County Council - Regular Meeting

We'll call this session of the September 3rd meeting of the Decal County Council. We are in session. We'll begin with an opening prayer with Rick Collins. Please,

let's pray together. Father God, we uh stop in this moment to once again ask for your wisdom as we take a look at the year to come 2026. We take a look at all the departments, all the services that um that we offer to this county. When I say we, we as citizens uh pay into these accounts and and then we offer it back to the citizens. Help us know um exactly how to be the best stewards of these monies. Um give us uh clear thoughts tonight. give us um uh direction uh as we move through this time. We pray for the citizens of our county tonight, those that are in need that they would uh their needs would be met by their community, by our services, by their neighbors. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Rick. Would you please stand for the pledgece to the flag of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. you have before you minute copies of the August 13th minute or meeting. I'm sure everybody has looked through it. Do we have any additions or corrections? We have the 13th and the 18th. I had forgotten about the 18th when I did our agenda, but I had them both there. The 18th was the when we came back for the wheel tax. That's all that was on that one. All right. So, we have two sets of minutes. Yes. consensus to do them in one motion. Do we have any additions or corrections to the August 13th and the August 18th minutes? Hearing none, we'll entertain a motion to approve.

So moved. Have a motion by Rick Collins. Second. I'll second. Second by Amy Proer. Any further discussion? We'll call for the question. And all those in favor of approving the August 13th and the August 18th minutes signify by saying I I minutes are approved. Thank you. Um okay before we we get started here that's fine.

I just want to say thank you to uh uh Susan and Jody. you put a lot of work in on this for everything that's coming later on in the meeting there. And I know it hasn't been easy. This is probably as we get into the budget one of the most challenging ones we've ever had because of all of the uncertainty. So, I appreciate all your efforts and I know it hasn't been easy, but thank you for for a good job. Thank you.

Okay, we have uh one additional or two additionals from the highway department. The first one is from the Highway General Fund number 1176. Account number 33410. Account title is liability insurance. The amount requested is $13,700. Was this included in the annual budget request? And that answer is yes. How will this appropriation be used? This will be used for 2025 insurance premiums. Rate rose rates rose $23,000 this year. Specific cost of item $83,649.17. And how was this cost determined? An invoice from the auditor's office. Is this a reoccurring expense? And the answer is yes. Will other expenditures be necessary? And the answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? Yes. And that was Bob Craft. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the liability insurance additional of $13,700?

Are you doing separate or together?

Well, we can do them both together there. I'm sorry. Do we have consensus doing them both together? Okay. So the second one then is appropriate to natural gas at $10,000 and that is from the Decal County Highway Department. Uh the general highway fund fund number 1176 count number 33520 count title is gas natural gas. The amount requested was $10,000. Was this included in the annual budget request? And the answer is yes. How will this appropriation be used? This will be used for our utilities. Invoices are much higher on the new campus. Specific cost of the item $10,000 approximate. And how was this cost determined? Average of invoices received since we have moved. Is this a reoccurring expense? And the answer is yes. Will other expenditures be necessary? The answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? The answer is yes. And the lea Lea's name was Bob Craft. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve both of these transfers?

I'll move or additionals, I'm sorry. I'll move to approve. We have a motion by Bob Craft. Do we have a second? I do have a question about the NIPCO. About the what? About the NIPCO bill. Okay. Do we need to get Get the second and then second now. We'll take your question. Rick, who's seconded? Rick. Did you second? No, I didn't second. I said I got a question. Okay. I thought you said you'd second. I need a second. Amy Proerus and a second. So, we have a motion by Bob Craft, second by Amy Proer. Now, any questions from the council?

Um, is this truly the gas increase or was this the electric? It sounds seems to me that being Waterlue, being NIPCO, it's probably more likely the electric, not gas. Well, they have both, right? I mean, Nibs goes on, right? Both. Both. So, I don't know. I guess Let me see what I can find. So, maybe it's all on It's probably all in one invoice. Yeah, it probably is, but I'll see. We have Nipco gas at the Y and I'm about 5,000 over budget already this year. It's It's went way up this year for some reason. It did. But

more or you know moving from Auburn Electric to go would be that would be a difference too. Yes. Could be good. Although Auburn Electric's bills have gone down considerably for commercial rates. It is both. It is both. Okay. But NIPCO is proposing a 17% increase this year and we're we're seeing in electric I'm on the Well, I'm on the G natural gas side there. I got I got their gas, too. So So any further questions? So they're proposing 17% more for next year than what we Yeah.

to catch that in a budget line. Make sure he's bumped that up. Any further questions? Rick, you okay with that? Okay. Any further questions? We'll call for the question. All those of favor of approving the additionals from the highway department signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed.

Additionals are approved. Okay. Next order of business is transfers and these will take approval for the council. First one comes from the surveyor. It is in the amount of $1,000. Fund name is general fund one number one 0001. The amount to be transferred is $1,000. It is from account number 44420. Account title is computer equipment being transferred to account number 34295. The account title is travel training and education in the amount of $1,000. Why is this transfer needed? Additional funding is needed to pay for hotel room mileage and meals for staff. Will additional appropriation be requested due to this transfer? And that answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? And the answer is no. And the leaison's name is Bill Van Y. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the $1,000 transfer? Thank you, Rick. We have a motion to approve by Rick Ring. Do we have a second?

Okay. Second by Bill Van Y. Now, any further discussion from council members? I made a statement earlier in the year that if uh the folks don't talk to their representative that I would vote no. So, I will be voting no on this one. I think that they should always talk to their leazison about any of those moves.

I talk to mine every month. This happened to come across after I talked to him. I talked to him this morning and we discussed it at the department head meeting. I don't need to be tell I'm discussing. I meet with my mind anyone more than anybody else. But I'm not going to be criticized for not talking. You can vote your no. I don't care. But I tell you one thing, I need and you can go over there and talk to him, the plant commission, the health department, or the soil and water and see what they say. But I'm not going to be criticized for that.

Okay. Make it noted that I did not mention or criticize the councilman at all. I said that the person from that department needs to talk to their leazison. Thank you. Do we have any further discussion hearing? No. Andy,

I I just want to say too and I I didn't take that as he was attacking you, Bill. I just think it's important and I know you talk I mean you talk to everybody. You know everybody and you know how things work. I just think it's very helpful if even if something happens after the fact, hey, send me a quick email so I know it's coming up in counsel so I don't look like I'm out of the loop. So I I mean I didn't take that either. I just think the department heads just need to really even if it's just a quick email, I'm okay with that. Well, I talked to him this morning. He brought it to me because I noticed that I'm there may there yesterday and I was to the department heads and I talked to him. So,

Oh, and I I mean I didn't I didn't take that either. But I know I've had times where mine comes through as no and I get asked questions and I have no idea. So, I don't think it was anything intentional either way. But, Mr. President, can I ask that on this where it says discuss with leazison, now that we know that that is Rick, now that we know that that's done, so can we switch that to yes, we now know that information. Can we change that on the transfer request? You can change it on yours, but those are what are submitted to me for the meeting. So, I mean there would be nothing says it has. So, I can do so on yours. It's not going to be changed on anything that was scanned.

Bill's coming from Bill's good. The fact of the matter is that these, you know, one, these things get filed early. There was one from the sheriff's department that was like two or three weeks ago. Um, if it's marked as no and they turned it in and I talked to him afterwards, um, I would mention it here and Bill should have mentioned that that he talked to him this morning and now we know. But he's always to his people. I mean, there's there was no question about that. There was absolutely no question about that. Bill's probably directed towards Councilman to his people. is and I I didn't take it as a personal attack there, but absolutely not. This stuff does happen. I've had people present things after we've discussed. So, okay.

A question about what was what was the training? We know what the training is just out of curiosity. They're going to a storm water something that has some I don't know a storm water or something with the ditches. There's a there is a conference. I had a contact with a couple people from Wells County that are going also from the plane commission. Yeah, they're they're working on drainage and a storm. The way they handle the storm issue on some outside the towns and stuff is on the county side. They're trying to get the water away from the roads as quick as they can. Like well needed. Good. Thank you.

Any further questions? Okay, we have a motion and a second. We'll call for the question. All those in favor favor of of approving the thousand transfer from the surveyor's office signify by saying I. I post. Transfer is is granted. The next one comes to us from the community corrections. It's from the building repair and maintenance fund to equipment for $1,999.99. It looked like they tried real hard to keep it under $2,000. I'm not sure why that's that way.

Okay. Anyway, it's from the JCC Change Academy. Fund name is County General. Fund number is 10001. The object number 025. The amount to be transferred is $1,999.99 and it is from account number 1.33680. 025 0913. The account title is a building repair and maintenance fund being transferred to account number one. 44430.025. 025.0913. The account title is equipment and the amount is $1,999.99. Why is this transfer needed? Already transferred this to 33680 building repair and maintenance. And when claim was processed, Leanne said it needs to be paid from a four account. So requesting a second transfer. Transfer $1,999.99 from 33680 building repair and maintenance to 44430 equipment to pay invoice. Entrance door at change academy new location fix so that it works with the existing system. Work was completed by Sonetrol. Invoice 15344 or $1,999.99. Will additional appropriation be requested due to this transfer? The answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? The answer is yes. And that leaison is Amy Demsky. And we have a motion to approve the $1,999.99

transfer from community corrections. So move. Okay. We have a motion from Amy Dempseky. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second from Rick Collins. Okay. At this time, is there any further discussion to come before the council? It said here when I asked to make sure from four accounts, is this all put together or this first one we have to approach?

The other one I think was a non-approval. I I questioned it because the first transfer that she did wasn't even done because it was going to this meeting. So, we didn't need the first transfer. We only needed the from the first account to the last account, but um I think there was more paperwork that had to be done because it has to do with the grants and dcc and she just wanted to leave it as is. Thank you.

Any further questions? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor of the transfer from Community Corrections for $1,999.99 signify by saying I. I post.

Transfer is granted. The next one to us from central communications and it is a fund name is the public safety loit and the fund number is 1170. The amount to be transferred is $3,8256 and it is from account number 1170.33240.000034. The account title is telecommunications and it is to account number 1170.4443000 44430.0000.0034. The account title is equipment and the amount is 3,82.56. Why is this transfer needed? Cover the cost of the new MEO anywhere kit. And I'm not sure what MEVO

I'll explain it. Okay. Uh, will additional appropriation be requested due to this transfer? The answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? And that's yes and it was Rick Ring. Do we have a motion to approve this transfer from Central Communications of $3,8256?

And we have a motion by Rick Ray and a second by Bob Craft. Any further discussion? This is the equipment that Brian has been researching to cover the issue. If the central communications area should be damaged or go down, they can actually pick up this equipment and go to anywhere in the county and still dispatch. So, this is this is part of his emergency preparedness plan. Okay. And there will be, you know, while there's no more here, there will be, he's taking this out of his budget that he has the money in the budget. There is an amount that will be paid then every year um to maintain the equipment.

Okay. Thanks, Rick. Any further questions, discussion from the council? I'm sorry, Bob. I think it's great. Is it is it have to have internet to run that like No, that was that wasive that I can't answer. Tornadoes or something. whether it's it's probably, you know, Wi-Fi, but I can't answer that. Might get to a tower or something that has it or something. Why? No, he's been talking, you know, they've been looking at going to different areas where they could actually set up. Tornado could actually hit the building and you wiped out there.

Any any further discussion? It will call for the question. And all those in favor of the transfer from central communication of $3,82.56 signify by saying I. I. I.

Oppos. Transfer is granted. Okay. The next one comes from the surveyor. We have two of them. Do we have consensus to do these in one motion? Okay. Thank you. Uh the first one just one second. First one is uh from the surveyor. The fund name is the cornerstone perpetuation. It is fund number 1202. The amount to be transferred is $10,000. Um from account 44430, account title is equipment to account number 22130. Account title is operating supplies and that is for $5,000. The second one is from account number 34330. The account title is contractual services to account number 22130 operating supplies for $5,000. Why is this transfer needed? The office is ordering cornerstone markers to replace the red cornerstone markers in the county. More funding is needed in the operating supplies account to cover the invoice. Will additional appropriation be requested due to this transfer? The answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? And the answer is yes. Leaison's name is Bill Van W. Do we have a motion to approve the two transfers for a total of $10,000 from the surveyor?

So move. Have a motion by Bill Van Y. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Bob Craft. Any further discussion? I just had a question as why are they replacing them just so I understand the process. So this a process they have to go through. I don't know why so much they're replacing it as getting them updated to where they should be and everything. They just put as a replacement on the red ones, but they have to they're supposed to and you can explain it better than I can, but she uh to uh get everything update. They're supposed to have all the cornerstones updated and everything.

Some of them aren't some of them you can't find. Some of them are crumbled and crushed and they're important for all the um surveys that get done. the topic commissioners meeting on Tuesday. I thought I thought Tyler brought something up about this. You thought what? I thought Tyler brought something up about these corners. Um that will be coming that's coming back at the next um but it shouldn't be really they replacing it. Well, they are and they're not because the red ones are the old outdated ones. They have to put new ones in so they can see it and recheck make sure everything's in their I understand right location there. Okay.

They're mandated to do a certain percentage every year by statute. Okay. Thank you. We we went through this several years ago for that very reason. Susan mentioned so many of these cornerstones nobody knows where they're at. They're there was no record and and uh and we are required to do this. Oh, any further help? So, they've they know they're a certain color. They were updated at a certain time period. I was Any further questions or discussion? Hearing none, I'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving the surveyor's transfer for $10,000 signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed.

Transfer is granted. The last one we have is from uh the probation department. We have three requests. Can we do those in with consensus and one motion? Thank you. Okay. The first one is from probation fund number 9124. The amount to be transferred total is $1,000. First one is from account number 22190. The account title is Drug Enforcement Supplies to account number 33900. The account title is testing services. The amount to be transferred is $200. The second one comes from account number 22730. The account title other operating services being transferred to account number 33900. The account title is testing services. The amount requested is $300. And the third one comes from account number 22110. The account title is office supplies being requested to transfer to account number 33900. The account title is testing services in the amount of $500. Why is this transfer needed? The transfer is needed due to continue increase in the mental health case load which resulted in increased testing services. Will additional appropriation be requested due to this transfer? The answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? And we don't have a name for the leaison. So, do we have a motion to approve the $1,000 from probation?

Moved. We have a motion by Rick Ring. Do we have a second? Second by Amy Demsky. Any further discussion or questions from the council? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor of transferring the $1,000 uh within the probation department signify by saying I. I. O. Pardon? No.

No. Okay. So, we have uh 61 on on that. Okay. That is the last one we have on the additionals in the transfer request. Okay. The next one is the non-approval transfers that you have which requires no action from the council. Next order of business is the 2025 county salary and wage ordinance amendment. And that ordinance is number 2025- OCC-8. And um and we are amending ordinance number 2024- OCC-10. This is coming from the sheriff's department. And the job title is part-time animal control officer. The WHIS category is civilian B pay up to a max of $2349 per hour. Susan,

yeah. Effective for 2025 new hire in May. Sheriff is paying as a qualified professional in a KOMAT A category. Thus the pay hour difference from CIV civilian civilian pole B at 2213. So going from basically $22.13 to $2349.

So the 2213 is the 2025 rate that you guys set for civilian pole B. So, we briefly discussed this last time and I don't know if one of the Amy's or Bob want to talk about it, but um their WIS says that it's a civilian pole B. The sheriff is paying as a qualified professional, which the qualified professional that gets paid 2349 is in Koma A. Um, so there's a couple different things. So you can choose as council if you want to go with the civilian poll B category that WIS has suggested or if you want to go have this position in the qualified professional coma A position. Um I assume like so the qualified professional for a ser sheriff's department that is um when like his deputies come back and work part-time that are have the qualifications and the training. I would assume that this person would also have to have specialized training to be able to take care of these animals. Um or you can choose to go with whis at civilian pool B and only this particular position be paid the 2349 instead of 2213 in that category. Did I explain that right? Okay.

Okay. Do we have a motion to approve on first reading? I think we first need to decide whether you're keeping it with the whisk suggestion or wanting to change it or not before. I mean, so civilian pole B and the second one is titled

is a coma A qual and they call it a qualified professional. So essentially, we're determining whether or not we're going to agree with the sheriff to keep it at coma A and pay that individual 2349, which would be outside of the what WHIS is telling us. Whis is saying no, that's not the right one. It should be civilian pool B and you should only be paying him 2213. If we to go with keeping him there um as per W with then we would be paying that person outside of the rates that we have established. Correct. Which would possibly create a nightmare because other people in that

it it could category could isn't the only position that is paid outside of their okay right either. I mean it's happened other places. Y um so yeah that's a call up to you guys. Okay, but if we put it in KOMA A, you can pay the higher rate. That's with Yeah, the com the A is set at 2349. So we would determine then that that position is not what WIS is suggesting. We are saying that it's actually more qualified position than what it is. Not I can see what according to

according to what says yes I I can see both ways. I I mean you wouldn't want me out there trying to get an animal. It wouldn't work. So I mean I assume just assume that they obviously have some kind of professional training to be able to deal with this person does horses and snakes and well I don't know about the snakes but the horses. Yes. But I think this person does have specialized training and was previously employed in Allen County. I believe I think so too. So, but this person is not a police officer.

No. And but is acting at the request of law enforcement officers. I you know I don't but guess let me ask one more thing. So how did we decide that they should this should be under the sheriff's department? I mean is that where it belong? I don't know. No, the sheriff the sheriff and central communications and the commissioners have been discussing this. Mhm. Trouble is it never went to the it never went the route that it was supposed to go and go to uh the HR committee. So which would have solved all these issues if I don't know what to be the right department. I don't know.

I would think the sheriff's department is the right department because the deputies are the ones that need they're the ones that are going to be needing the person. This is covering a job that supposedly in the past was done by the humane shelter, but the humane shelter says they don't have anybody for this. And I don't think they're doing horses. And I just heard the other day they're not doing cats anymore either. So they have the Auburn police just besides the one time twice. Caught him twice. Twice. Twice. Was it the same horse? horse or a mule of songs. Yeah. Oh,

it made Channel 21's news twice. I can tell you that the commissioners have put into their budget because they do the they have like the humane shelter that they give to and they have TNR the trap nut release and they've also added I can't say it but one of the horse somethings that I did see that that they're able to have a place to take these animals too. There's probably more than what we hear about. Just so that you all know, if we left him at civilian poll C or B

and let him be overpaid for the rest of this year, a 4% raise next year, he still would be making more than he's supposed to in that. What if he didn't What if he didn't give him a raise at all? Even if you didn't give him a raise, he'd still be making more. He'd still be making if he Yeah. He'd still be making more than if everybody else got a 4% he'd still be making more than that for us. I I would think that um if you've left him down in that lower

I would think that the way to handle this is we believe that this person is going to have some training to do this job. put them in Komat A, but let the sheriff and the commissioners know that if they do this again that the it's not gonna it's we're not going to approve it. Uh there is a process that the council has set up to add positions and and set the pay for different positions and if they're not they've got to follow it or they're not going to get approved. The good news is I believe the sheriff has plenty of money in his budget to pay for that the rest of the year because of offices aren't filled. It's not going to take an additional out of this year's budget. But the bad news is we didn't follow protocol.

Yeah, it just we need to make sure that they follow protocol. That's all there is to it. So why would we not do that now? Follow protocol. Are you suggesting we follow it now but follow it for next year or from this is already paying that you're already she's hired she's being paid I mean go over and tell her that we're going to knock her down a dollar an hour which could lose them the position that they filled you know I guess at the bottom fine with this. I'm got to lay it that the commissioners and the sheriff, they didn't follow the process.

The sheriff has been made aware. The sheriff has been made aware. The other thing you can do is we are going to meet again tomorrow. You could delay this and and have the sheriff come in and explain it. What is the will of council? and maybe he speak to that training and the position the category that you put it in. I I think any information he can gives us helps that really puts us in a hard spot.

I don't think any of our other departments have the liberty to do that. Do you Lita? No, absolutely not. Um so I just that's the part that taken liberties to do this. We have the sheriff come in tomorrow. I had to change my categories. I had to take my people down. What do you you take them down as far as lower their pay? I had to change their category to altogether and yes, it was lower pay. Do we have consensus from the council then to delay this until tomorrow where the sheriff can come in? I see. Absolutely. This looks like

I think any information that he can provide to us maybe helps answer our questions that we have. Susan, can you put him on tomorrow? Then I will see if I can get a hold of him. Okay. Thank you. Please remember though, we discussed this last time and I had told you I got as much information as I could. So, I mean, there's been plenty of time for you guys to reach out to him as well. It's just frustrating. But I will ask him. And that one is on me. That one's That one's on me. I did not He did not approach me about this and I didn't approach him.

I know, but I I mean anybody can contact him from the council to move this done. Mr. Chairman, since it's on the agenda, we probably should have a motion to table a motion to table table. Okay. I'll make a motion that we table this until tomorrow. Okay, we have a motion to table this. I'll second it. Um, a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor of tableabling this until tomorrow's session signify by saying I. I. I.

Opposed. Motion is carried. Thank you. Okay, now we're ready for the 2026 county budget work session to begin. Did you have somebody coming in to talk to us today or there there was for the public hearing? They said they were going to be here. Okay. So, no, whether they show or not, but I'm assuming that's going to be

Well, I mean, we have some office holders here, but we have a we have another member in the audience. I didn't know if he was here just to listen or pardon. during the public hearing. Okay. All right. So, Susan, do we have public hearing to convey now? No, it's advertised at airport is advertised at 6 o'clock and the county is advertised. We were going to give the public an opportunity to speak here when you open the public hearing. You can't open it until six o'clock. So, I had to advertise it.

Okay. Okay. Thanks. So you open at 6 for the airport, do your thing, and then you open close that one, and then at 6:15 you can open the public hearing for the county. Okay. So we can we the public can speak at 6:15, correct? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um Susan. Yep. Where do you want to go right now with the budget work sessing? up to you guys. Okay, Rick, give us a couple options.

I handed it all to you guys. I've emailed it. I've uploaded on SharePoint. It's all printed. I don't know what else to give you. I I can't make the decisions. I didn't know if you had a place where you would like us to start that makes it flow easier or something you would like us to tackle first. Are we going to just start with the departments and move our way down and look at each one of them? What? I don't care. I don't know. I mean I've given

why don't we start through the department if we have any questions about any particular lines of items maybe that's a good time to ask the questions and then that way then and then after we do each department we can go back and talk about correct hey because that's really the big that's the one big thing hanging out there is the m is the I had some questions about a couple different things that popped up that while I was reading them I was like, "Oh, I don't remember what they said." So, it'd be good, I think, if we all just went through them and I guess how we've done it in the past, just gone through. Can you review each one? So, we have them in alphabetical order, which is fantastic. You have a question, Bob?

Yeah. Um, this has our general fund only in the target from the past years. Y um with these different rates of increases, which I know increase show more than just the wages because they're applied to all accounts. Is there a number where we know where we're at for this year with a certain column entered? Like if you went 4%, 3%, two two and a half%. Yeah, that was the at the bottom of this sheet. Yeah, probably the very last page.

That gives I mean that's starting point for me to know where we're at percentwise all the way to the 25 26 27 27%. The only issue with that is you were asked to include or to do apply the 4% or 3% or two and a half% to every single line which really excuse that when you have lines like in county highway that are 200,000 or 300,000 for something that's not a wage. I didn't apply it to every line.

No, you didn't. I only applied to the wages. Well, the percentages wages there's the rest of the numbers are entered in as the department heads gave them to Susan and Jody,

but the the green pink orange like under highway department. I was looking and everything went up by that percent from what they submitted. Pull that one back up here. Yeah, like if you go to highway and for in I was looking at the the gas and the electric in particular earlier today and he submitted 20,000 last year was 15,000. If we do a 4% increase, it raises it to 20,800, which would be 4% of that 20,000 he submitted. Do a 3% is 20,600 20,500. So it is raising

that heat. Let me look at You're right. Those are the ones that I just added. And maybe the sheet just is printed wrong. Maybe I don't have the updated. No, I think but you know on certain things like No, it was probably in my exhaustion trying to get this ready that I didn't like a repair parts and supplies is a 200,000 line. So that jumps 8,000 when you put 4%. So how about you not do highway and I will look at it

and I don't know if any of the other ones I don't think the other ones health services is that way. I didn't look at the first one. We just to start the assessor work our way through alphabetically. Yeah. The first one office supplies does not do that for the very first one. So it's not all of them. Are you looking at the assessor? Yeah. If you look at look at office supplies, it does not go up at all across those lines the 4% 3%. So it was just maybe a couple one or two departments. Let's start with the ones that are right. Go

put them in alphabetical order and the big sheets so it'll be easier. Okay. So, what my reference is we'll get a better number on our percentage at the bottom of the page tomorrow once we fix the the highway. Highway is not even in county general. Okay, that's true. You're right. Right. The percentages are only county. County General that we have to worry about that anyway. You're right. Sorry. And that would be all of these that you probably have, right?

Yep. I didn't have anything on the assessor. It looked like everything was pretty much status quo from last year. Anybody else have any questions about any of that before we moved on maybe to auditor? Okay, so auditor Susan on the seasonal temporary that went down. Is that just because you just don't need them as much or

that went down and actually we can um get rid of it all together? Okay. I can't take out whatever I have in there. Is that because that just you don't need it or is it I don't need to keep it. The employee uh she was a college student and she now has her degree and she is off to her nursing job. So, She won't be here with Okay. Can I ask one more question about this percent thing? Yeah.

The ones the ones you have at the bottom here, 25, 26, 27%. Are those based on us just hitting our target for 25 or or what we think we might have extra? Because we don't we typically end a year with more than what we thought. It's hard for you to know that. You can't tell.

These are based on what county general full amount would be depending on the wage increase minus the one, two, three, four, five cuts that I know of, assuming you guys are all agreeing with those cuts, then we get the bottom line black total. So if those are the amounts we go with for county general, then the target would be those percentages for now for the 2026 budget and I won't know what we end with until the end of the year.

Right. And you but that's without any extra put in here from now until the end of the year that we might end up with unused funds. It doesn't you can't calculate that. I have Yeah, I have that done. Um, yeah. So, I have estimates on Oh, you do already have that in there. Okay. Yeah, I have all of that. We're not That's the one you updated two hours ago or this morning or something? That last No,

the one like this is what I updated. So, Susan, on your um couple other things that are I'm back on to the big long list here with your department on it. Um just looking through you, um looks like you had one replacement that salary went down. I'm guessing because you're hiring so many new that um correct. So, there was a possibility last year that I was replacing two people. One person didn't retire yet, but she probably is going to retire next year.

Okay. So, I didn't need to replace two people next year that I know of. I only know of one that I may have to replace. And then you have under transfer um KOMA B can no longer fund part in 11 and that was a like a 100% increase. Can you explain that one as well?

So that one is um one of my transfer deputies and we have funded him. This was even when Jan was here. We have funded him um through my 1181 fund, but we now have used up all the extra money that we have there that I can't fund him there any longer. Okay. But this salary is going up from 22 to 45. Is that right? That's only because portion of it was paid out of the 1181 and a portion of it was paid out of of the other. It just looks that way.

Not increased to the county general because we're going to pay for all of it now. Correct. Yeah. Their salary isn't changing. It's just Yeah, because I could still do half of it for this year. Sorry, that's skewed. There's just really no good way to do it. Okay. Yep. No problem. Just wanted to be clearly understood that. Okay.

You know, the theme that holds through most of these departments is they've definitely held the line on everything. There are certain things that did go up like that, but for the most part, their budgets only went up 1% or 2%. And it's going to be wages that's going to be the big increase. And I think for at least for me on some of those wages, it was just more about those types of things as well as some of the part-time pieces of in the budget. I'm not sure if they're saying it's one part-time person or two part-time people and how much they're making. So that will I think in some cases it's just money that can bring in a part-time person even temporarily.

Yeah. But they're also we changed the rules a few years ago where before we fixed it at something like $19 or $18 and now if a person retires at $25 an hour and comes back to work part-time, they don't go down to $19 an hour when they come back, right? they can they're still getting paid for their education and their experience and everything else. So that

that is that was a change that we made a number of years ago. It's a separate line. The Count 11995. at central dispatch notice that they kind of went through a lot of their stuff and added the 4%. Did we was there any direction to the departments to add a certain percent? I know in the years past we have but I didn't think that there was. Okay. It just seems consistent of I need 4% more, 4% more. I'd have to look. I almost thought that we said to keep the operating side at 4% or below, but not do anything with the wages.

That that was what we was what we told them. Um, but it's going back to the three columns that you've already provided us as to what those raises might be. Yeah. So, yeah, we did tell them to stay at four or below because we knew that the MLG was going to be 4%. So it did come back as four not on wages but just on the other stuff that from DGF. Yes. Our growth quotient is 4%.

But the assessor stayed the same. The auditor actually went down 10,000. Went down a percent. But the central communications went up. Their total budget increased by 10. Uh oh I yeah 10%. So, did they move some things from public safety to um to uh 911 fund or the reverse of that? Yeah,

I'm not totally sure on that. I know that um they had increased they have a couple um like maintenance contracts and software agreements with some of the new programming and stuff that they had that those costs would have in or increased. So those had to be added into the 2026 budget like is the CAD the CAD looks like it increased

the maintenance contracts went from 122759 to 150,000 and I know that that was one of them was there was a a new contract that they entered into that added to that and I believe that that was also the same on the not like agreement, but I believe there is something equipment wise that he needs with if you if you look on that first page, the projected increase for CAD Spilman one first of five years at 137,000. Oh yeah, that was a huge one.

That would do it right there because the original was 12,000. Central put zero in for salaries. Just on some things they increase in their regular budget, but they needed to. What was that?

Central Communications, they didn't add anything to their salaries. They did add to their perf some of the insurance and some of those kind of things, but they didn't they didn't add to their salaries. salaries they kept same under statewide 911

anybody I'm I'm good with this And it does look like he pulled himself and Tiffany out of the 911 fund and moved it to the um public safety fund. So went from one fund to another. has still kept them. They're in lower.

They're depending on what wage increase you would give them. Their department went up 4%, 5% or 6% depending on what which again I I'm finding that to be very consistent with everybody. Are we are we moving on to circuit court? Yeah, I think so.

So, all three courts are stapled there together so that you can see them. Like the only increase was a potential one particular% for additional

four. Then the increase is just whatever salary increase we would give them. Although and is it did we did did we approve the upgrade to their technology in the actual courtroom for this year because that was that was the only big increase that was coming from Superior 2. They wanted to match what they have in Superior One as far as technology. I I don't remember.

They spoke about it in our meetings. Yeah, that was a software did. Yeah. Update that they would look to be doing that in 26, but are we seeing it? I don't either.

Okay, it's 6 o'clock. We're going to recess the council meeting right now and we're going to move into the public hearing um regarding the airport budget. So at this time we'll call the um a budget public hearing in session right now. So we are in the public hearing for the airport at this time. So, first of all, do we have anybody that wants to speak regarding this part? The airport one.

The airport part. Correct. Hearing none. Closed public hearing. We have nobody. Again, anybody wishing to speak on the airport public hearing. Okay. At this time we will close the public hearing on the airport. Okay. So for council um did you guys look at their budget? I'm sorry. What Susan?

We need to um well usually you pass and I give you the ordinance number on the first reading as part of the public hearings. You don't have to do it today. You can do it tomorrow also. But I didn't know if there was anything you needed to talk about with the airport. And I'll jump in on something else. Brady, it'll be here at 9:30 tomorrow. He has a central communications meeting at 10, so he 9:30 works for him.

Okay. Thank you, Rick. Anybody on the council have anything to discuss regarding the airport? Yeah. What was the what was the total budget? Yes. Change from last year to this year.

How about I read what Russ sent? He said that um the levy for airport cumulative building fund is unchanged. The levy for general fund is down slightly by a negative.05% and the rainy day fund is not levy supported. Our budget for the airport cumulative brid fund is unchanged. Our budget for general fund is increased by 4% and the budget for rainy day is decreased by $1 million. So they estimated rainy day for $735,000. The airport authority or like their general 840,660 and the cumulative airport building at 95,000 for a total of 1,000 or 1,670,660. I can give me one second. So last year, let me see if it Okay, I got to add real quick. Last year it was 2,638 320.

There was 1.735 for rainy day because I think they were doing extension maybe. highway or airport. Did they do extend? They did something that they used this year taxi way. Yeah. So I

this year's budget the taxi ways are under taxi ways to the strip also allow them to Do you want the numbers for the general last year and the building, Amy? Yeah.

Okay. So, the the airport general was 808320 and the building was 95,000. Let me just So essentially they're asking for roughly a million dollars less than they asked for last year. Is that what I'm understanding

in rainy day? Yeah. They're asking for a million less there and like 32,340 more in their general budget which follows the 4% growth quotient. Okay. Susan, do we have in our packet anything pertaining to the airport?

I don't think I printed anything. I It's probably just uploaded. So, do you guys want to pass on the first reading or do it tomorrow? What do you want to do? Everyone's good.

Right. I'll make the motion we pass the airport budget on first reading. And that ordinance will be 2025- OCC-9. What was that again, please? 2025- OCC-9. Okay, we have a motion in the second to approve the airport budget 2025- OCC-9 on the first reading. And we have a second by Bill Van W. Any further discussion hearing? None. We'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving the airport budget on first reading signify by saying I. I oppose. I

pardon. Okay. Thank you. A motion is passed 61

and we want to table this until tomorrow. Then there's nothing else to do on it. There's nothing else to do on the airport. Okay. So on the So now you have six minutes till county on the courts it looks like all of the courts were basically stayed the same and from what I'm understanding no according to the letter attached no increase for judicial officers and prosecutors this year at all is that yes the state 5000 state Okay.

What did you What did you say, Rick? They said the 5,000 part of state law. The the budget, the rates for the judges and prosecutor are set by the right, but this year the state did not give them increases. So, it's flatlined for salary, but our correct of it is 5,000. That stays the same.

Yes. Rick, you asked a question about the software for the the judges that Patrick came in and talked about.

Um, I don't know that it's it might be software, but I thought it was more equipment, monitors, wiring, Wi-Fi, all of that. Wasn't one of the courts needed a serious upgrade or to do on Right. One of the courts needed a serious upgrade to equipment to do the online stuff. I was going to say he wants to match what Superior One's already got.

Yeah. There's really nothing hardly anything there. If that's a courthouse, is that a courthouse or in the judge's budget or it or cap? Well, you would think it would be in I don't see it incap. I'm guessing that they talked to you about it after they had to submit budgets and it wasn't in there

and I don't recall that there was a dollar amount talked about. So I would have no I think they were just going to start looking at it. I'm not sure they had Yeah, they wanted to know that the council would support them on looking. We gave them that assurance.

It's going to be Many thousands came. We never So that one that one was part of my cuts. We can't we I cut that out of there at the very very very bottom in the totals because she was able to do that this year.

We're not an additional money in her budget this year. So, I suggested a couple of months ago, let's transfer that while you have the money because we knew we were going to get into a

So, I show it up there where we're where you're looking now because it was actually requested. And then at that last page, I show the minus 3500 because they were able to do it. Here's another quick question. Our overall percentage goal. This is a really helpful thing to see all the all the recurring investments for next year. Is that one for general counted in

I already have every all the investments are already counted in my numbers with the cash reserve. Yeah. And this and this history she's really good too because that lets us know even though we plan for a target percentage we typically end significantly more than that by the with the actual cash balance at the end of the year because of unspent dollars. And did everybody understand this? This is really super important sheet for everybody to understand. We can go there later. We don't need to jump to that. But the other the other thing in the clerk 6:15. Yes.

And um we're going to recess this part of the meeting here. We're going to go to the public hearing regarding the um the budget work session. So do we have anybody at this time that would like to speak to the council? Would state your name please, address, and you have five minutes. I don't believe that your mic is on. Press that little middle. Okay. You say Jason what? Jason Winnick. Yeah, there we go. You hear that now? Great. How do you spell your last name?

Uh, w I N I K and I'm from 353 North Clark Street in Chicago, Illinois. Um, so, uh, county counselors, thank you for having me here today. Um I'm one of the development managers with the Sculpin solar project um here in Dalb County and I'm here to share details of the project as they relate to your budget conversation. Um so some background about RWE. We've been developing owning and operating projects uh globally for over 125 years and that's all you know technologies both renewable and you know conventional. Um and so in the United States we're the third largest uh developer owner and operator of renewables. Um and so we have 50 plus solar projects here in the US and that includes 13 projects in Indiana including under development uh construction and operations. Um and so yeah, just wanted to talk about Sculpin uh briefly here today. So we've been active in the county since 2019. It's a 180 megawatt project, which means that it uh it can power up to 30,000 homes when built. Um so it's around 1,800 acres leased. um a lot less of that will be actually used for panels if built. Um so we have seven landowner groups that are part of the project um that chose to sign on to that because they decided that's what's best for their land and their families. Um and so I know for them they care a lot about the agricultural heritage and signing on with us voluntarily helps um keep that land in their family and preserve that heritage and prevent them from needing to sell it to, you know, for other purposes of development that permanently take it out of production. Um, so more relevant for today getting into some of the project benefits. So in addition to landowner payments, um, a project like this is a $200 million investment in infrastructure in the county that's added to the tax base. Um, there will be 300 construction jobs during construction, which is a around an

18-month period. Um, and so those are skilled jobs like electricians and installers um, that will be here and and spending money in the county. Um and then we'll also RWE will add five uh about five permanent permanent jobs for people that will be living here in the county. Um and so you know a project like this the more renewables that are on the grid that will lower electricity costs. There is a systemwide impact of having you know low cost to produce electricity like solar on the grid. Um so understand that uh there's major impacts to the property tax structure as a result of SP1 in the coming years. And so as you think about future income of the county um we want to flag that Sculpin could bring in millions and millions of dollars in tax revenue um for the county. And so we're open to revisiting um you know a county favorable tax structure for the project and potentially reopen the economic development agreement um to provide more tax revenue certainty for the county. And so we just ask to be part of your community and and have a conversation about that um you know when that time is right. Uh solar's a quiet neighbor hidden by screening so that people barely have to look at it. Um and more relevant for today. It increases the tax revenue without increasing the tax base. So I think there's a you know potential large financial impact um that I ask you all to think about and thanks for your time and for having me here.

Thank you. Thanks. I sign in here. Thank you. Is there anybody else that wants to comment have any comments here during the public hearing? Is there anybody else that has any comments during the public hearing? Last time, is there anybody else that has any comments to make here at the public hearing? Hearing none, we'll close the public hearing and we will go back into session here with our meeting. Rick, how about a fivem minute break?

Yes. Five minute break sounds like a capital idea. I already took two of it.

This is one of those things. Okay, we're back on. You want me to go over this sheet? Yeah, let's get back to session here. Where'd that Rick go? So, we're back in session. Well, do you want me to wait for Collins to come back so I don't have to do it multiple times? There he is. The uh we're we're at the clerk. Okay, we're going to talk about this sheet. Yeah. Wait a minute. I got to find that one. I shuffled blue arch on the top.

A very good.

So, this was some information that um Amy Presser had wanted and so I tried to put it together. in somewhat of a form that would make sense. So, we're going to look at the line that says 2024. So, for the budget year 2024 that you guys would have worked on in 2023, the target percent that we ended up with for county general was 34.3%. That was what we were hoping that we would end 123124 at after the 24 budget was done. If you go to the blue columns

the right way to the right

the actual after all the spending was done before taking into encumbrances and any money that moved to rainy day we ended at 62.25% 25%. But when you go to 2025 in the middle columns, so the 62.25 is 123124. Then the 54.27 is the 1125. The reason those are not the same is because incumbrances come from the prior year into the new year and we also move money from county general to rainy day. So taking those into account then means that we started 1125 with the 54.27.

Susan, does that some of that money carry over the what's residual in the budget at the end of the year? Is it affected by the fact that we budgeted and I'm going to use employees? We budget for a certain number of employees. So that's we're taking that into account when we set the rates and everything. But if the position's not filled or if the physician position is paid by a grant that's already been budgeted, all of that would would greatly affect.

Correct. So any appropriations, so anything that you guys approved for say the 2024 budget that was not spent is why it doesn't it's any account in the budget. It could be anything.

It could be employees. It could be supplies. It could be services. Anything in general that is not spent at 123124 is going to affect that. And the big one, one of the bigger ones is um uh probation because of the timing of their grants. Many times they have to request the full wages in County General because the state doesn't tell them what they're approving until way after we're advertising and getting things ready to go. Like for this year, they just got their information back and if I can find it. um were able to cut almost $280,000 from the general fund because that amount of money was approved in grants to pay wages.

If you look back at some of the previous years that we have the in two of the most expensive departments just because of the number of employees and the wage uh we had a number of positions that went unfilled in the sheriff's department for a number of years. We also had a number of positions within uh central communications. They're now at full staff. So, we're not going to hopefully not going to run into that. And the sheriff has got his staff up to where where it should be. But all of those positions not being filled would cause that to go up. One of the one of the issues, and we'll get to this later, we asked I asked Jeff Peters of these funds, what are there ones that we can reduce? What? Take a look at it. What can we reduce? And the and his answer was a reassessment fund. It has, I think, more than $2 million in it and we keep adding back into it through a tax rate. We unfortunately missed zeroing out that tax rate for this year,

but we need to look at zeroing out that it's already advertised at 0%. Yes. And so that will make that reassessment fund go down which more appropriate level

but it will be at least five years before they will go through that money with the amount of money that they spend. So that percent that rate then will um help us in the general fund. Does this have anything does this the blue numbers versus the green numbers have anything to do with community corrections and or um the other I'm drawing a blank I'm sorry it only has to do with county general money. Okay.

If we pay I didn't know if that was manipulated by looking at their schedule because they're the only The only part of community corrections that would be in there is anything that county general funded paid and we plan to pay. We don't or an additional that we might have approved during the year, right? Um out of general

and I took into account all additionals and transfers on the bid color sheets. Bill and Rick would remember back in 14 when we were 14 15 awesome if we knew what those numbers were. We were she wasn't the auditor and nobody was tracking that I don't think but we were trying to get to zero like we were in negative every year at budget time this time of the year and say how do we get to zero so we don't budget a negative budget and and we only had like 8% that that first year in 14 I mean it was it was struggled we struggled with that just getting to

but it was also bringing on Jeff Peters to help advise us it was also So doing the WHIS study so we could standardize wages and have some type of objective pay rates not subjective which is what they most frequently were. So, we've made a lot of strides over the years and there is I don't want to call it give back or giveaway, but there is some give back because we have put ourselves on positive footing. I just don't want to ever dig ourselves in a hole.

Absolutely not. That's why we have to be very vigilant about that. And even though we had a very large the last couple of years surplus at the end of the year with everything that's unknown, I don't think we should be crazy. And we also have a lot of that money invested. The treasur and I have worked together. I can't tell you how many hours we've worked together. And we have a lot of it invested because of the unknown and trying to get as much interest back for not just county general but for the highway fund for different funds. Yeah.

Which that also will affect the interest that we're receiving in county general right now because prior all the interest was set to go back into county general. Right. So now some of them fund where it's invested from depending on what it is. Some funds we can't put interest back into. Some funds you don't want to put interest back into like we have the lit ptrc like fund 6203. You don't want to put interest back in there because it's just going to sit there and it doesn't do anything. Those interested.

So those will go to general. There are there are some very expensive projects looming out there that need to be addressed and we need to save the money to to fiscally be fiscally responsible for that project because we could hurt the county in the long run if we run ourselves too far in debt. We lose our bond ratings. Um the um and I'm one for being overly cautious. I am not one that likes to speculate in in large. More cautious you can be the better.

And unfortunately we just don't know. Oh, sorry. No, you're good. Um just to clarify, so in 204 our goal amount then in dollars was basically $8 million. And we So, and then when you did the budget in 2023 424, right? Okay. And then it ended not down, not in the blue necessarily, but down here in the green for 25 where it says the 13 basically $14 million ahead. Is that correct? Am I understanding that part right? Yeah. After the encumbrances and stuff, yeah, we wanted to save 8 million, we saved 14 million. Correct.

Okay. And some of those what I'm understanding a lot of that funding then is going into investments, right? Putting those in investments. Yeah. A lot is going in and then Right. then each year when you guys choose like um the budgets and the wages, if it's more than we're getting, then we are using up some of that cash balance because we got about uh what was it? 42 million I think invested at this point. Is that the number? I think I read I got it. So about 40 28. Yes. 28 million invested. Yeah.

And then the interest coming off those I think I think the last six was four. What did you say, Jenny? Was it right around 400,000? Not the last. Yeah. 400. Yeah. And so those go back into county general. And are those funds then that I would like to look at of, hey, where can we put those? We we just said that we needed roads and everybody was, hey, we really need a wheel tax to improve the roads. Well, what about those funds? Are those some funds then that we could turn around and use um for the roads? I think that's something that we really should think about.

So, currently they are going into county general. We are changing some of that. So not all of that will be going back into county general anymore. So the interest won't be as high. So the interest earned also would be why those percentages are up more because we don't know that when we're planning the budget. Um, I think I would be very hesitant on anything for roads, highway, or 2026 because we do not have any clue what is going to happen with the lit. We know it's going away.

We don't know if we're getting the same. We don't know if we're only getting a percentage, right? And that will mean that uh everything the commissioners pay out of their lighted fund which is a huge highway bond payment. Um the central communications that's paid from lit plus we pay share of pension from lit. There's big expenditures that are all going to have to be funded out of county general. Sure. So I I would not advise touching any of that interest until we actually know what is coming down from the state.

Yeah. Yeah. But once we do, maybe that's something that we could look into because then then we'd have a better idea. It's just hard to for me to after we've went through and and raised a wheel tax on our citizens and then look at, hey, well, we just got like half a million dollars back in interest and hey, maybe those are some some funds that we could look at improving our roads down the way.

Another thing that you also have to remember is the um comm the community corrections um correctional lit x-ray will also be something that's going away. That was the plan because we collect extra that all that extra was be putting back and setting aside for the jail. So with that going away one, we don't know if we get to keep any of it to continue making those bond payments for community corrections, but that tax rate will it'll be gone. We won't be getting money there. So, some of this other investment stuff may need to be utilized when we get ready for a jail because that's going to be a very, very huge project.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. There is another 50 million that the state set aside for any county under 50,000 for their highways. We're going to have access to another $50 million pot for any county that's under 50,000 in population for to ask for for the roads. Yeah. For the roads. Yeah. Good to know. I'm not I'm not against helping with the roads. I'm just being realistic that there are so many unknowns and with the jail coming and the current bond payments that we have to make and the unknowns with the state. As auditor, I would not advise that.

On on Tuesday, Ben was talking to the commissioners about the study that's needed for County Road 60. I think that total amount was about $250,000 and the commissioners agreed to pay for the initial expenses from that for this year, but also told Ben to come to the council for the rest of it. Now, that's that I don't know that I would object to having that come out of county general or at least a portion of it. But

that is what they were attempting to do. I guess when Ben came for his budget presentation, um but then nothing else came back to me. I mean, you guys I tried to explain to He thought it was going to be in the budget and it wasn't.

Yeah. Yeah. And I tried to explain to them that the council does not really have anything to approve unless we have an additional appropriation asking you to pay for this XYZ. Um, and nothing ever really came back to me. If it was my if I was supposed to do an additional appropriation for it, I totally screwed that one up, but I would I didn't get that from the presentation either and it wasn't put in for the 2026 budget. But commissioners do have some money in their lighted fund that they're a that they can use for it. And the other thing we're going to have to worry about, and I got your notice today for about my own assessment home, nice letter that you sent out. Um, with the new structure uh with SB1 right now, I believe the majority of the people that actually hit the tax cap are in Grant count, Grant Township and Waterlue. That has historically been the case. I think that people hitting the tax caps Yeah. You

that's me. People that hit the tax caps are it's going to be prevalent across the county. And so that's money that it doesn't it just it's just not there. You just don't you don't get it. You can't collect it from anybody else. And and so I just want you and that just removes that amount from their budgets. I just don't want to take it off the table. And I feel like it's being taken off the table before we even know the future of what what could be what what's going to happen to to Susan's point. We don't know what's coming down the pike. So that's right. We don't and it may be a lot better than what we expect. And so right, I'm not taking off the table. I just Let's not take it off the table.

I didn't want you to think that we could do something this year because I really would not be comfortable. This is hard to explain to taxpayers when we have we're sitting on $28 million and invest in CDs and we How how then? Why do we have to pay another $7.50 on a wheel tax? I understand. We've gotten some pretty great interest the last couple of years and I of all the crap that came out of COVID, that's probably one of the good things that came out for us is that we've got some pretty nice interest rates, right? Um unfortunately, I think those 5enters are probably going to be the first ones to expire. And well, they're gone. They're way gone.

5.2 20 that's is that one already oh at the end of this year is expiring then we've got a couple of other ones but now you're lucky to get 3%. I mean, it was great if you, you know, jumped in and got a long-term investment for five or five and a half, but we're at that point now where that's one of the that's one of the reasons that we had so much money in that general fund, too. Yeah. A number of years, u Sandy was able with when the interest rates were just humongous, was able to get a phenomenal amount of interest for us. Yeah. And that went away fairly quickly.

Yeah. Yeah, I applaud the treasur's office for doing that because I don't know that any of us could figure that out. And the fact that we have that kind of money in there to deal with all of these unknowns is make us look a lot better and help fund a lot of projects in the county that we might not have been able to do otherwise. So, thank you. Thank you for keeping us all on track. And if you guys would have any questions about that, I would highly, highly, highly recommend that you ask Joanie and she will set up a time to talk to you. She I had a short meeting and listened to it the other day and it was very informative. There were things that I thought that I understood about it and I didn't. So if you have time and you or you don't understand something, I implore you to reach out to Joanie because she'd be more than happy to help.

She did a great job explaining that. And just to also clarify because I know there's some confusion, Joanie works with the banks, with the investments, with the interest rates. She has nothing to do with the funds whatsoever. I work in the funds. That is why we don't have to talk, but we do talk because I generally know if there's something that a project or something that's going to be coming down the line. So I am able to let her know if we do have any extra money in a fund that she can lock up for how long however long. Yeah. So depending on your questions will depend on who you need.

I think it's great that we have a relationship with so many of the local banks. I guess I didn't realize how many different banks we utilize and I mean I think that's great because ultimately that's helping them do things for our community as well. Yep. Are we ready to go back to the clerk's office? We're ready. Not really, but yeah.

You know, the one the one thing that really stands out here is the fact that elections are going to go up dramatically, but you remember that we we don't have elections every year. So that that runs in a cycle. She's going to have, you know, last year or this year not much. Next year she's going to have big expenses and the following year she's going to have expenses from city and town elections and then another

general election and then another lull. So four years out of five I guess is what what that goes up. her regular budget is not the elections went down a lot but that's because of well she remember she told us that she didn't replace fill two pe two positions didn't replace him and then a lot of stuff's going into Odyssey now and it's online and

that should civil deputy not being replaced [Applause] Commissioners Rick Hazera statute that sets the fee to pay pole clerks and election inspectors that you can't go over. I know we have a hard time getting those people to work now because it's such a long day. Um

there are some restrictions on it, but um I mean I see we got 120 and 145. I just know that we have a really tough

and we don't and we don't have you know now that we're using vote centers, we don't have to have as many as we did before. Um, yeah, we struggle. Actually, the I hate to say it, but the the Democrats start struggle and they occasionally have to ask permission to use Republicans as to fill in the Democrats spots. And now there is state law that the courthouse will be closed uh for election day. And so any any uh county employee that would have worked that day can now work the polls. I think clerk's office looks pretty good, especially the fact that she cut that main budget before the elections budget by not replacing people and then the election budget is what it is. You got to you got to pay for elections.

Well, you know, again, some of our biggest expense are the employees

and that's another reason that we want to treat the employees very well. We have excellent employees and we need to keep those that uh have proven themselves best we can commissioners budget if we move on to that Susan I did oh there it is say did that insurance and that those go up. Wow, those screams. So,

sorry, my mic was on. Shannido and Horse Rescue. That's a new contract we're entering into for 26 because of the um animal officer that we have so that she has resources to be able to take animals to and the humane shelter did go down. And I see that they only took up the northeast center by the actual 4%. So, which one? Northeast Center. That was because I actually had the um actual DLGF number that they tell us at that time.

Sometimes I don't have it in time to be able to do that. May just so it's so one of the reasons why the perf insurance and social security went up so much is it is this note says includes DCC is that department of community corrections 26. So they're including it all of those things here as opposed to having that those paid out a grant or something before or we've paid for their insurance for a while except for like 64,000 something that they okay reimburse the county for

because of the amount of money that the state has been cutting back community corrections. we've taken on over the course of the last several years more and more. And quite honestly, it's fair that community corrections being there and operating at the level that it is is keeping those people out of the jail, right?

And in the jail, they would cost us more. We'd be responsible for their medical. Um, I think you, you know, the thought that was always going to be paid for by the state was was a pipe dream. I think as time goes on, it's going to become more and more the county's responsibility. And quite honestly, it is the county's responsibility. These are our people, our our county um are responsible. We've always been paying. I just wonder why there's a there's a note there like it's the first time ever. We've paid it for a couple of years. Agreed.

Says includes zero for the social security not requested. So we're not paying their social security. Okay. They try to put as much as they can in theirs with all their things they have to pay.

And thankfully our our Northeast our our mental health DMHC didn't fall into that category. But the the state found out that they were paying the top executives of some of the community mental health centers excessive amounts. And the legislature allowed the the counties involved to not pay their portion. Hopefully that they would bring those salaries down. Our ours was not one that was getting paid that high. I'm not suggesting that we change this at all, but the liability insurance is staying the same. about million dollars. Um if we do are able to find um all the residents at Sunny Meadows a better place to live and a better lifestyle um to be cared for. I mean is there a significant savings in liability if that's not operating but half of the year? I'm just wondering.

Well, there's I can tell you in one second. I wouldn't change it because we have no guarantee that we're going to get that number doesn't show up in the Sunny Meadows lineup. It's it's in the commissioner's budget. Correct. But that's something and their health insurance the employees health insurance and all that will but I would not take any of that out of here because not yet. If we aren't able to relocate everybody to a better place to live by May, it won't happen. which we had an update yesterday. I think that we as of next week, we'll be down to what did he say? Eight or nine after next week. I thought there was three or four getting ready to move out.

Anyway, it's a it's at 11 or 12 right now, but I thought that Kellen said yesterday there were three or four that were getting ready in the process to move out. So, it they are making considerable advances.

I mean, it was just an update for everybody. It was quite the process once we got a consultant involved to figure out where everybody should have been, what everybody mean people weren't collecting the they weren't getting the benefits they should have gotten because nobody's helped them sign up for some things or qualify to get waivers or whatever. So for some of those folks, it's been a whole process of starting from square one. You you have this disability, you should have had this waiver, you should then you can collect this, then you can do this and then you can move to here. And it's been one by one doing that with almost everybody. There's very few that were were had everything right. Well, and so it's

that's why um previous commissioners brought in an occupational therapist to evaluate the the client because they were supposed to be able to do activi activities of daily living on their own. And if they weren't, they should never have been admitted out there. But the but their paperwork to get all the benefits that they could have been getting were not done. I mean, nobody was doing that for them. Nobody was helping them. So, it's taking a lot to catch them up and get them qualified and then get those benefits coming so we can get them moved to a better place.

Else on commissioners, are we ready to move on? Ready to move on. So, and this the next one is community corrections and just skip that for a minute till I get you the rest of it. Okay. Actually, here it's all right here. We're going back to something else. That's the rest. Well, is this one is this one that was here before just what's in county general? The one? Yes.

That's just the county general one. Yeah, because that I was is just interested in the bottom line. The bottom line number is we are putting in maybe $38,000 total from the general fund. You're good. Change again. Yeah, change the correction which is here.

We can just real quick back to that respon the sculpin EDF consultant fee. They're paying Sculpin has paid 100,000 could go up to 150,000 and then we have a line of 29,000 that we pay out to a a separate consultant to advise our commissioners. Is that what that's for on the planning commission? I don't remember what but we're getting paid by Sculpin to do that it looks like. Is that anybody wait what was your question? So in the general under commissioners there's a sculp and EDF consultant fee.

That's because they had a economic something agreement. Um and they had to pay us x amount of dollars. So they paid what? Yeah.$100,000. And it could go up to 150,000. And that was money that was used for us to pay a consultant to help us with third party consultant decisions and things like that. Is that the that the attorney they hired? Yeah, I believe so. That wrote all the road use agreements and the ED the economic development agreement.

Um the economic development possibly, but they also gave the commissioner's guidance on different things to do. But so then I would pay claims from that $100,000. So there's $29,000 left that if I would have to look after so many years, if the project is dead in the water, then I would have to pay that back to them. But it's not ready to be paid back yet because it's not finished. So that's basically keeps the county from spending any money on researching the project and figuring it out because they're paying us up front to get that

if it's the person I'm the group I'm thinking of. It was that group was hired by a number of counties to develop those contracts and agreements and whatnot. That's good. And it wasn't Baker Tilly and I can't remember who it was. I'm looking. We've paid um we paid Baker Tilly some. We've paid Barnes and Thornberg. I think the guy I'm thinking of was with Barnes and Thornber.

Is community corrections just what we pay out of general here? It's not their whole budget, right? She just gave you the rest of it, but the rest of it we don't really have a whole lot. That's all grant funed there, right? This is what we really have to pay attention to. I'm just one step behind you, Jody. One step behind you. Doing good. Doing good. No candy or food and you're still upright. Yeah. Not next to you.

We could have ordered pizza too for this would have been good. The the full budget that you gave us The full budget you gave us is is their project income and their grants and everything. So this other one that we had is just what we're putting in.

Correct. But I gave you both so that you could see what kind of increases they were able to do. And there's a couple of lines that they appear to have gone down on the first page 15% on the second page 67% but a lot of that is due to an overtime rule and then it says there's an amount in there if it's mandated. So, is there a chance that we're going to be mandated to pay that and those would go back up and be this changed that's changed academy the second it

well and don't forget some of these people are qualified as probation officers and that salary is set by the state right there based on their years of service and based on their degrees that they have. Oh, so the this what it is is they've had they had money in there for the overtime rule that didn't get passed. They have people getting paid under that amount and then that DOC didn't go through or DOE didn't go through so we don't have to pay that and I don't think that's being revived anytime soon. Would you say that Amy HR it doesn't look like that?

I haven't heard much about it lately but I know that we met I met with Michelle maybe Michael I can't remember to talk about it and to look at who fell in that if we needed that money where we were going to get it from but it's died in pretty much I haven't heard anything about it lately

for couple of years with the current president budget from was cut. We had literally three versions then we got cut again. So we had to go back and after we had submitted it

were they going to be able to continue to operate okay or We have people like

I think one thing so I'm sorry Michael's fought off increases for the few years, but I think it's going to come time and they're going to So, going back to that commissioner's budget, is that the one thing she mentioned that maybe we could consider paying their social security and they didn't? They're not paying social security this number in their budget guess and honestly I can't remember where it ended up the final version to look um because we had a we set a budget and then we did a preliminary if we were cut a certain portion

I remember Michelle when she presented for community corrections talked about the possibility of commissioners or us considering paying extra help with their budget because they were getting cut their their social security their it might have been because they didn't and so that's why that's on the commissioner's line but then it says paid zero we're paying zero but then that line went up by quite a Let me look.

No, one of the versions.

I remember her asking us to consider No, it's ours. The only thing that they have that state would be the probation officers. So they go first and write their grants. They do, but they don't they're not always able to give they just the same amounts. Yeah. General dispatch. See, this says

so for social security we don't have to fund any of it. They needed us to fund PEF which is 133,000 we did. Yeah. And let me look at last year and we and we must be doing and we're doing insurance for this year. We did insurance for last year. We're not doing anything for social security. No. And I don't think we have. Let me look a minute. She asked for something else. me. We talked about it. I have it in my notes at home. I don't have it here. Rick, did you and I have a discussion about that? You and I were there. I don't remember.

Was that before her budget was like came back cut or was it after? I think it was before. She had an inkling of what was going to happen, but she wasn't.

Yeah, we literally did like four budgets and or three and then we had to do another one. I can't look at my email. They told her to send it to me with different scenarios. So they did no raises and 9% st state grant reduction is what the final ended up final appro with the grant final approval.

You can turn that down. I was just getting it. Well, they all put their coats on. I'll bring your Don't worry. In 30 minutes, I'll probably have mine off. Bob Craft's age. He's getting a little fragile. He's radiating heat. [Laughter] Let me say that.

All right, Jody. It's recorded now. Right. Are we moving on a corner? Yep. Rex, she had to come in for an additional this year. Do you remember what it is? Do we have enough in there next year

body bags or something? She was like supplies something was way over. Well, I I saw her yesterday and I think she said that they'd already had 90 plus cases and they had and some last year and they're already at 90. And I don't see anything that she's raised from last year 25 to 26. The only thing that she raised was deputy coroners. Oh, that was to cover their runs. All those guys run. Like she said, she has no idea if it's going to go up or down, right? Year to year consistently. She looked at that took office. She had a surplus of bags because that from Yeah, maybe she

from the co era think they had a pretty good chunk. Three Yeah, it didn't change. It was It was the deputy coroners that you had to Yeah. have a lot more and they get paid per run. So, you don't really know what that is, right?

Just has to raised that 4,000 which seems about like what she asked for additional last time. That's what she's projecting based on what she's experienced in the upturn in 2025. That all looks pretty good. I think uh council member or the next next one, county council member number five needs to cut there a little bit.

Let's split his amongst the rest of us. Susan, what are the what are the ones in here new for the Economic Development Commission? What's What's that? That's been in there for two or three years. We've never spent it. What? You've never seen we put it in there for. Do you remember?

Um because the economic development commission like had reformed and in case they had needed something like uh I just didn't put them in their separate little location because it's probably not going to last long. And the the difference in the allow t timekeeping is low is cheaper than the other one that we had. Um it is

went from 90. Oh no, you're asking for 90. It's going up. Not going down. It's going up.

But then at the bottom you'll see I was able to take away like 60,000. Um because that was a guess. We had no idea when we were planning that. It is cheaper. It is more user friendly with our Lao system and with the third company people that they use the they they set up to work together so we won't have as many problems. We still have issues with the right stuff and community corrections and they've had it the longest. And right now we have our payroll deputy spends an enormous amount of time manually doing things by hand. So that program

does it do everything that Yep. that the other one was supposed to do. Yes. I made sure of that because I know that central communications really likes the current one and they do a lot of different aspects of it and I made sure that it could do everything because I'm not going to pay and run two different no timekeeping systems. It all has to be It all has to be the same. So, where does it show that you said it went down? Is that a different sheet on your very last page where it shows the cuts? Oh, and the cuts is okay. This page the 90 was a guess and then you're able to get the 90 was an estimate just because we had no clue and that's what we estimated for this year also. Or I did 75 this year and then so really council budget went down not up.

Yeah. because also um we were able to pay for some of the Lao um timekeeping this year out of the $75,000 I paid I was I just submitted an invoice to pay for like 45,000 and then with the actual final quote of what it will be yearly and whatnot then I was able to reduce courthouse stayed pretty much the same except for couple supply lines.

Okay. Michelle Fosna just messaged me. She said the additional request was to move the software IT costs back to the IT department as it had been in prior years. Where's that at? Well, and she had just been told it was being transferred to her budget kind of last minute, so we had to make room for that. What will 20 23 or 20? Looks like software maintenance is 30,504. Were you able for 24? That was project income.

You probably weren't able to get that into the grant. We didn't know why it was I don't know that she got a reasoning why it was being transferred to her when they'd never had to pay that before, but I think maybe she'd spoken to Icy about it. I don't see it in here. And because it's in project income. Certain to them that's why it was being transferred. I don't have that. I can't find that paper in my notes. I have it, but to look for. It's not in my email. Oh, it's over in this other sheet that you gave me.

Not in their It's not in their general. Correct. It's in their sheet. So that we could move it. You wanted to help them. We could take it out of here and put it in general. Well, you can't just put it into it general now. That's right. You can't just put it in there now because I've advertised. When I think the question from community corrections is why was it moved from it to them? They were just given an invoice and there wasn't an explanation and obviously that wasn't something that was in their budget because they'd never paid it before. I guess I don't know because I didn't know anything about it. So, let me see what I can find out.

Amy, I did find um it wasn't like current. It was last year. That's why we had to build it in there for last year. But I still don't know anything about it. Other department. I did find an email that got you and I to go out meet with her. Yes.

And it was uh JRA GR grant awards for 26. Um, community corrections received a 9% cut, loss of $112,540. In grant funds, the average loss for programs was 11%. So, I'm thankful that I could have been worse. It also appears that JRrack made the decision to cut all jail treatment, prosecutors diversion, AD and pre-trial pre-trial programs from the funding, which is what was all that was all cut. Their pre their pre-trial program is not affected because I have consistently written our staff into the community supervision portion of the grant instead of separating them into a pre-trial category. uh would wanted to work on an alternative budget which is when she had you and I go out and meet with her,

right? And we had a we put together a sheet or I should say Shannon put together a sheet with some different scenarios. So the additional request she just emailed me was moving software IT costs back to the IT department because it had been there in prior years and they had never paid for their own software out of the grant. It looks like it happened in 2021, so I'm not sure. 21. I see some software claims paid. Was it paid out of the grant or was it paid out of IT department or another department?

It was paid by community corrections. I'd have to look to see which fund it was from their program fees. I got to get back. I wonder if it was not. how do I want to say registered how they thought it should be because there wasn't anything in the budget where it had specifically said software and or she hadn't had a invoice. Well, there was but maybe it was

some paid in 2022 out of their grant fund software maintenance. There was some paid in 24 out of their grant fund. No, I'm sorry. Those were out of project income. summon 25 there was is that something we're doing across the board where we're having different departments pay part of their software maintenance or I mean you don't out of your department that would probably

I do I did some I do some I mean a lot of it's but I do some because I have other funds that I'm able to do things with and maybe it maybe they wanted it done that way So that if it wasn't it and if it was prior to me, I'm imagining it was so that at a drop of a hat, we could look and see, okay, this department costs this amount of money. Sure.

Well, and in the past, we could get grant money for it. We would be silly not to put it in there to get ask grant money to pay it. [Music] All right. What's the next one after the corner? Let's keep moving. Courthouse next. Courthouse. Did we already do courthouse? No. He kept his exactly the same.

But I've got a question on this. you know, for gas, natural gas, 56,200 for last year and 26. Excuse me. If NIPCKO is right on that proposed 17% increase, that's almost another $9,500. Yeah. And we may need to look at that at some other departments there because they're pretty adamant that it's going to go up and they're talking 17% across the board. So, just a caveat there. Have we we look at our report today and see if we've spent that all every year? Last year we had 56,200. Do we know if we spent that much last year?

Just a second. Last year or this year? This year. Well, last year this year we wouldn't have a whole year. It was the for Larry. I know they're revising his job description so that he now will supervise all of our maintenance people and maintenance in the different buildings. He already has that. But that's his current job description. But is this the uh amount because that has to move him up? Yeah, we moved him in 74. Yeah, that already moved him up. He already has that went through the

they're wanting to redo it because they want him to um like be the go-to for what every department wants done and allow them to go ahead and do upgrades and updates up to a certain amount of dollars and then otherwise he will come to the commissioners and say Susan wants to do blah blah blah and it's going to cost this amount of money. So they want that part added into his current job meeting tomorrow on that. So I thought but

but I won't have any idea what is in there now is what his current job description says he should have. So, as for gas and electric for 204, we had about $32,000 left in each account. 32,000 electric. In 24, we had budgeted $110,000 for electric and we spent 78. We budgeted 52 for gas and we spent just under 20. we might be okay with the 562.

So as of today we have spent we budgeted 119,000 in electric because I think we thought it was going up also. Um we've spent um 49,500 a little more than halfway. And then um no gas we budgeted 56200 and we have spent 23100. So we have 58 a little over 58% left in each electric and gas

and less than that in months only got it might be okay then the commercial electric rate has sunk down over the last two years due to some of the changes but I was assured that that will go back up and after they reist distribute the rate or something reallocate the rate or something. It's going to take a year. You probably know about that as a city resident. Actually, my electric rate has gone down and my gas rate all the commercial as a as a residential customer, but

and all the commercial rates commercial and industrial customers, you know, where where that's going, I don't know have any idea. What's the um difference between I think I know but just breaking down the we have custodians, we have janitorial, we have maintenance, uh building repair and maintenance, all of that totaling probably $400,000. How does that break down then? What's the what is the janitorial doing versus like our custodian and our maintenance folks? How does that break down? What account are you talking about for janitorial?

So, A janitorial for that's a that's the company that um we pay to do all of the cleaning of all of the county buildings cleaning and anything everything else they do and Larry's salary says custodian when it out of say facilities director or you know it's but it says custodian which makes you think that all he does is clean and is that just an old term that was used. That's just his that's his account he's always been paid from and I didn't change it. Change it. The A1 janitorial is cleaning all the county buildings. So he said, "Okay, that makes more sense."

Yeah. And they take care to clean the courthouse. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's all county buildings and they take care of um bill um like anything like our soap, our toilet paper. I mean like anything. Gotcha. Yeah, it does. Got it. Okay, that helped. Perfect. That's helpful. Thank you.

Okay, so wait, then you asked about building repair, maintenance. Yeah. Um, so those are um any county building that needs a repair or maintenance, okay, service done on them that we need to pay somebody to do. That's what that is. The um equipment would be if some equipment needed to be fixed. That makes sense. Okay. Okay. That's

I was gonna ask the council how late do we want to go tonight. 8:00 you can leave it nicely but out. Yes. Good to go. We have an officer for that. Just call the sheriff. Call the sheriff. We've already approved his budget. No, that's table till tomorrow. Tomorrow you can call and they'll go find out after we approve it. We'll take care of it. How do you even know where to go? Look. How do you get it back home?

Huh? How do you get it to go back home? You write it. Cowie here. I don't know. I honestly don't know. Oh, with a cattle rod. That's not very nice. I've never done it. That's why I asked. Do we have anything else here for the courthouse? I just had a question. Who Who is the A1 janitorial? Who Who is that? Who is it? Yeah. Who is it? Like who owns it? Yeah.

Era Lane. It was would have been like um Clint's business that we've paid for God knows how many years. They've been here 25 well probably more than 30 years. Yeah. And then when he retired they sold it to uh Cara

ready to move on. Have we ever bid that like when it first came? 30 years ago. We said 30 years ago. So in the last 30 years, do we ever bid it out that editorial service? Not that I'm aware of. They had a relationship with Clint and that's the way it stayed, right? Clint Clint did this and and his brother did the city. So my question though,

I know I've talked to other people that have to hire outside cleaning people like that and they have a lot of frustration with them. I don't think the countyy's ever had any real frustration with Clint or A1. So there's no requirement that we bid out those services at $184,000. Not when you've already contract when you're already with them. You don't have building something. You have to I guess is there a lot of trust with them too coming in? I mean just being in the building when I mean do they clean at night? Yep they do. They clean when offices are closed and is that here

around maintenance projects? Probably all county buildings. Oh and the health department central it's all is it all paid from this particular line or Okay. So, it's all the buildings from this highway to the spread offices

that I have no idea. I'm not sure on that one. I know at the prior highway they had paid the highway paid one of the office ladies to do it, but I don't know about the new one. Okay, we're ready. Move on. Extension office. Okay, let's take a look at it. And that contractual services there is set by Purdue. Correct. That's the amount that they ask for.

Correct. Oh, the only other thing they they cut money out of their subscriptions. So, she made us aware of that in the pres budget presentations that Purdue was increasing their numbers. She has no control over that. They tell her what to do. Is it asked like please do it or is it a mandate? We need Yeah. So, we do it. I mean that's the that's what that your extension office that's that's your land grant college that uh you don't you can't go to anywhere else and get that service.

I mean the commissioners sign an agreement every year with the amount. It just said that they had asked so I didn't know hey we'd love it but we could say no or is it we are getting I see what you mean 3% more. That's all that's fine. We good? Yeah.

Move on to Homeland Security like everything stayed the same. Y any questions on Homeland Security? Okay, let's move on then to human resources. We have a decrease here.

We're seeing a decrease. Correct. Correct. Thousand plus. you. She just went through several of her um stuff and reduced some of that and did that so that she could um she did purchase a little bit of extra furniture this year that that was needed in their office. And so she when she cut that out of her budget, she's like, I can cut that going forward as well. So, and she wanted to be a team player and make sure she was helping cut the budget. And she also is utilizing herself a um old desk that came from a different department. Correct.

Yeah. She just bought her deputy her deputy. It needs some additional

Any other questions regarding human resources?

Okay, let's move on to information. information systems. That top line there, is that just for one part-time person or part-time contractors? I honestly have no idea. Is Jack the only parttimer they've got right now?

Yeah. this the telecommunications that some of that came from the commissioner's budget that there the city dropped something and we had made paid us go to all new phones or something. What was that?

I I can't totally remember. They've done they had to do a big upgrade with all of the Cisco phones and whatever system it is. Um I I couldn't talk intelligently about it even when I tried. And for some reason for I don't know how many years the commissioners paid $30,000 of telecommunications but it's all paid from the general fund and it's all the same telecommunications. So I switched it from commissioner's budget to IT so that the bills can just be paid from it and not have to be tried to be split and everything else. Anybody else have any questions on it?

Rick, you look like a deep thought. You got questions? Nope. Was that a yep or a nope? Nope. Nope. Okay, let's move on then to the plan commission. actually looks like a slight decrease. The one the one big increase you're going to get there is um they're moving the two GIS analysts up to being equal.

They're moving a what? They're moving the two the one GIS analyst, they're moving them up to being equal with the other one because they both do the same job.

And that top of line, what is what is the that break down to for each of the um for Meredith and for Chase for their hourly salaries?

Um it would be whatever those levels are. So, Coma A for 25 is 23.49 an hour and pat A is 27.92 an hour. But if you give me a minute, I might be able to see if that's what they actually get paid. [Applause] Anybody else got any questions?

Meredith was at the 23. Sorry, I'm looking to see I I think they're they're not the same at $20 an hour because that's the pay up to amount. So, let me look. Jay is at 20 an hour, not the 27,

right? That's the category high. and Meredith is also at 20. is Jared that the GIS sorry analyst too is that the one that's going

going up yes up

and that job description was already done and approved. There has been some discussion on the code compliance position um increasing the hours and possibly going full-time, but it's not been totally decided yet. So, the building inspector and the code enforcement official are the same category.

They're both a but said it was. Doesn't that just seem odd? Does it seem odd? Building I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I'm tired. It doesn't I don't know. It doesn't seem odd. They're both inspecting. I mean, yeah, Jeff's inspecting that. Maybe I don't know exactly what code enforcement it all encompasses or maybe I don't know what Jeff

So, building inspector would be going out to inspect that the building permits and whatnot that have been pulled and are being done that they are meeting the requirements of the building. electrical, concrete, plumbing, all of that stuff. Four or five of them on one building project. Doesn't he do it for like the whole county? Yeah. All I know he does it for G all Auburn. Okay. And the code compliance is currently on a complaint basis when there's a complaint that comes in about a property in the county that is hideous and bunch of trash and his personal safety is at risk because he could get shot at while he's doing his job.

Yeah. Big time. Yeah. I think that would be a little more stressful and he'd have to know the law and he'd have to know the codes and all of that. Did that go through WIS as well then? Did they both go through WIS? Yes. And there's a whole process with that code enforcement like initial pictures, sending out an initial letter, no response, second letter, all certified, multiple different things before it comes back to the commissioners to decide whether they want to file suit and all kinds of fun.

I was thinking of the building inspector more like electrical based and you know electrical box 2 point you know and verifying but it's also after a contractor so I I mean I get I understand like

anything else I do not Thank Okay, thank you. Uh let's move. Uh we've got uh the um we've got the BZA to look at, don't we? On this here, it's just at the bottom. The only thing there is the um meeting pay. The what? The pay for the meetings. Okay. That's the That actually is going down for next year. Like I believe it's because they had um I think this year we had an extra meeting we had to pay for from the prior year so it was increased and now it's back down. So it's

Thank you. Probation. I think we should stop there Dave. That's going to be the probation's a longer one unless you want to jump down to something like the recorders that's easy and she's sitting in the back of the room anyway. From our standpoint, it is.

So, which one you want to go to, Rick? I was going to say um No, because prosecutor, public defender are all fairly lengthy. The sheriff is lengthy. The recorders is fairly short one and soil is so is soil and water. I don't think we want to discuss Sunny Meadows until tomorrow. No. Okay. Treasurer and VA and weights and measures would be veterans. We could go to soil and water recorder first. Recorder first. Super short. What were the salaries for the part-time? What were the what

the salaries for the part-time employees? Actual pay. Yeah. paid. Were you pay the category?

Yeah. Any questions? Any further questions on a recorder? Ready to move on? I mean just other than a comment that it's already got the the 4% in there for the staff where we didn't have nobody else has

it. So far it does but on the other part I did you did add that on top. I can I did the 4% from the 25 amount. So whatever we pick it it'll reflect that. Yeah. We're not approving this is the way it is right now. Right. service. Let's go to soil and water. Do we pay rent for the space that Soil and Water is in or do they is their rent paid by the bedside of the building? Paid by bedside because that was part of our Is Joanie back there?

That was part of our meeting for the space study. Mhm. That building out there is we don't pay for the the rent. The fed side pays for that. So our only cost is the salaries. So there that and the reason I ask is that's not anybody we would want to move anywhere already been. It's that whole I didn't realize that whole building is essentially those that offices.

I think it's because they share that. There's like a back office that is shared and so that space is paid for. So the soil and water is kind of there when you walk in the little corner. Uh but the way this the office is set up because you access both maybe that's how they Well, yeah. cuz I I walked into the bedside to talk to Tim Haynes once we were out there. Yeah. I never I never knew that it until we went out for Well, they I'm sure they interact all the time and they share a bathroom with United Way. They share a bathroom with United Way. Any other questions on soil and water? Okay, let's move on. We got time for one more. Let's look at Weights and

just real quick on the soil and water. So she has people's pay going down pretty much everybody. 2% 2% 2%. They put Yeah, he had like an approved a wage amount, but she wasn't necessarily paying him the m that max. Oh, we had we had that in the budget, but she wasn't paying them the full the full classification. But I figured it off the full or the percentage increases because they still can pay up to that.

Yeah, it's there. You're just passing up to and then they Who's next? What's that? Veterans or Let's go to weights and measurements. which weights and measurements measures

actually has a slight decrease in operating supplies and $50 reduction in petroleum products and supplies. That offsets the printing increase. Anybody got any questions on weights and measurements? Okay, we got time. What? Veterans Rick. VA. VA. Okay, let's do that. Then we're going to recess.

Recess. You got to come out, do you? I have a question about this one. We had we had the veteran service officer, we had an assistant, we had an office person. And didn't they combine the two, the assistant and the office person? They make that one job. So, we we have three employees listed here, not considering the part-time, but we got three employees, but we only have two, right? Correct.

So, can one of those salaries be taken out?

I'm not sure why she requested it. They used to have They used to have three. Yeah. and she has said in the past that the commissioners recommended that she keep one of them in there in case they ever needed to hire someone. Um, however, they just been a year or two and they've not needed that. So, I don't see a reason not to take that out, but I can talk to Rhonda if we need. So, the office administrator, the 11444, that is the one that's currently not being used and part-time is not being used right now either. Correct. So really the way this reads is there would it's for four salaries, right?

Three and part time. Well, yeah. Right. Okay. Even if you wanted to leave the office administrator manager in there just in case they might need it in the future, maybe cut it in half if they're not going to hire anybody before the end of the year. So is that cap though? We had co- I don't even know if I'm using the right word. Co- department heads. Yeah, we kind of for for a while there we had

but I thought if that left if that happened then the other one went away or maybe it was just a discussion. I don't remember that came before RHR committee for some reason. I was thinking money. They didn't I think that's what it is. They saved money because by him coming back at his level, we didn't pay these other We didn't need these other positions. But those other positions were maybe saved in case you didn't know how long he was going to be there or

he he came and left fairly quick that um and then they hired an assistant of assistant veterans officer, not clerical person but his assistant and he left and then I think then the So that's when they combined the two jobs. So So I don't Yeah, I don't see that that

in May of 24 Rhonda sent an email that said on my budget spreadsheet, so this would have been last year of course it reflects a part-time position due to council and commissioners asking that I leave that in place in case the future department expands. The same is true for the office administrator manager that is to remain in place in case in the future I decide to hire a secretary or eliminate the other deputy position. However, according to my discussion with Amy Proer, um we had left the things we had left the budget line items the way that we did because of the situation with the previous deputy, which is what I think you just said. That was 24. Yeah. Yeah. And that was 24.

So that line's probably not needed. rather stable. Yes, the current one is amazing. She's very good. It's very good. Yeah, Rhonda really likes her. Well, I I wouldn't I wouldn't propose taking it all out and leave the category there in case you need it in the future, but at least maybe cut it in half or cut it by a third. Yeah, I think that's fine because if we needed to, then we could add them back in the future. So, at this point, I don't know that it's necessary. I was going to say I don't know that we need it at all. It always can be added back even if you take it all out. Okay. Well, that's fine as long as we leave the category in case she needs it. We don't have to go create anything.

No, the account number will still be the same and the job description is already done for the cut that out. So, what did we do Susan then please? I couldn't. So account 11444 the office administrator manager we are cutting the 41,114 cutting it all. Yeah. Okay. But we're going to leave in the part-time. I probably would just in case there happens to be a change then she has money to crossrain somebody if needed. Correct. I would prefer to keep the part time. for sure.

Everybody good with that? Okay, hearing nothing else to come before the council. We are in recess until tomorrow at 9:30. I can tell you I'll be here as close to 9:30 as I can be, but