We asked for Barnes and Thornberg to to connect us with someone familiar with that particular area. We had conversations with you conversation on a phone call, but you didn't pay for an actual professional business valuation. That's correct. Okay. So, it's an opinion. It is their opinion. They're educated and individuals that they are individuals in the that work the area. There's no value or there's no merit to the claim because it's is simply a subjective claim based off no we can go ahead and contract for that.

Well, but that that leads me to my next question is that you say the commissioner's position identified as desiring 100% of the excess revenue go to the county. A limited official should have four of the seven seats. So a majority is what you're proposing, correct? Okay. Three council and one commissioner. Why? Why? Yeah. Why? Why? Why are Why are you proposing that the basically Brown County government takes over complete control of the map? That's not necessarily accurate. If you got four out of seven, that's a controlling vote.

That's an influencing vote. Now what I want to know you know for me the other thing too is so you're saying you're going to have to that you're not confident making those particular input on first of all you know why has the commissioner's office from February '05 to 2024 through March the 14th of 2025 you guys have spent over $11,874.37 with Barnes and Thornberg on music center legal fees. You spent almost 12 grand on legal fees with Mike Moga, Tom Pitman. I've got copies of all invoices right here.

All right. And you clearly have been in conversation with Mike Moga and Tom Pitman and how to go in and structure and change the management agreement is what you've done. I asked I asked what was possible from a legal perspective. So you've been working on responsibility of the of the commissioners would be on something like this. So you when I came forward this particular idea, I would know exactly what we could.

You've been working on this for months and months and months on end and then you show up here in front of the council and you basically say, "Hey council, uh would you guys favor us changing the maple leaf management agreement to where we've got three commissioner three council members and one commissioner?" Because basically what we want to do is we want to take over the management agreement is essentially what you're saying. And what I guess I'm a little confused is the county council currently right now. All right, we have oversight over the CBC because it is the CBC board that makes decision on how they allocate that piece of either form one every year when they turn it into a budget. And we can either approve or reject it. And furthermore, this year the the the CPC board, I believe, oh, I know we did, they are picking up the cost for parks and wreck. And so that's to the tune of $225,000. So they're already picking up some of that cost. Well, the council has discretionary control over the CBC, the inkeeper tax revenue. And furthermore, that inkeepers tax revenue, the first state statute cannot be transferred out of the inkeepers tax fund and it cannot be, you know, co-mingled with any other revenue. and any line items, any money spent in that inkeepers tax fund, the line items have to stay within that. And you know, Mr. Clark, my my perspective is simply this is that your request to pursue county government control over a domestic nonfor-profit corporation is quite simply an example of socialism. If we permit this to happen based on perpetual and historical mischaracterizations, what's next? government control of the Playhouse, the CDC, and the foundation. Where does it stop? And lastly, I'm gonna I'll finish with this. Rather than forgetting the government intervention in our tourism industry, we should

express our sincere appreciation to the many community members who willingly serve as board members of the local nonforprofit or organizations dedicating their time and effort to continuing to enhance the quality of life within our community. So is I am absolutely against and will not support any changes to the maid leave management agreement and I want it left as it is and furthermore and because the other thing too I you know let's just say this our credit rating this last week from standard and pores was dropped. We were a double A minus and now it is we went to an A. We've got a scathing report coming in from the state board of accounts. And when I look at the financial situation that I inherited when I came into this position here back in 2023, you know, to have elected officials that we just arbitrarily vote because we know their last name, we like the guy. He's a happy guy, but we have no idea whether they got the skill sets or not to be able to manage a business. That is a business over there. And I want private sector because the private sector, Hust Valley sector in our county, they have skin in the game. They have a vested interest and to be able to take a 100% of the profit of that music center and give it to the foundation. I have no problem with that whatsoever because the foundation is there to support what do we got over 100 nonforprofits in this county. So to have the the the the to create a revenue stream with the music center that didn't exist being managed by the private sector who has a vested interest in that entity to generate the revenue to transfer it to the foundation to have the foundation feed it back into the community because we have a whole boatload of Thank God we've got the volunteers that we've got in this county that sit on those

nonfor-profit boards and they work to try to improve the quality of our life And I have no interest whatsoever to take that private sector company, all right, and turn it over to four elected officials who may or may not have any business sense whatsoever. That it it that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And I'll uh um yield back my time, Mr. President. Yes. Right here. Go there. I don't think people ever.

Yeah. I've never heard anyways to to sum it up a little bit here is what involvement currently do we have in influence and involvement is what the government does in this incentity do we have in that I know the council is represented you're the representative there the commissioners I don't think have chosen to be involved that concerns me it's sort of like you do want to take more control but you don't want to be involved I would like that to be to be exercised before we go into saying okay let's try and do some control things. The other thing is that my understanding is the music center is like in about three years they've met some of their 10year goals. Uh I think you may know something about that John I'm not sure but Eric or Darren. So it's moving ahead nicely. um if we exercise our part and might have more influence that I am commissioners get somebody in there and and Mr. President, I will say this is that now I'm not going to say that there isn't a room for the council for continuous improvement.

So, you know, we as a council body can certainly work more closely with the CDC. We can work more closely with Maple Leaf Management and we can work more closely with the the CVB so that we can understand some of the challenges that they face and how do we all work together in a collaborative effort for the benefit of the county. Um and so I I think we can do that going forward. It's paying more attention and you know

we will and we are yeah like you said you asked them for their governing documents to the CDC and such like that. The other thing is my understanding is the reason the county government had to take a position in supporting the music center with the with the inkeepers tax guarantee was because there was no other such entity and the banks were not secure. Now that we have an entity of that sort, if another business of some some nature like that wanting to come in,

we have a track record. We as the county government would probably not be like be likely asked to take a position in supporting that. So that's just the nature of business and security. So I don't know if you needed anything to summarize. For one, Barnes and Thornberg did $1,000 an hour to roll up the average. my question Barnes and Thornberg was one of our responsibilities um and and capabilities when it comes to that that management agreement. So before I even talked about making any kind of change one I want to find out what we can and can't do and what the responsibility are. Um so that was very short conversation probably two or three emails to get the kind of the answer that I got and then they and then of course Ron Sanders Brand on on selling music center the next part of that was is that even feasible so we went through and did that um and then the issue became the distribution of that revenue who makes that decision and and and that kind of thing. So um did the due diligence when it comes to that wouldn't want to propose any kind of changes that we couldn't by 40 do if if the desire was there. The next step is bring it to the council and get your positions which I'm getting now. So while I'm hearing uh Jim Camp is pushing for a status quo not broke don't fix it. Okay. Understand that. That's what primaries are all about and understand uh that particular position. Um any other questions for me when it comes to that.

Yeah. But then let's clarify something. Tim, you guys ran up 19.7 billable hours and we were charged as a county $62.76. You know, it'd be a different story. You know, you talk again about, you know, elected officials are accountable to citizens. Well, I'm a county citizen. All right. And I don't like it when people begin to make decisions in a vacuum. So, the two of you guys took it upon your own to go pursue the phone calls with Barnes and Thornberg and not want to Gary, did was the council ever approached to say, "Hey, look, we're going to begin to kind of talk to Barnes and Thornberg on how we can go in and perhaps change the management agreement uh with, you know, Maple Leaf management agreement." I I don't know that was the council ever included in any of those conversations, those phone calls. Oh, so never. So it's okay for you guys just to make decisions in a vacuum and then you make a decision and you pick it up and then you come in here and say, "Hey, we want to go in and change the management agreement."

Say that. That's what you've done. Yeah, Jim. We went to ask for information, which is is what we've done. We didn't make any decisions. And I'm assuming your comment about the primary is a threat. If I run a threat. No, we're not making threats.

I mean, you're making an opinion on this, too. I I do think we need more oversight from what little I see and I'm relatively new at this. When I see if I understood correctly at the meeting that that money spent in for lights for holidays for $50,000, I question that. So, if we can waste that kind of money, I'm not saying you don't need lights, but I think more of this needs looked at. I I do I do think that now wait, let me finish. Okay. I do think it does need looked at. I I don't think we should just throw this under the bus. We make all kinds of decisions that to me are very bizarre in the council. So to just pick out one thing like this, I I don't see where that's equitable to them because they're acting within your scope of legality. Correct. Correct.

We do the same thing. We do the exact same thing. So, uh, if we're going to be open and above board, we need to be open and above board on both sides because just like emergency services, I don't think left to the desires of the way it is that any money would ever be attributed to emergency services when you just heard the other fellow come up here and speak. You know, we can't even provide a decent ambulance service. So, we need other forms of revenue. So, is that looked at? So to make it to make it just short, I don't think we have just cut somebody off and and not listen to both sides because we we've spent what $50,000 on whis I mean we we do the same thing and we didn't ask probably your opinion to do that. Correct.

So so it's equitable on both sides. I don't think we need to fight. We just need to work it out. Yeah. We need to work better closer together and that's being that's hopefully being done. The other question is we did work with the commissioners on the the the WISH study preparation of the entirety of the county government.

Yeah. Some of the other context of this is opportunity cost. What's the growth and development of the county? How are we addressing that? We've got an entity such as the music center that isn't is uh well you guys want to define it as an asset, but is an asset. It's bringing in tourists and things of that nature and stimulating the economy. So, leave that alone and let's keep developing other areas. That's one thought in terms of using our our resources, our time. I'd like to make one two-part comment on Go ahead. That way you

as far as the board makeup of the music center, I it's a I think it has a good mix of of county representation and talented business owners and operators. I mean, that's what the music center needs. It doesn't need more government. It needs talented business operators. And so I think that I think the balance there I don't want to put government in control of it because I don't trust government. Thank you. Um sponsor.

I don't I don't trust government. Um you want somebody to screw something up, give it give it to a government. Um and as far as the distribution between the the community foundation and the county, again, I don't trust government. I don't want the government to get 100% of the excess profit because I don't trust government. The government needs it because the citizen the citizens are paying the taxes. So, if we can get some tax relief out of the music center into the general fund to pay some of the pay some of the expenses that we have as a county, that's fine. I want that to happen. I also want it to go to the community foundation because they are a private sector notfor-profit that benefits the county. They they are a flow through. They have an endowment that that builds and funds needs within the county that we as a council can't and or shouldn't be doing. So that's why I wanted the mix between, you know, the private sector, nonforprofit, and government, you know, some tax relief out of it and and a benefit for the county. And I I see that as happening. So I wouldn't want to change that either. When you we originally talking about the dist distribution I wanted 5050 but 7525 with the county getting the pilot the payment in le of taxes which is going up every time and as a board we are working on getting that up every year to where it is an actual you know like a business paying uh marketable property tax. So that's the goal on that is to get that to that point. So the countyy's getting that and it's it's it's it's a good mix. I think it's a good mix of profit sharing from the excess profits to the community foundation capital.

You realize that the government you don't trust you're you're part of. Yeah. I don't I understand. Yes. I don't trust government. I know my intentions on it. 10 years from now I might not be here. So then we've got a government that I have no say so in, you know, and you know, you won't be there. None of us may be here. So anything we do now, we're going to be, you know, trusting to the machine of government. And I don't trust the machine of government. Well, like you said, there's a private skills that are government's pretty secure. It doesn't have to be in the pulse of the industry to say we got to be competitive.

Yeah. And those people have to be competitive which stimulates a lot of good good results. Have to have some business.

Yeah. Right. You know, and I know just final comments. I don't think you'd see much of a change with a with four of the seven management group members being government or being three. Yeah. Three council, one commission. I don't see you see much of a change. The operations center. I mean, they got an excellent staff. They're doing an excellent job. The agreements are in there. The revenue streams coming in there. It's well known. So I don't see think you'd see a dramatic difference. The only thing is you'd be more accountable to the citizens to how that how that distribution should go and then what that profit should be as a return back to the county. So I don't see a major major change by a distri from a board membership. But that's that's the board controls and votes on staffing of the music center. So if you had, you know, if you had four people, you know, that decided to get together and collaborate and decide to ruin or wreck the music center, you could have them go in there and change the makeup of the board or the makeup of the staff

and it it could be a lot of problems and and you can have that and that's inherent in anything trusting the fruit councilman that may be assigned to that that particular board is what you're saying. I guess I don't give government problems I don't give government full trust. No, I think he's I think he's saying that the skill set of people who are vitally involved with competitive business is probably better than fat and sassy government people who can fail and it doesn't really make a difference. Well, Diana Bill is an atlarge at large because she had that background that you're referring to. I'm not saying I'm saying the leaning of which way do it and I'd like to see more commissioner involvement too. That that would be helpful in your situation.

We're not talking about running the business. We're talking about allocating funds. I receive correct we don't we don't run their business obviously they all run their business they have senior we're just basically talking about how to distribute funds well overall management right and you just rely on the general leaders you have bonus first of all the council the council the council right now has when you talk about accountability to the citizens the council has the statutory responsibility of oversight on the inkeepers tax. Correct. Period. Correct.

Okay. So, we have taxpayer accountability. On the other side of the fence, though, is is we're we're talking about a private sector performing arts center. I guess I don't know what you call it. You call it performing arts center. And what I know is that my role since January 2023 until now, 33 months later, the amount of the time and energy, first of all, it's not a part-time job. Not if you're going to take it serious because the amount of time and energy I've had to expend just on self-educating myself, right? because the breadth and depth that's required for me to be an effective council member is huge. I mean, we just got off an AIC call as the AIC is having conversations about do we implement some sort of a certification training for elected officials visav either commissioners and our council members. And so that the the the breadth and depth of the knowledge base when you look at title 36, you look at the DLGF, you look at the state board of accounts and the historical language, the lo, you know, all the different acronyms because we got tons of acronyms. Takes an enormous amount of work. Well, what do I know about managing a performing arts business? I don't know anything about managing a performing arts business. And we're electing the county council members and the commissioners to manage our county business because, you know, I wish the public would understand that I want my net assessed value of my real estate to go up. I don't like buying depreciating assets. Furthermore, I've never had a client come into my office after making 200 grand in a 12-month period and tell me they were mad because they got to pay too much in taxes. But the minute you bring up net assessed

value in person in property tax, everybody assumes that the reason their property tax goes up is because their their their net assessed value goes up. And that's categorically false. It's the reason our property taxes go up is because the council doesn't manage and pay attention to the expenses. Okay, we're going to have to curtail this. We got another thing to do. Jim, just by the way, let's focus on managing the county, not private sector business, and let's let the private sector business manage the private sector business. Gary, my final comment, order to build met the music center, you had to have approval by the county commissioners and the county council.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Good. All right. Uh, anybody else want to say anything briefly on that? John, you got something to community foundation. Yep.

You're on the table there with that. Well, thanks for the opportunity and I'm sorry to take a little time on a long agenda for you guys, but I didn't choose to put it on there. I'd say as a foundation, we spent way too much time dealing with this issue of the last year plus at the expense of time we could have been supporting nonprofits. Time we should be spending thanking the current ownership, governance, leadership, and funding model, which is exceptionally good and it's rare in this state. We're too focused on a negative, but we should be thanking them for exceptional performance. Not this recurring obsessive pattern of a few people determined the damage was not broken and eliminate an impressive list of unique ongoing benefits for ground. So, I've got a career that included federal government, large corporations, largest nonprofit in this state, couple dozen community boards. So, I've built teams, I've fixed teams, I've had to match the skill set, the subject matter expertise of those teams to the goals. What are those strategic outcomes? That's how you succeed. You build the team that matches the work that needs to be done. You don't just go on some power and control excursion instead. The community foundation is deeply appreciative of the funds that we get from Maple Leaf, the governing board. We are we don't take it for granted and we don't take funds from any donor for granted. We don't have this sense of entitlement and we also believe we've been very trustworthy custodians of those funds. We've used them as the donor intended and we've driven outcomes that have met or exceeded those donor hopes and frankly resent the sort of recurring implication

that we're not good stewards of the resources. We appreciate the trust that that current 75 to25 ratio represents and the outcomes that we are working hard as volunteers to achieve. So, I don't understand why so much effort has gone into the seize the music center funds that are shared with the foundation. I'm sure I don't have my percents right, but it seems to me that there's all this effort going into what happens with 1% of the dollars needed to fix a county government that's challenged. Why not work on the other 99%. Chasing the wrong dollars in my opinion. I also don't understand why there was all this talk about selling the music center at a multi-million dollar loss in terms of value of the asset to help in one budget year, one blip when it's a long-term multi-year problem. And the expense, not the accounting term, but the outcome, the expense is all those revenue streams for all the years that the music center is open are gone. dollar a ticket fee, the payment in le of property taxes, the 25% share, all that money stops coming in. So why this short-term sell it for a loss and forgive all or for lose all that? Our stakeholders include not just the hundreds of residents who volunteer their time with the nonprofits that benefit from the funds and share their subject matter expertise but the thousands who donate to them that are motivated by the outcomes the nonprofits that are in it and frankly the thousands it's not just the thousands of donors but the thousands who benefit from the services.

So the multiplier effect I I cannot imagine more impact per dollar of the dollars that pass through the foundation to all these charities. And sorry to be critical, but I think it's probably more impact per dollar than what is coming through some of the government funding. Maybe Darren's nodding at least. So maybe the time has come when this music center conversation keeps coming up. Instead of me struggling to represent the collective nonprofits, the those who benefit, those who donate and so on because I think my voice is not working. It's not sinking in or I wouldn't have to keep having this conversation. Maybe we need those thousands of voices to join mine and to come to the next conversation and tell their stories directly. So our unique ability to match a broad array of donors and subject matter experts allowed us to be there in the time of need if we break the process that may or may not still happen. There are donors like Lily Endowment that will only deal through the foundation. So we do play a unique role. Let me talk also about the spring grant round. That's where the dollars from the music center surplus go in. Well, we do a couple million dollars in funds that go out into the community every year. Only 12% of those funds are flexible or unrestricted. So, what that means is even though the dollars are not large in terms of the music center in that total, they're disproportionately informed because they're unrestricted. the two categories. There's something going to arts and then everything else

in terms of priorities. So, they matter more and when we have a multi-year pattern now going of three times the request for fund that's that we have to give out any hole you put in that is also disproportionately important. There are a lot of challenges facing this county. I don't need to tell you guys. So, I'm really gratified when I see all these collaborative efforts that are coming up. The health needs assessment somebody referred to earlier, the quality of life workg group was referred to earlier. That's just two examples. We're doing so well right now in terms of collaborative investing in relationships. The government relationship to others, the foundation relationship to other organizations. Why are we arguing about something that doesn't need to take up time? There's an opportunity, cost, and what it keeps us from doing. If arguing on this topic damages relationships, they're critical to the success of all those other collaborative efforts. Is it worth it? Why do it? Right now, we're wrapping up and celebrating the success of hitting all four goals in the Lily Endowment gift eight program over goals ahead of the deadline. Ramping up the gift nine. We want that to be another of those collaborative examples that work for this county. We're having to chase and defend on this disproportionate music center. it will dilute not just our work but that collaborative work with other organizations. So I think it's time we just put this

whole thing to bed and stop obsessing on on breaking it. I take questions but if your energy level is like mine there may not be many. I don't know. Hey um appreciate your comments. I I there's something I want to ask you from John actually. Yeah. Um, you know, you you suggested maybe your voice is being heard and there are thousands of voices out there that, you know, maybe could come and talk to us. I don't think either of those things are necessary. I don't really want to do that, but I understand your point. I understand your point.

I hear a voice that keeps repeating, but I'm trying to speak for others. there's something you can do that I think will be very helpful in this conversation to to really put it to rest and something I've been very interested in seeing and I'm wondering if you could commit to it today to the council and that is the specific list of projects that are funded

by these funds not not an overall list of everything but the actual list of projects and the reason why I think that would be helpful in bridging this gap is it's kind of not totally known, right? We we see all the things the foundation is doing, but you're not talking about the actual things that are funded, the real people,

the real projects. And I think I'm asking for your commitment in this next grant round to give this council a report in writing on the exact investments for these funds. And I think it's a really helpful thing for you to do. You don't have to bring thousands of people. Just tell us what it's actually being used for and the community what it's being used for and then it speaks for itself.

So I can give you a partial but here's why. You know we we really have to respect conditions put on by any donor and the Maple Leaf board has a signed document with us. So from our perspective and and it would be the same in terms of state or federal legal interpretation, they're the donor. So if they give permission for us to share that with you, we will our builder and I'm being technical.

Understand that in your typical foundation round this a little bit different because it's hybrid. These are actually somewhat publicish funds, right? I guess I would ask Darren in your next meeting to get that permission so that we can report to the public on wonderful things you're talking about kind of help the public understand what is truly happening with those funds instead of just right wondering. Actually, we came up when we were when we were creating the music center. Uh Madison actually gave me uh a list of some of the things that the community foundation funds and we could put that I I would have she gave you that as an council member. Uh

well regardless I I asked for examples of what because because there was a you know people were saying with the community foundation they don't even do anything for us. So it was just an example of okay well here's some of the things that the community foundation has funded right as as ana and I think that's what you're asking about you know and he wants to know what 75% is going to and actually just the actual investments not not a general or understand however actual November Scott you raised same thing you just raised yeah and I saw the total

I went I'm there with you in the notes I shared with you guys. Like I went as close as I felt I could ethically go by sort of doing sample type things and lumping it in. Yeah. And that was the same. Yeah. And I guess I guess sort of violating that contraction. And what I I guess what I'm saying is um appreciate that effort, but I you know I don't see we're in a public realm here. Nothing we do is private, right? And so because these are

a lot of people feel like these are tax dollars whether it's an asset ownership whatever it is I don't know the county made it happen and these are county benefit investments and so to me it's like I can't imagine a reason why we wouldn't highlight those wonderful investments that really you're trying to highlight and you feel like your voice isn't being heard but you can't say what they are. I mean it doesn't make any sense to me but I'm ask the problem bring that to public light. I'm talking about is that 12 and a half% that you you had talked about that's unrestricted. It's funible. What the community what the music center contributes to that portion of the unrestricted fund is fun. It's unrestricted. We have not specifically said use it for this. Use it for community foundation expenditures within within the county to benefit the county. Talk about those.

So it's part of the arts and part unrestricted there. So there is there is that restriction for the arts. So So Scott, think of it as sort of an NDA that we're subject to from each donor. So I need with permission from the donor, we will share. Okay. So what we've done is that there's permission. We'll find out. That's good. I think one of you you just go ahead, John, you're fine. Did you want to speak? Go ahead. Your name is what? Uh my name is Rich Stanley. Okay.

And um I intend to run for county commissioner in the next election um despite the attempt of the Republican party in the Brown County Election Board to prevent me from running. I'm currently litigating a federal lawsuit against the Brown County Election Board over this illegitimate effort to deprive me of my constitutional rights. If that lawsuit is resolved in my favor, I will be running for county commissioner in the 2026 election. Being that I plan to be a commissioner after the next election, I would like you to consider the following with regard to the Brown County Music Center. First of all, I don't agree with Ron Sanders effort to sell the music center. I don't begrudge him for exploring that option, but it has been well demonstrated that that would result in a huge financial loss to the county. Along those lines, it has also been well demonstrated that the music center is not financially viable as a private enterprise. It should be remembered that the music center is not privately owned. Instead, the music center is a public asset that only exists due to the taxing authority of the county. My main concern with this matter is that public assets should be managed by elected officials for the benefit of all of the residents of Brown County. Public assets should not be turned over to private business interests in a way that would primarily benefit those business interests over the interests of the public at large. In my opinion, I believe that the music center is currently being managed for the most part in a generally responsible way and we should keep it that way. However, there are two changes that I believe should be made to how the music center is managed. First, the majority of the managing board for the music center should be

made up of elected officials. that is the seven member board for the music center could have four elected officials on the board instead of only two as it now does so that a majority of the board members would be elected officials. I would personally leave three non-elected members on the board who represent the tourism industry. Second, 100% of the profit from the music center should go back to the county to offset county expenses. Currently, a substantial amount of the music cent's profit is being diverted to a private entity. I'll say it again. The music center is a public asset that is supported by the county's taxing authority. It is not a private enterprise. What that means is that the profit from that public asset belongs to the county and therefore the profit should be returned back to the county. Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce.

I'll be brief. I'll try to be brief. The management agreement that the music center is operated by was drafted and written by Barnes and Thornberg and it addresses it basically includes and signed signed on by different groups. One was management uh our management group and then the building corporation county council county commissioners bank of Lon. Those five groups have signed onto this contract. The only way that contract can be changed is if all five of those groups agree to change it. So the commissioners have no authority to change it. the commissioner and the council have no authority to change it. It takes all five of those together to change that agreement and that's in the agreement. Uh the board itself is comprised and we we're a long-standing board. Most of us have been on there since we just started thinking about this. Each one of these board members has a unique contribution to make to the operation of the music center. I will say that without Barry Herring, there would be no music center, period. And someone like Jim Schultz, Jim was out there during construction every day. He knows every detail of every part of that building and he played a key role in the design of that building, too. So, and everybody, all the board members have a unique contribution to make. So, if you're proposing to take out two of those members, which two would it be? So, and if you're proposing put two of you on that board, which two would that be? So, what impact would that have on on the operation of

the music center? So, uh, my one of my and I'll tell you right up front, right from the start, I have been opposed to giving any of our revenue to to the county or the or the or the community foundation

community foundation. I thought all the money should go back into the into the music center for capital improvements at least at the very beginning because that's I'm a business person. and that's what I would do if I have profits. I'm not going to give them away when I've got a whole list of things that I should be doing to improve my business. So, but anyhow, the board decided to set it up this way and that's the way it is and that's fine. I I agree with it now and especially with the community foundation. I I've kind of changed my thinking about how effective they are especially supporting nonprofits. But I look at you guys and how have you spent your 25%. And how effective have you been? So, and I look at the commissioners, I mean, they're proposing and, you know, proposing adding another, you know, more politicians basically to the board. Uh Ron Sanders has been on the board. This year he was appointed to the board. That's part of his role, his job as being commissioner. We've had nine meetings so far. He's attended the first meeting one. I mean, here we are talking about a bigger role for the government and the government's not even attending the meetings. So, you know, something needs to change there. It's not up to us to to say anything about it, although I just did. But anyhow, I don't I don't see uh and my biggest concern with the government playing a bigger role in the in the music center is one of the things we strive for and we have a finance committee too that that they're not part of that operating agreement. But uh they they oversee all the details of the finance and then the board approves everything. that we try to strive a balance. You know, when at the end of the year when we're when we're below all throughout the year, we're looking at at how much

money we're making and we always get a projection of how much we think we're going to have at the end of the year to to spread out to the community. And we try to strive a balance of how much money we really end up with. Like this year, we bought a beer garden. We paid a lot of money for that. The capital improvement, we paid for that. Now, we could have not done that and had more higher profits at the end of the year to distribute to the county and the foundation, but we we built the m we built the beer garden. We we do improvements to improve our business, but we have to strive to get a balance so we still have money to distribute at the end of the year. So my fear is if you have four government officials in there, they're going to say, "Well, we won't do these capital improvements and we won't do these capital improvements. Then at the end of the year, we got more money to dump back into the government to spend." So, you know, that could really really have a big impact on the business. And what I'm always looking for is how to make things better. I always tell people in our business, we're in a constant state of improvement. And we should be that way. and every business should be that way. So that's that's all I wanted to say. And one last comment about the Christmas lights. That's not the music center. That's the CDC music center had nothing to do with Christmas lights.

All right. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. I was going to say that and forgot.

Well, I don't trust government employees or government people either, Darren. that that would be way too many people on that board. Uh and most most people who've been full-time government employees have no idea how to run a business, how to make a payroll, how how to how to deal with the public. They they feel like they have this little money tree in their backyard. They can always pull off money. Well, that doesn't happen when you got a business that's got to make profit. So, this is a an ongoing thing that never should be happening. Community Foundations did a wonderful job of their money, what they're done with it, and Canary still gets 25%. So, I don't know what what we're going to discuss here. Are you going to make a vote to do this or is this just tough because we spent $11,000 or what $18,000 on attorneys?

I don't know. It's just information. We're going to try and close it now. So, is that basically what you got? That same thing. I All right. We need to get on to our budget. Yes, we do. Thank you. Ready to go. All right. Appreciate your all input. We're a little long here. It's three hours plus. We still got something else on the agenda. So, you're probably welcome to leave unless you want to observe this last item. Go for it. Take a little bit of a break. We need a break. No, let's just All we got to do is have real quick. Let's keep

I thought we were going to have a discussion. Did you see the stack of vapor she got three or four? Hurry up, Darren. Go ahead. Tell you what happened. We'll be here talking when you get back. I guarantee. All right, let's get this done. Okay. So, first of all, I wanted to start by telling you what the my process has been so far. with trying to balance my my books with keep quiet out there and then I take your changes that you made and then I enter them into allow for the adopted. Okay.

Okay.

So then I balance again. I was balanced. So then I turn on to gateway to make sure that we balance and we didn't. So now I'm having to find out why we didn't because you know we should be balancing. So then I find out that the circuit court doesn't they've taken $800 out to zero. They've taken $1,300 to zero. They've taken $3,000 to zero. 10,000 to zero. Where did they get this permission? I didn't. Not in my minutes. I know you guys didn't do it. So why was this taken out? So now I'm having to call Rey and find out. By the way, these are all fixed by now now. So just so you know.

So that was a mistake by Rey. The court can't take it off. Gab, when you say fix, what do you mean fix? There. The money's back in where it needs to be. Okay. So that was a mistake that was taken out. Well, how many mistakes can you make? I'm just saying it wasn't how it's supposed to be. Right. You pick needs are taken care of. Yeah. All better. Everything's balanced. So, we're balanced right now. But that still doesn't change the fact that, you know, the other things like the 11,300 something. Correct. It doesn't match their final book. All right. So, our options are doesn't match the final book.

The 11,000 can be a local whatever. That's that's something different. I know. Yeah, the rest is this. So, what do we want to do about the 300? How much thousand? 360 or something? 360. I think what Jim was trying to bring to your attention is what's in your book on the date of October 2nd or whatever that date was is that total for county tenant and I'm just talking about county at the moment is not the total that was in gateway. That's where it it all went arry. Everything went arry. So I been really really

and myself nuts. I mean they worked on and greedy worked on things today gateway Julie worked on the LA system but what what is currently on your form four is not the budget that's in the book that's presented to you on October 2nd. That's the one thing. I mean that's what I do for Julie is compare the gate to all the different the when I caught the fact that the the um second problem is that shortage of that cash operating. Yeah. How big of a problem is it?

Who knows? But it's outside of the scope of what you've always done in the past by keeping at least 15% in that catch operation. So, those are those are kind of the two biggies. You got that book that you have that doesn't match what's what you're going to adopt on that form four as far as the budget for county general. Well, the form four I just actually created the new one that is still right. It matches it match Julie's financials now match yes that but that doesn't match the book they gave you. And then with all of that said,

when they work the forms in putting in the levy amounts that they put in, they have you adopting $360,000 levy. Those are the issues. Thank you. Again, that's will just come off of the cash operating balance, but you still have the help fund out there. Guess that's basically the two problems are those the 360 and the fact the health fund is going to be underfunded and we would have to

do something about that if they didn't have enough cash operating balance together I'm sleeping numbers, guys. Trust me, it's all I see. Numbers. This is what we received from meeting. No, this is the updated. That's the one that I just got done today. Dude, I was just asking, Jim, is that that CVC line? Is that is the what? The CBC line that is 1.4 million. Is that what we had in there before or did that change or

That changed because everything from parks and wreck is now in the CBC. Yeah. Well, no. I mean it but what we saw before it includes this still includes. It didn't change, right? That's just my question. What's the amount that you have what the amount of the book is in the book is 1.4 on here. Now, I just want to make sure we capture that general fund savings that was offset by the pin keepers tax. The amount.

Yeah, take your time. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Looking through. I would brought my budget if I realized this it was going to change. The proposed adopted budget for the CDB is um a million469162. Okay, I think that's right. That is what was in

Okay. Yes. Any suggestions? That's it. These are the totals. This is the total of the general fund here. number here

918 I don't think so 985663

I probably came across I wonder if Um, this is okay.

I mean, I know how I'm going to vote, but you make this and then just read. So this is the sheet that I always show you what's going to happen is not going to be a gateway gateway stuff. I'm surprised they did that. I thought you had to do that anyway. Jackie is he heads up the Jackie I mean here's let's just we're not trying to have private conversation here.

You know what what I would suggest and I know how I'm going to vote on this. I'll tell you right now it's going to be no. But if the council want to move this forward, what one thing I think we should do because we haven't had I mean Julie's been working weekends like eyes glazing over. Okay. Which is not, you know, I I just worry that you're a human. I am human and you put in a lot of hours and we haven't had second set of eyeballs. I think Jackie's been helping you over the phone, but she actually's been looking at the stuff

and has. But my suggestion is before our budget deadline, you council can move this forward if you want today, but before our actual deadline as a county, let's let Rey andor Jackie double check, make sure we're in good shape. Because here's the problem, and we've seen this before. If we make a mistake here and we miss that deadline, we could be in major trouble, right? And so I'm just wanting to weed out human error. somebody working through the weekend late at night, Sunday night, right? Like this is our county buddy. Let's just ask Rey and or whoever it is any changes, right? I think

the only person I want double checking me is her. Okay. So, how you had Rey, Jackie, and mute. I don't want Rey doing anything. I want you guys to talk together and see what's going on. Make sure the objective was this was stupid. Absolutely. You know, Scott wants to have some oversight. So, it's like you and Ricky talk and you oversight would be great. Or however you like. Let's just get a double set of eyes on it because the last thing you want is to accidentally make a mistake and then they're going to hear our financial advisor. We got to know when you adopt it, that's what it is. Change. So, can you two can you two do that with Rey? In the next week or so, we get out of recess and we do this in a week

before our county deadline is right. The key deadlines, right? Like if we needed to change, reset this until I don't need to look at it. You've already done your work, right? You've entered it. It's in there. Now, Rey or somebody else, just somebody to look at. Jackie, I don't care who it is. Jackie or the We could do October 30th week and a half. Now, our option on that is to cut go back through and cut 360,000. Yes. And no, you can adopt the budget you have. Oh, Friday. And if you look at

Yeah. If you look at the total money in my past, if I add the levy and I add next year's revenue, we're at at 95 today because I can't be here. I'm not suggesting you delay this. I'm just saying after it's moved, just let's just double check. market was so you're a little bit you're over your new month but you can reduce this this guy right here by that 300 I would reduce it by about 300,000

right to allow for round and all the funds and and you're okay with this you're adopting more than no money's not in But but we have some operating but you would have operating you would have 2.6 at the end of next year. Yeah. Which what were we last year when we had a state this year we're this year we're at 298 right 2.9 is yes and I can't I don't I don't I don't remember. Yeah,

I think it was 22 motion for the moment. Yeah, I don't want to keep it back in here, guys. We're still we're still what we were last year in the cash operating. Yes. Even if we do the 360, right? We're still We got like 50% reserves. We're pushing the top for operating in the general right aren't we at is it is 50 or 30 something maybe I'm just it's a little less it's less than 30 it's probably 25

25% okay so jacking real quick and then I'm president wants to make a motion here everybody so you tell I mean is it what we're having a meeting down oh god sorry to interruptional Um just to see us through here, you know, I if the council's comfortable, it sounds like she's gone through this. Um and she's comfortable, it's accurate. Um Rey has not had a second chance to look at it, it sounds like, but um if the council moves this tonight and then before the official deadline for the county passenger bud, can they amend it? No.

When you adopt it, you adopt it. That's correct. Even before the deadline when you adopt, you adopt. There's no time because you'd have to hold you would have to redo it. You would have to do a public hearing 10 days out and 10 days got before your time. No, it's it's either adopt tonight or recess till next week. But if you adopt tonight, your county general fund will not your budget that you are adopting is fundable with a 2.6 6. Yeah. Instead of 2.9 instead of 2.9. I know where I'd take 100,000 out of our council budget right now. I mentioned that before with no success, but Oh, we have to spend.

Yeah, just don't spend it. Or reduce. You can always do a reduction after the first year if you want to get 100. I was saying you're worried about the 360. There's 100 right there right in front of my face right now. Easy to pull off. But if you're not worried about it, move forward. So we want to make a motion. Make motion. Patrick makes a motion we pass it. Second. Seconded. Julie.

No, not J. Barry. Yes, Judy. With knowledge that we are going to have to do possibly do your local loan development department possibly. Yeah, possibly. Uh I want that in the record. Um, then I will say yes. Scott, no. Gary, yes.

Patrick, yes. Yes. Yeah. Why not? Okay. Doesn't have an option. Yeah. Go home. I like this. All right. I move my turn. Arthur. Second. Yeah. flavor. I don't know. I don't know. I do appreciate that peppers. They want that sharing. See you.