County Council - Regular Meeting

And uh God, we ask that you'll be with us this morning um as we make decisions for the citizens of Dicab County. I ask God that you would give us a clear mind and a focus just on the citizens and what is best for them. Give us all of your wisdom that we need to do this job. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Please rise for the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice. Okay, approval of minutes. Everybody has looked at them. Are there any additions or corrections to minutes? Hearing none, we have a motion to approve. We have a motion by second by any further discussion hearing. None. We'll vote. All those in favor of approving the minutes signify by saying I minutes are approved. Okay, everybody needs to turn their mics on. Thank you.

Okay, next order of business. We do have some additionals and transfers that do require council voting. Uh the first one is from the information system for $21,000. It is from the general fund account number 034630. The account title is web development. Again the amount requested is 21,000. Was this included in the annual budget? And the answer is no. Um it was not known at that time that uh current website will be discont continued in uh December 31st of 2026. How will this appropriation be used? It'll be used for a new county website and vendor. Um the cost was determined by the new vendor proposal. Is this a reoccurring expense? And the answer is no. Will other expenditures be necessary? And the answer is no. Was it discussed with leaison? Yes. And Bob Craft was notified by via email. Do we have a motion to approve the 21,000 uh for the uh information system?

I'll move to approve. Then I can answer any questions I talk. Okay. Thank you. I'll second. Okay. Okay, we have a motion by Bob Craft to approve, second by Rick Ray. Any further questions or discussion from the council. Who's the new vendor? Um, that was emailed to us several weeks ago. I can't remember. Uh, Civic Civic something Civic Civic Plus maybe the vendor that does a lot of government Yeah.

And the issue was ours, the one we were with expired. We didn't know that when we budgeted. So, this is setup cost to set up a whole new website. And we're going to get some improvements with it as well. There's going to be a portal for citizens to be able to get in and do some things and see some things. It'll be better than it was before. Amy, did that answer your question? Yes. Thank Any further questions from the council? It will call for the question. All those in favor of the 21,000 for information system signify by saying I. I. I opposed. Motion is carried.

Amy, I did verify it is civic plus. All one word. Perfect.

The next one comes to us from community corrections. Um, it is to appropriate purchase of a vehicle for $30,725. And we also have one to appropriate to vehicle maintenance repair for $1,199.65. If we have consensus from the council, we can do both of those in one motion. We have consensus. Thank you. Um this is from uh community corrections. Uh the fund name is CTP and the fund number is 1123. Account number 33610 and the account title is vehicle maintenance repair service. Uh this is for $1,19965. Was this included in the annual budget request? And the answer is no. And uh the reason was we were planning to budget it for 2027. How will this appropriation be used? It'll be used for the replacement of the DCC vehicle as approved by commissioners and advisory board. Excuse me. Requires the installation of a laptop mount and wiring. uh for Wi-Fi. Specific cost of the item is $1,19965. How was this cost determined? It was uh by a quote. Is this a reoccurring expense? And the answer is no. Will other expenditures be necessary? No. Was it discussed with the leaison? Yes. And that was Amy Demsky. And then the other is the request um for the $30,75

and if I have that one that's from Shephard. Yeah, that's for the actual vehicle. Okay. And the other was that we just went over was for the wiring of for the Wi-Fi and such. Yeah. The outfitting of the vehicle.

So, yes. So, okay. We have um uh two requests that we're going to handle on one motion. Do we have a motion to approve the $3,725 for the new vehicle for community corrections and the $1,19965 for the wiring for Wi-Fi and such. Do we have a motion to approve? So moved. We have a motion by Rick Rain. Do we have a second? We have a second by Chris Craft. Is there any further discussion from the council? For clarity, the commissioners have approved this. They went to the commissioners first. Okay. Thank you.

I understood correctly. They were just having so many problems with the current vehicle that it was recommended that we just get something different rather than putting repairs into the old one. the mechanic or place they had taken it said it was pretty much just a nickel and dime us for and it was a used vehicle to begin with from I think the sheriff's department from one of our departments it was used when they got it

any further discussion from the council hearing none we'll call for the question all those in favor of approving the $30,725 and the $1,199 65 for a new uh vehicle for community corrections and the wiring. Signify by saying I

I oppos. Motion is carried and trans or the additional is granted. Our next one comes to us from the auditor and this is on the canon restoration. Okay. Uh fund number is 4127 and um you see in red there number 22130 operating supplies for $1,240 and fund number 32780 from the other services fee for $38,760. If we have consensus from the council, we can handle both of these on one motion. Do we have consensus? Hey, thank you. We do. Um, the total amount requested is $40,000. Uh, Commissioner Douly is seeking restor or seeking donations to help fund this project. Was this included in the annual budget request? And the answer is no. It was not planned yet to happen. How will this appropriation be used? It is for the restoration of the cannon on the courthouse lawn and purchase of time capsules. Specific cost of items are um the heritage time capsules will cost $1,23823. Uh the order will be placed online. Atlas masonary quote uh of $29,733 and Knox decorative painting quote of $1,350. Is this a reoccurring expense? And the answer is no. Will other expenditures be necessary? And the answer is no? Was it discussed with the leaison? And the answer to that is yes. And that was Bob

Craft. Do we have a motion uh to approve the Canon restoration funds of $1,240 and $38,760? We have a motion to approve. We have a motion by Bob Craft. Do we have a second? I'll second. second by Rick Ray. Um, do we have any further uh conversation, questions, or anything from the council regarding the canon restoration? I don't know if we have any um donations so far.

I was just going to say that so far we've received $1,500 from two different legions. Oh, wow. Okay. Any further questions from the council? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor or in favor of approving the restoration fund of $38,760 and $1,240 signify by saying I.

I. Motion is carried. Okay. The next one comes to us from the Veterans Court and Um Dave, the next three from Veterans Court, Family Recovery Court, and the Problem Solving Court Grant, they are all for the same thing. Um I don't know if you want to do them together or not, but they're the same dollar amount. They're all for um expenses for one of the members to travel to a conference in Nashville. um all probation related and Ryan Hall is here if you have questions for him.

Okay. Um council pleasure handle in one motion. Do we have consensus to handle all three together? We have consensus. Okay. So the first one is from probation. Susan mentioned is for $2500. Um it is from fund 9153 account number 34295. The account title is travel and training education. The amount requested is $2500. Was this included in the annual budget? And the answer is no. Reason not included remaining 2025 grants funds. Um how will this appropriation be used? It's expenses for a vet court team member to attend the RISE 26 conference in Nashville, Tennessee in July. Specific cost of the item was $2,500. How was this cost determined? This is the amount IOCS approved to extend to 2026. Is this a reoccurring expense? The answer is no. Will other expenditures be necessary? And the answer is no. Was it discussed with the liaison? Yes. And that was emailed to Dave Yard. The next one uh comes from probation from the family court grant fund number 9154 account number 34295. The account title is travel training education. The amount requested was $2500. Was this included in the annual budget? And the answer is no. The reason not included remaining 2025 grant funds. How will this appropriation be used? Expenses for a F FRC court team member to attend the RISE 26 conference in Nashville, Tennessee in July. Specific cost of the item $2,500.

How was this cost determined? This was the amount IOCS approved to extend to 2026. Is this a reoccurring expense? And the answer is no. Will other expenditures be necessary? The answer is no. Was discussed with Lea is on. Yes. And that was an email to Dave Yard. And the last one that we have is from the problemolving court. Excuse me. The department is probation fund number 9157. Account number 34295. The account title travel and education. The amount requested 2500. Was this included in the annual budget request? And the answer is no. And the reason not included was remaining 2025 grant funds. How will this appropriation be used? Expenses for an ATC member to attend the RISE 26 conference in Nashville, Tennessee in July. Specific cost of the item $2,500. How was this cost determined? This is the annual CS proved to expend uh to extend the 2026. Is this a reoccurring expense? And the answer is no. Will other expenditures be necessary? And the answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? Yes. And that was emailed to Dave Yard. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve these three travel grants for a total of two four $7,500? Do we have a motion to approve?

So moved. We have a motion by Rick Ring. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Amy Proser. Any further discussion from the council? Can we hear from Ryan as to what this what this conference involves since he's here? You bet. Let's utilize him.

Ryan.

There you go. Ryan Hall with the treatment courts um the coordinator. Uh these three grants specifically um were carryover money. Instead of returning it back to the state, the state allowed us to use this for additional expenses uh for the National Drug Court Conference. Um when I first started going to the National Drug Court Conference in Anaheim, California was the first one I attended back in 2009. There was pro approximately maybe 2,000 people that attended nationally. problem solving courts have grown so much over the years that it's approximately 8 to 9,000 attendees now. Um this is one of the this is the the elite national conference and um it's nice that it's closer to home um and so forth. So uh so that's why I requested uh those funds um to be they're already grant funds. We already have them. I just need to appropriate it um for those. Um, I just want to make clarify, um, Susan, I did have two additional ones as well, um, for drug screen money, um, for the, uh, it was attached as an attachment to the addiction treatment court, the ATC grant with 9157 and also family recovery 9154.

Those were for drug screen fees. Were they on It was in the email. They were on a spreadsheet. That's what it says,

but they weren't on like they were on a spreadsheet. The next page. I don't think that she got those the request form. I will have to they're not what was scanned in either. I'll have to pull out I thought I saw them on that and do it for the next It'll have to go to the next meeting because I have to next meeting. Okay. for future reference. Since it says to attach additional um to per spreadsheet, if you have more than one additional um request for that, do I just need to do another same form or actually do a spreadsheet?

Um either way, if you do a spreadsheet, I would have included this on the spreadsheet so it shows all you're doing and then because this says $2,500 as a total, but this says $5,000 if I'm looking at it correctly. I see what you're saying. So, it's put the total amount for everything on that face sheet. So, yeah, if this would have said like $7,500, then we probably would have caught it. Okay. Um, we'll have to fix it for next. And the second to the last page on what was scanned in does say medical testing services for $2,500.

This one? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. I I'll do it for next. All right. Thank you very much. Was it just that one? Um, it was for that one, but then also for the family recovery grant, there was $7,500. Okay. I'll get with you. Okay. Make sure we have Sorry, I apologize. It was $5,000. No, that's okay. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you very much for the clarification on that. I apologize, Ryan. Yeah. I just had a question of just, you know, what what do you guys anticipate learning and bringing back to the county? Unfortunately, this will be the first year that I have not gone and uh probably or since 2019. Um it just didn't fall with uh with my personal schedule.

Um but in years past uh we have met a great national trainer. She has been able to come here um twice now um and provide free training to not only our departments um or our programs but also we brought in Allen County, Noble County, Whitley County. Um I think St. Joe may have come over at one point. Uh so we've been able to meet those individuals as well, but also there's best practices um best practices last year they really revamped um how to do things for the problem solving courts um at the national level. And so uh last year they redid them, they proposed them, and then uh they're starting now in January of every year to redo them. So they're always going to be something new to learn some way to um handle either treatment. Um don't don't consider treatment um a sanction. It's a treatment adjustment. So it's a therapeutic adjustment. So if somebody is struggling um don't you know the court is not going to say um you know I'm going to order you to to go to this many services or whatever. So you know that has changed drastically since I started it in 2007 um with the treatment courts. And so that's one of the bigger things. Then also the drug testing trends. Um there's there's several different options. Law enforcement's going as well. We have two of our sheriff's deputies that are attending and so um there's law enforcement tracks. They're able to network. Um, I've been able to connect with people, um, for family restoration corps a couple years ago in Colorado. Um, and I was able to connect with them. Um, and then again, um, Helen Harberts who was the national speaker as well that we've been able to bring in a couple different times and I still I email her probably once or twice a quarter to figure out, hey, this is our we're having a problem case. How do you, you know, what do you suggest and so forth? going there, bringing back the new trends, the new things that are working, all the updated research and posing that and helping our making sure all of our courts are working well.

Absolutely. Perfect. And one of the things that um I'm surprised I haven't had the question yet, you know, how do you define success and so forth? So, one of the things I want you were ready for me, were you? Absolutely. So, I wanted to make sure I pulled this statistic. So, on the national level, their graduation rate is anything above 60% for treatment courts because we're looking at high-risisk and high need individuals. These are the people that are going to prison and we're trying to keep them out of the prison system. So you're looking at anything above 60% is is good. Okay. So our addiction treatment court is at 65% addiction or graduation rate. Our family restoration court is at 81% and our veterans treatment court is at 86%. Great numbers. So it's it's it's encouraging to see that at the end of the year and you don't realize that and it's like oh those it is it is good. So

congratulations. Thank you. Any questions? I believe that um some of that success rate can be laid at the feet of the fact that you do go to those conferences, you do interact with other treatment court personnel and being involved in organizations like that is extremely important to to provide quality services back here. So absolutely I'd encourage any of our departments to to participate in groups like that um organizations that are bet to better our uh our results here not only in the courts but also in what we do in in county government. Right. Um it's it's extremely important.

Absolutely. And one thing to kind of piggyback on that, Councilman, um, is that, you know, at the state level, they have notified me and that they will let me know and say, "Hey, we've got a new department that wants to get a new treatment court, and we've given them your name. You guys are doing it great." Um, right now, we're we've have um a surrounding county is looking to start a treatment court, and they've come and visited once, and I think they're coming again today. Um, and so it's nice to see that these other departments that are trying to start, and they want to try to mirror our hours, um, in a way. So, it's encouraging to see that as well. Thank you.

Thanks, Ryan. Okay, we do have a motion in the second. We'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving the additional from the Veterans Court probation for travel and training signify by saying I. I.

I. Motion is carried and the funds are granted. Okay, moving on to transfers that do require council action. The first one comes to us from the auditor. Fund name is the SDI TIFF TIFF. Fund number 45501. The amount to be transferred is $1,629 and it is from account number 99500 to account title miscellaneous expenditures and it is be transferred to account number four 444520 and the account title is a police equipment $1,629. Why is this transfer needed? Transferring to appropriate expenditure account during budget time. We didn't always know what projects RDC will approve. So, we use a miscellaneous miscellaneous expenditure account for budgeting and then move the appropriation when we pay the invoice. This transaction is for the payment of ballistic shields for the sheriff SWAT team. Will additional appropriation be requested due to the transfer and the answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? and that was Bob Craft. Do we have a motion to approve the $1,629 transfer uh from the auditor's department? Do we have a motion to approve?

I make a motion for that, but also possibly consider all three of these transfers. They're all three exactly the same out of three different TIFF accounts. The exact same thing. Yep. So all of the TIFF funds, the New Millennium Fund, the American Heritage TIFF fund, and the SDI TIFF fund, all three of those have the same exact transfer for the same exact reason. Thank you. Do we have a consensus from the council to approve these three transfers on one?

Okay. Thank you. Um, the second transfer request comes to us from the auditor and it is from the American Heritage TIFF fund. Fund number 45502. The amount to be transferred is $1,629 and it is from account 9950 which is the miscellaneous expenditure to account number 44520 and the account title is police equipment for $1,629. Why is this transfer needed? It is transferring to appropriate expenditure account during the budget time. We don't always know what projects RDC will approve. So, we use a miscellaneous expenditure account for budgeting and then move the appropriation when we pay the invoice. This transaction is for the payment of ballistic shields for the sheriff's SWAT team. Will additional appropriations be requested due to this transfer? The answer is no. Was a discuss with the leaison and that was yes and that is Bob Craft. And the third one comes from the auditor. The fund name is New Millennium TIFF, fund number 453. The OB um the amount to be transferred is $1,629 and it is from account number 99500 uh which is the miscellaneous miscellaneous expenditure account will be transferred to account number 44520 and that account of title account title is police equipment for the amount of $1,629. Why is this transfer needed? transferring to appropriate expenditure account um to appropriate expenditure account. During the budget time, we don't always know what the project's RDC will approve. So, we use a miscellaneous

miscellaneous expenditure account for budgeting and then move the appropriation when we pay the invoice. This transfer is for the payment of ballistic shields for the sheriff's team. Will additional appropriation be requested due to this transfer? And the answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison and that was yes and that was Bob Craft. Do we have a motion to approve these three transfers? Move to approve. We have a motion by Bob Craft. Do we have a second? Second.

Second by Rick Rig. Any further discussion from the council on these three transfers, each pertaining to $1,629 from the auditor, American Heritage Village TIFF, and the new Millennium TIFF fund. The RDC does recommend or they decide to do this, right? They're the ones that made the decision to they do it by resolution at their um they've done multiple and we have to approve it. Yeah. Well, you don't approve the project. You approve the spending money that where the money's paid from.

Any further discussion hearing? None. We'll call for the question. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Transfers have been granted. Now we have one more here from the public health. And uh that is the fund name is the public health probably that's bioteterrorism.

Yep. And the fund number is 8113 and the amount to be transferred is $2572 and it is coming from account number 44430 from the equipment fund to account number 34330 and that account title is contractual services. The amount requested is $2,572. Why is this transfer needed? Moving the money into the contractual service account so that we can use it to supplement the payment for our preparedness contractor. This will allow us to pull less from our 1161 local public health services fund and also clear the carry this carryover balance we have had for some time. Will additional appropriation be requested due to this transfer and the answer is no. Was it discussed with the leaison? And the answer is yes. And that is Bill Van Y. Do we have a motion to approve for the health department a transfer of $2572?

I'll make that motion. Have a motion by Rick Ring. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second by Amy Pricer. Any further discussion? Yes, Susan. I believe that this fund is what is remaining from the original uh bioteterrorism grants from god 10 years ago. 10 years ago this is correct hanging on once those uh different groups were dissolved I guess. Yes. How much money is left in that fund after after we take this out?

Well, my computer just froze. Is this I'm sure this does go back a good nine or 10 years. I mean about probably two thou probably longer than that. Maybe 2014 2015 from grants that that the hospitals were given and the public health departments were given. Um there's there's 10 cents left.

All right. It's about time about time. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving the transfer from the public health bioteterrorism fund for $2,572 signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed. Motion is carried and the transfer has been granted. Okay. Next, you'll find in your packet transfer requests that uh do not require council approval. And at this time, we're going to go to Commissioner Kellen Douly.

I have one more thing real quick. Um, this is not in your packets. I'm just letting you know um it was in to talk to commissioners yesterday on a network solutions called Informiccast. It has to do with um utilizing our phones that we have to be able to have our buildings talk to each other. and um page page. Yes.

And um so yeah, like intercom and so anyways, they asked the commissioners for a little over 10,000 to for the initial setup and then they will be adding the software portion of it um to their software line in their budget. So, I mean, I'm sure you guys all figured that their software account would go up, but that's just one piece of it that they're adding to it to be able to communicate if there's emergencies and whatnot. It's also going to have capability um instead of our little call tree that breaks down when we can't get a hold of people. Um they'll be able to send messages out to everybody's cell phone or email if you have that. But um the messages will be able to go out to everybody at once instead of calling each person individually.

Will that be for 27 budget or is that additional for this year? So the software part will be added in their 27 budget. The other piece of it the commissioners um are taking. Okay. Anything else, Susan? No. Helen Morning.

Kind of wanted to talk to you because I had a couple of people reach out to me. The AOD timekeeping system, it was a project that was started about, I understand, six years ago at the urgence of the council to get this done. We agreed to it as the commissioners. Um, it's not being used right now. No one's really using it. It's costing us what 48,000 Susan or that was the initial setup. Initial setup and the continuous cost. So, I'm kind of here today to ask if you guys are still wanting to do that. Um, if you guys are not, then I would make a motion at the next meeting to go ahead and reach out to that company and cancel that contract. If we're not going to use this um function, then we don't need to be paying for it and using up the dollar.

Is this the um one that's being used by central communications and community corrections? Okay. It's the one that would go with Lao,

right? There's if I mean there was so much objection to it and this was a this was actually something that was laid at Susan's feet that uh is really not Susan's fault. It was something that started back when I was president of the council trying to build the efficiency of the timekeeping system. The system that we have in community corrections and and central communications does not work well for integration with Lao and it did was not going to work well with some of the other departments. Lao being our financial system, it made more sense to go to that. So, Susan did something that was requested to get moving back when I was the president of the council. Uh, she had two things that uh that I had asked for. one that that act that uh better timekeeping system for everyone and to get our ordinances and resolutions indexed and searchable by not only our government officials but also by the public. She's gotten the one uh done the searching of the ordinances and resolutions is done. That's been accomplished. something we were way way behind on with uh from when many other counties and cities had that ability. We did not. So, she's taken care of that. Far as a timekeeping system, it is what it is. There's no reason to keep it if we're not going to go to it. Um I don't understand the other people's the other department's objections, especially those that are 8 to5 groups. Uh it would have been a better way to uh to manage it uh and to keep track of time off and and vacations and overtime and everything else, but

not something that anybody wants to go to. So drop it and move on. We don't need to spend the money. We've got another couple issues that we've got to save money on anyway. So this would be a a good way to do that. The reason I bring it up is I'm going through with some of the contracts and looking back and seeing which ones are being used, renegotiating some of those things and this was one that is not being used at all. They wanted and it was your guys' kind of project to begin with. So before I brought the commissioners and cancelled it, I wanted to reach out to you guys to make sure you guys aren't still wanting this project to go forward. So we're required by the state to have a timekeeping system though, but they're right. It doesn't department doesn't have to be electronic. Yeah. The department heads all want to stay with the paper

time sheet that they all have to fill out and add up by manually very inefficient system but that's what they want. So there's no reason to beat a dead horse. Does this require council action?

You want to give me consensus and I'll bring it up to the commissioners to go ahead and see if they're okay with canceling the contract to save money. I think I think Kellen and the commissioners are doing a they're doing an inventory of all of the contracts. You know, that's always been an issue about review, making sure they were reviewed in in an appropriate time that maybe not been done in the past. Ellen and the commissioners are doing a good job of trying to up good thing. Is there any penalty for cancing the contract?

I'll look at it again, but I don't believe so. We might have to out this initial year but then cancel it going forward. So it's one of those I just we have a couple contracts things that haven't been looked at in almost 10 15 years we just keep paying for it. So it's time to kind of keep looking at those students got a little system in place now that the contracts are going to be out reed and then we're kind of reviewing some of the older ones to make sure we're not just never ne renegotiating some of these contracts is the elevator really kind of opened my eyes when the elevator said it had like a 30-day period and it was five years if you didn't give in that 30 days. So, it was kind of a little surprise for us on some of that stuff,

you know, and that uh eventually and I believe Susan, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe now all of our contracts have to be uploaded to the state so that they're they have been for the last like four or five years. So, you know, every not only can the commissioners look at them in one place, but also the public can go see them, too, if they want them. I'll go to the commissioners and ask if they were okay with canceling that contract and send it off to them. So, um I have another thing, but if you want to wait till the end, I can do that too if you want to. Sure. No, we can. Um the airport is not going to be Okay. So, we we do have time.

So, I was kind of curious about what is going to go with your guys' plan with the jail. Um we do have blueprints. We do not have mechanicals on the blueprints yet. that's going to cost some extra money on it to update the blueprints that we currently have is going to be about $30 to $50,000. I'm talking to Elivitis. I've talked to Tony Vai over there. That's kind of the estimate he gave us. Now, it's an estimate. Obviously, if we add a lot more to it or we add the corners stuff to it, then it's going to be increased or decreased. Um, we did it back in what 22 we did the jail design. Is that correct? I don't have my notes with me. I forgot them this morning. Yeah. Um, I think it was late 21 and stopped around May of 22

and we spent about 550,000 if I remember correctly on that and I had Joanie as the treasurer I reached out to her and I had her put that if we put that money and we didn't do the blueprints because we weren't all on the same page ready to go it was what $92,000 in $96,000 in interest that we would have gained by just having that sitting in our account that would not included the CD that was just any so to me I don't want to really put any more money towards the jail until you guys are ready to see if you want to go forward with the jail and do a bond or how you guys want to pay that because the more money we can keep back, gaining interest, let the treasurer do her awesome job that she is doing, we can get more interest down for a down payment on it to decrease the interest rates and stuff like that. I don't expect an answer today. I was kind of putting it out there to you guys as budget season comes here soon that maybe that's a discussion we can have at the next meeting to see are you guys wanting us to kind of move forward start doing some of the soft cost and then you guys start working on it or if it's something like hey we can't do it next year then we'll push it off again till next year and figure out what you do but the what the estimates I've gotten so far you're looking about $50 million for the jail that's what I've got $50 million

50 is just a rough estimate obviously until we really dig down into the numbers and everything else that's going to adjust. So that's what Tony Vi gave me at Elivitis. That's kind of what the space studies kind of talked about too. And I had a third party um also um take a quick peek at it and see what they thought and that's kind of what they gave to. So I had about three different companies say it's going to be around that much to do. So again um just kind of coming to you guys to see if it's time for you guys if you guys are ready to move forward with that. If not then I want to not send any more spend any more soft cost. That way the treasurer can keep building up those strategic reserves for us. That way we have a bigger down payment. So

we definitely need to keep building up those those funds. I that number of 50 million you said how much more than you know what was it originally? 30 30 something. Yeah. Now it's 50.

Um and there are a number of things that are coming up in the in the near future that we have to consider. It always has been our plan since day one that when the bonds were paid off on community corrections that we would use the remaining years that were available to us to pay for a bond to pay for the jail with SB1. That has gone away. Now, the legislature uh now this there's a little debate on this and we got to we got to get the facts, but the legislature is doing away with public safety low or public safety income tax, the U community, the correctional facility income tax, the uh economic development income tax, all those are going to go away. Now the debate right now is are they going to go away in 2027 or 2028 because they have been pushed forward from what the original bill was back two years ago. Um if if it go if the the community if the correctional facility tax goes away next year, that's how we pay the bonds for community corrections. So, we would have to figure out a way to pay for those bonds that um were not generating money specifically for that purpose. The other thing, as I was reminded on Monday after I talked to the commissioners, we also pay for a bond out of the um

out of the lighted funds for the current highway garage. That tax is going to go away, too. So there won't be any more money put in there. So we're going to have to figure out a way to pay for those bonds after that local option in that tax goes away. Uh the public safety fund pay and our portion of that pays half of the community um the u central communications budget that goes away. So, there are new taxes coming on board that we're going to have to talk about at budget time that would start in hopefully January 1 of 27, but it may be 28. Again, we need to get the the actual dates of those those things started. But there's all of these expenses coming down the way and the entire tax system is going to change. And on top of that, with some of the changes that happened with this past election, the entire legislature could change and everything that they've done over the last two years might get wiped out and start over again. So, we are in we are in a position where we don't know what's going to happen in January. And so we're going to have to be very slow and very cautious in what we do and what we how much money we put out, how much money we expend. We're going to have to save every nickel we can to make sure that we can make it through the next few years.

I know the information I've gathered is that this perfect storm with all these losses of revenue is going to be in 2028 when it's going to hit. That's true. Now that may that may change but everybody schools, cities, towns and everybody have been cautioned 2028 is when it's going to hit.

Well there is um the association of counties has put together along with policy analytics and Larry Dr. Larry Dbor who is the premier um person on uh taxation in Indiana have we put together a portal that we will be able to uh using current valid data on what each governmental unit collects be able to put in the new local option income taxes and manipulate them to a point where hopefully everybody is at least equal to where they are today. Uh but you know, we're going to have to this must committee that's going to have to meet is going to have to make a decision. Are and we're have to do it as a group. Are we going to try to make everybody equal to where they are right now? Are we going to want to try to make everybody increase a little bit to cover for inflation? Are we going to want to cut everybody 10%. Um, and we're going to have to be very careful because if there's any personal v if there's any any vindictiveness in this this you could actually have hurt one or more groups if you if you have an issue. And right now the ones that are going to be the most the biggest outliers is that money right now goes to the schools and the new taxing system does not allow that for the local option income taxes. So, we're going to have to look and see what we can do to help schools. And that's when that's been what I've found to be the what most of the counties are concerned about

after they get past the county and cities and towns is what what about the schools? What about the schools? Uh the other issues that are going to come up with this, and I see we have somebody from one of the local libraries here. um they're we're going to have an issue where we have the ability to provide money for libraries, the airport authority, and the uh the solid waste district. And personally, I I would have difficulty and this we will have this vote this year sometime. I will have a difficult time getting taxing the entire county and giving money to the to the different libraries if everybody in the county can't go to those libraries and take out a book or or have membership. If anybody would be eliminated from that, I would I would oppose that. That wouldn't be fair. But I also want to see that our libraries are supported because our libraries are an extremely important part of our community. and there are many many services that they offer that individually people might not have available to them. So we have got to do what we can do to support the the libraries. The other issue is the 4 county solid waste district. Now, we have a representative on that, at least two representatives on that board, a commissioner and a council person, but the actual budget and everything is controlled by Stuben County and we're going to be able to pass a local option income tax to help support the lo the solid waste district. But what about what if Decal County votes to support them and the other three counties say no? If if all if all four counties aren't in and in equally, then I think the entire

thing is going to collapse that that we won't support them at all. This budget this budget cycle that we're going to be going into in July and in August and September is probably going to be the most important budget cycle we've ever been in since I've been involved in county government. And I'm not talking about just as a council person. And I go back to 1976 involvement here. Uh this is going to be the most important one because we can hurt an awful lot of people and hurt an awful lot of services if we are not on board and working in cooperation with the other other governmental units. I want to throw out another caveat and I was going to do this towards the end of the meeting, but I think there's another potential loss coming here that we need to be aware of and that is I mean it's it's great for the consumer that they're taking the gas tax off and lowering the gas to federal and and the state tax. That's a loss of revenue for our highway streets for local municipalities and county. So, there's another piece of revenue that's not going to be there and we don't know how long this is going to last and we're going to have to take that in consideration also for a tight budget that the money may not be there like we've had in the past.

I think we I think and that was part of the discussion on Monday with the commissioners. The money is there to get sufficiently through this year, but if we're not replenishing that pot starting in January, starting with the new year, we could be very much behind. Uh but this is, you know, we've been talking about this from the beginning with these changes that are being requested or being made. um we're going to start having to cut services if the revenue is not there, whether it's roads personnel in all of our departments. Um you know, what about um what about the uh the sheriff's department and and uh patrols, you know, road officers, things like that. But there are things that that people including the cities are going to have to understand. There are things that we cannot cut, services that we cannot cut. Yes, we could reduce the amount of patrols that sheriff's department uh employees are doing, road work, but you can't shut the jail down. The jail's got to be there. You can't stop paying the medical expenses of the people that are in the jail. You can't stop funding the courts. You you know this. You can't you know we're even though we have a a ruling that the probation department are state employees, we still pay their salaries set at rates that the state establishes. We still pay their benefits, everything. Uh so these are things that we cannot give up. I mean I I don't think the cities like to hear me say that well you can stop things that that we can't you can and

stop stop services in in parks, you can stop patrols of of police officers, things like that. But um there are just things that we just can't stop. There's there's no way around it. It has to be. And the majority, you know, the the state has been helping us. I don't want to totally throw them under the bus. You know, one of our one of the reasons that we had such a large number of people in the jail is we were holding prisoners here that should have gone to state prison. We did we were getting paid for that, but we still had more than our our allotted 80 in the jail. Well, they've started to take those prisoners now. That number's down. Thank God we've got community corrections because a lot of people that could be in the jail and and we be paying their medical expenses in that are now in community corrections by which they have to pay a certain dollar amount every day to be in community corrections has to come out of their pocket. So that helps us. Uh but the largest number of people in the jail are people that have not been convicted. They've not been to court yet. So the, you know, every every week the jail commander sends us a list of what the what the population in the jail has been over that 7-day period. And the largest number continues to be those people that have not been to court. And I think the last one I saw it was 60. And there are still there were 90ome people in in jail. 60 of them have not been convicted yet. about 20 I think were still waiting to go to uh prison, but we're still over the number of 80. So, it's something that we've got to address. It can't go away. Um the other thing is if that community corrections tax goes away, if that community corrections tax is

eliminated, we're going to have to have a tax that a way to pay for that jail.

Right. In looking at what I have gotten from uh the county association and from our financial person at the county association, the there are a number of counties that are using that correctional facility tax, some at a higher rate than what we are. Ours is only 0.13. there. When these taxes go away, whether it be next year or in 28, the um the ones that get to keep the tax to pay for the jail that they built, are the ones that went to the legislature and had a special bill passed that allowed a tax to build that jail in that county. Those six or seven counties get to keep their tax. All the rest of us lose the ability So Jeff Peters has been asking for months now that we need to start looking at how we're going to pay for the jail. It's going to take more than just a few months to figure it out and get things started. So, I'm suggesting that if as we do our budget this year, we get Jeff Peters back up here to help us determine what our options are depending on on what the commissioners do because that's their job is to design the jail and set a a price for it. Then it's our job to decide how we're going to pay for it. If we need to go to the legislature to um create that special tax to build that jail, you've got to do it pretty soon. Number one, they're going to have to have a bill. Number one, you got to go to the the three legislators that we've got and ask them if they're willing to carry that bill. Number one. Number two, if they are, the bill's got to be written and has got to

be ready to be put in the hopper in November of this year so that they can consider it in January. And even if they do consider it in January, unless they deem it as an emergency, it probably wouldn't even start until the following January. So, we have a timeline that we're not paying close attention to that we've got to really start focusing on what this timeline is to deal with this jail. Um, we can't afford to sit around and wait until the community corrections bonds are paid off. We we've got to move because already, we're just heard that the cost of this thing has gone from some $30 million to $50 million. So, it's it's going to be a very important piece of this year's budget doing this year's budget. And I was going to bring it up later, too, but I would suggest that we get Jeff Peters in here earlier than we normally do and allow us to to really work with him on what are what are all of our options.

Do we have enough funding? We need to We do. Okay. Um, as we talked at the last council meeting, it's really important for council members to talk to your liaison groups. I think they're pretty aware of tight situation, tight money coming up, but just touch base with them. Uh, talk to them about, you know, that things could be flat. You know, things might even go in the red if we don't make some changes here. So just a reminder to the council members to please discuss this and talk to your leaison groups before we get into the budget hearing process. It's really really important.

Okay, moving on. Inkeepers tax. Mr. Jernigan, is that you? You do you have an answer to Kellen's question? I think I think we did. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Thanks. Ryan Jernigan from the Decal County Visitors Bureau. Also,

Before we get into a discussion, what kind of a a potential increase are you looking at on the inkeeper tax? the House Bill 1210 does sunset that provision after 22 years. Um, so that and I have a copy of the actual language if you guys need it. Uh, the bill is like 300 and some pages, but I did print the three pages that were pertaining to that section. What's the like what what is your budget at this point in time when you say up increasing it by 3%.

Our current budget is uh just roughly around 550,000. Obviously that's dependent on collecting all the projected inkeeper tax. I when was the last time that Amber brought the budget in? Of course, she she brought it in for us to look at. I think probably been at least two years ago.

I think it's supposed to be year, but so we we go through our budget cycle. We'll start that probably in September and October and then our plan or my plan is to have it to you by November. Is the process of the the council has to pass this uh amendment or is it a whole new to amend the current? So

I provided you all with the original ordinance from 1999 where we had enacted the 5%. Then there were a couple of amendments that came to it and they had to do with um imposing like late fees for late payment and things like that. So, if this is something that you guys want to do, we for one would have to amend these this ordinance. I've also discussed a couple times because um Amber had come to the commissioner, so I had discussed it with attorney Cruz, but there's multiple ordinances all over the place. It would be nice if we could condense and get one actual ordinance to include all of this so that we have one document where we can find everything. So, a new document, a new ordinance would have to be um prepared with whatever your wishes are and council Stukie will have to assist in that and

get all of those different ordinances together so that we can um they're right here. Right here. I got them. I don't know if anybody else here. So, they're uploaded. I didn't print you them because you don't like paper. Well, I I downloaded everything, but I downloaded everything probably a week ago. So, if you Oh, yeah. I just add them later. Yep. Um, so they the this tax comes into your Yeah. The in I guess I'll explain that if you're not familiar. The inkeeper tax

basically is a tax on overnight hotel rooms within the county, including VBOs or Airbnbs. So, essentially, it's a pass through tax. It's not a tax on our residents unless the residents are staying in our hotel. So it if you compare it like I said like Fort Wayne Allen County area they're at 8% with a beverage tax. Lraange is at 8%. Noble is in the process of going to 8% because they were included in the same language in House Bill 1210. And so the the the desire to increase to that that 8% is just for the additional revenue for what exactly?

Well, I mean number one, I think it would allow us to fully fund our grant request. So that that would be the largest thing. Um we've had internal board discussion about obviously if we we're going to have to restructure our budget if this happens. Um, our feeling is that we would like to support our county assets being the the four museums kind of as a line item thing in our budget. Now, it goes through a grant process and like the situation that we have like this year, we have our grant our second grant hearing next week. Um, and I've got Jim Gabard. He's the president of our tourism commission. Um, he's also the chair of the grant committee. Through that process, we'll probably give most of what we've allotted in our budget for the grants out. So, we still have two cycles to fund throughout the rest of the year. So, majority of it is to try to fully fund the grant uh process and then have support for our long-standing assets and events that we know are going to happen every year. and like the oneoff events that we give money to let them go through the current grant grant process that makes I would like to to speak real quickly in support of of doing this I was on the board uh years ago 15 years ago or something and that maybe it was 20 years ago time goes by but but it wasn't real active it wasn't real forward thinking and I'm been involved in the last 10 years or 15 years with a director. It was Amanda or Amber before um on monthly meetings as executive directors of nonprofits get together and I have been so impressed with what the visitors bureau has done over the last 1015 years

and modernizing all their advertising tracking um you know the the people that are coming in and doing the mobile you know they they target mobile people with their phone when they come in the area. sends them stuff. I mean, I don't understand it all. Good thing I'm not there because I could never do it, but it's it's impressive of what they've done to market um all of our attractions in the county. And and then uh you know, I can remember we had, you know, maybe $5,000 we granted back in the day and you're granting, you know, tens of thousands or wanting to grant 200,000. So, that's a big help sometimes. to these little festivals or these little groups, you know, if they get a $2,000 grant, that makes a difference between, you know, that that festival or that group um being successful. So, I I'm I'm highly impressed with what the Visitors Bureau's done in the last 10 years. And we got to understand that that's all money being spent in our county. That's a serious impact. And what they're doing helps generate revenue for a lot of businesses and a lot of functions in the Cal County there. That's the seed money that uh brings in a lot of other revenue uh from the different festivals, different travelers. Um they do a great job.

We're very fortunate um with the condition that I took the organization over from Amber. I mean, we've got great people there. Um, and I I'm not going to bore you with all the things that we do, but I mean, we we have two extremely talented full-time employees that do way above what they get paid as far as photography, graphic design work, and that's all free of charge to the people that we give it to. Any n any nonprofit, even businesses, I mean, we run campaigns to our goal is to bring people to Decal County. We produce a magazine, which I brought copies if anybody wants one. I mean, it's a really nice printed magazine. Everything to do with Palp County, all the attractions, all the restaurants, all the pertinent information. And unlike other counties, we're not selling ads to fund that. We fund that through the inkeeper tax with the visitor bureau. We distribute over 10,000 copies a year um with the goal of bringing people to Cal County to show them, you know, what we have to offer.

So, part of your I think that's I'm trying to make that connection is that you're wanting to raise that so that you have additional funds, right, to grant to to give grants in our community who are seeking grants different museums, festivals who are saying, "Hey, we would like to say we'd like to have some of those tourist dollars." Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. And we and we fund I mean there on the sheet that I that I gave Susan, it it doesn't I mean there's no way to list all of it. Um, but we listed the major things that we fund every single cycle or every year. Um, but I think the untangible thing is the kind of like what Bob was alluding to, the analytics that we run, the drone service that we run, the geo fencing that we run. I mean, we've got some really talent. We've got, you know, Daniel and Tyler are extremely talented people that make all that happen for the county. And it's it's free of charge. It's it's like I said it's funded from the in tax but if you look on the sheet that I provided I mean like Stuan County's budget is 915. It's almost double what ours is. Lraange is almost three times what ours and I maybe I'm biased because I'm from Decal County but I think we have a lot more to offer maybe other counties.

Is there any other questions? Because I know that the treasurer wanted to talk about the ordinance part of it. I would like to hear about that because it's always been a struggle for 25 years to collect and I know that if we can add some meat or some teeth to that that might be a good thing.

Yeah. And I and I agree with with Rick. It's confusing when you read through and there's I mean when I first took over it was a little bewildering when you read through and there's like nine different ordinances trying to figure out which one's actually binding and what we're currently operating on now. And I I I guess my hope is if the sentiment and the feeling that we're doing great work and we want to go this route that maybe we can clean that language up to have like one ordinance that is easily understandable to every Any other questions for Ryan? Thanks Ryan. Yeah, thank you.

Great report. Really appreciate it.

Yes, ma'am. I just wanted to add if we're going to work on um redoing the ordinance, the language in it right now just says the tax must be paid within the inkeeper tax must pay the total tax due not more than 20 days after the end of the month. I'd like to see it say something about a postmark date because there's not a clear deadline for people. Is it received in our office? Is it received in the mail? So, I'd like to change the language in there to say the postmark date. It has to be postmarked by the 20th day after the end of the month in which the tax is collected just so there's a very clear and property taxes are postmark date. It'd be nice if inkeepers tax was postmark date. That way there's no it's very black and white. We have a date to settle on. Um the state also allows for 7% interest on unpaid tax and penalty. I'd like to see us put that into the ordinance because um like with our hotel that we have that's delinquent now, he has paid his tax, but he's delinquent on all of his late penalties and that amount doesn't change if he waits. And we we've currently got a court case with him, but even at that, we're he's not getting any additional there's no incentive for him to pay it.

What was that? Would you say the state allows for what? 7%. And this is a council ordinance. Yes. Correct. So, and I assume we're going to have Don combined all these things together. Can um know he should he should be meeting or Joanie should be meeting with with Don to make sure all these things get in and then let us look at it before our next meeting. So,

yeah. The other thing that's not identified in the ordinance, it does not say who gets the penalty or interest, which we had that issue, um, when, uh, the judge sided with the county on that the last time and he actually paid it was who gets the penalties, who gets the interest. So, I'd like to see that in there as well. Now, what was that? Was that did that have to do with who managed the hotel versus who owned the building or what was that issue? No, the one that we actually got money on it. It's the same guy owns the hotel and and the the building and everything. So, they went out and did a Well, who do you who do you want to get the interest money?

My personal feeling it should go to the visitors bureau. They're the one that had to wait on their getting that money about where it would go once, right? Who Yes. who it would get paid out to. And I think that's what we did. Do you remember Susan on I I think we did. I think we hesitated at first because our employees are the ones having to man it and try to get it here. Um, but I think we did end up sending all of it.

But if we could just have that spelled out in the ordinance so it was black and white who gets the penalties and interest once we collect them. Um, and then the other thing is the current ordinance gives a five-day grace period. It says that they must pay the tax due not more than 20 days after the end of the month in which it's collected, but then any payment not b made by the 25th day of the month um gets 5% and then after the 30th day it goes to 10%. I'd like to see it that they get a penalty if it's not postmarked by the date it's due. I mean there's no grace period on any other tax. And this is money we got to remember this is money they've already collected from the people that stayed there, right? on somebody, you know, somebody else's money.

It's like collecting payroll tax out of your paycheck and then not paying it into the government. That's tax collector. Yeah. It's not right. Money, right? I'll put something together, get a draft to every all the stakeholders and we'll go from there. I mean, it's pretty obvious though that about the hotels, but how many Airbnbs and things like that do we collect? We don't know on that because the state Airbnb, VBO, they collect it because those payments are made online. So, they get paid automatically to the state and then the state just sends us get a give them a penalty if we don't get it on time. But the problem is we don't know who's paying the state. The state will not provide that information.

Uhhuh. That's why we choose to still collect um with the manual form that they have to mail in physically send it into us so that we can essentially police it. Otherwise, if it went to the state, we wouldn't know who's paying, who's not. Okay. I had to sign I had to sign a bunch of a ton of documents and basically give my children up to even get the state to give us anything. And we got a teeny tiny amount and then we got nothing else. And and we're not the only county that happens to. They won't the money the state's collecting from all those electronic internet right places but not getting it back to us. Victorians

they get the money back to us but they won't give you a list of who is paying. So if we did that for all the hotels and there are some counties who choose to do that but we would not know. So in this case where we have the hotel that's not paying he would just not be paying and he'd be you wouldn't know. We wouldn't have any idea, which isn't fair to the ones that are paying. So, do we have an idea of where B&Bs are located at or is that the Airbnbs? Yeah. In the We don't have a clue.

He was. Okay. Roughly how many do we have in the county?

For clarity, they are discussing how many Airbnbs we have in the county. You may want to come up. It is upwards of 20 to 25 um is what they are what they get with their software they have.

That's what we get monthly. So obviously there could be more Airbnbs that don't rent that month or VB VBOS. Obviously when you get around the festival full time that number significantly higher because not all of them are fulltime fulltime but I I would reiterate what what she had said that the reporting that I get from treasurer's office um is much better than we would ever get from the state because it's a per property and then we can match that with software that we have to kind of double check the accounting what they're reporting to the county versus what our analytics

when you advertise for the county. Do you list the Airbnbs so they're available or We do on some permanent ones. The the tricky part of that is they come and go. So, you know, you if you you may be in Airbnb this month and then decide I don't want to do it for two months. So, it's hard it's hard to market that. But there are I mean there are some there's several right here downtown that are just basically full. Okay. I think the um above the Ninth Street Brew that's Airbnb there. But uh probably a lot of them show up during ACD Festival and then go away for the rest of the year.

Right. And and the situation with that is is there, you know, anybody can put you can go through the process with those organizations and make your home or your second home or whatever an Airbnb. So that's why it's not consistent. Um the reporting like that we get is not great. I mean I guess we're taking the the word that it's right. There's there's not a real good way to double check like but with our inkeeper tax I mean what would you say 90 95

it's a this Airbnb and very small thank you we're going to have Don work on these a new ordinance to replace all these put some more teeth in bring it back to us next month and we can also vote on that percentage whether we're going to go to the eight or not at that time because that's just changing a number in his final copy. Okay, any other questions? Thank you both. Great job. Thank you. Okay, we're going to hear from Michelle and the DCC program and then we'll take a short break here. Thanks for that promise. Huh?

Thanks for that promise. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning.

Um, just coming up today because I just want to share a little bit of information about Community Corrections and uh what we do and uh the services we offer and kind of give an idea of what it is the staff at Community Corrections uh kind of do with their time. I know a lot of times when we come up here, you guys are busy and we're very focused on uh just the ask or the budget or whatever we're talking about. Um, and sometimes we don't get to go through uh what is the actual purpose and what are all of our employees doing with their time. And so I put together this little packet which I think you got ahead of time, but I wanted to provide you with a copy today too just kind of going through that um and and talking a little bit about it. So I'm not going to read it, but I'll definitely uh try to summarize and allow time for questions if you guys have any and also uh Chief Lapam's here if he wants to add anything as well. So on the first page I just kind of started with purpose of community corrections and obviously our purpose is to provide a sentencing alternative for the courts um for them to look at each person as an individual that's coming through the criminal justice system and try to decide how can we best serve that person and how can we best restore justice for the community. and at the same time looking towards the future of how do we try to influence those people to not return to the criminal justice system with further offenses um and any other future problems. So we do that by um a lot of different uh interventions about the by the way that we structure the program by the opportunities that we can help provide and things like that. So our list there on the front is just uh a real basic summary. So obviously we're providing with the opportunity to kind of stay in the community, keep employment, keep contact with family, also the opportunity to go to treatment. So substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, uh whatever it is that particular person needs, and also provide other support. So we support

them in trying to be physically healthy. Um if they have some medical issues that maybe they haven't taken care of, maybe they don't have insurance, we offer them ideas. Here's how you might get insurance. here's how you might find lowcost medical care. Um here's what you can do. U the same thing for your family. Those kinds of things. And while we're doing that, we're trying to provide support for them to make connections in the community that are positive. So positive social um activities that they can go do. For some of them, it's doing 12step support group meetings, mentoring type things uh with people that have been in the same position who can offer them that same kind of advice. So our requirements obviously go along the lines of first of all what the court orders. So if the court has ordered any of these participants to do specific activities, we make sure they follow through with those, they attend and they complete them successfully. And on top of that, we use a number of different assessments to try to get a better picture of that person because not everybody's the same. So we need to understand things like what was their childhood like? What kind of experiences have they had through life? Have they ever been through a trauma? Have they ever um uh as a child did they go through maybe the foster care system? All those different things we know kind of add up into what kind of actions people take, what kind of thoughts they have. And what we know is that whatever thoughts you have, whatever you believe about how life works, those are the actions that you take. So it's our job to kind of break those down with our participants to say, why do you believe the thing that you believe? let us introduce you to a different thought pattern. Let us help you find a different way to think about it or a different way to do it. And so hopefully that's where we're going to see those long-term gains. So, um, what I included in the packet in the colored areas, oh, first of all, I should go through what services we actually provide. Um, we've covered these before, but just in case, we do electronic monitored home detention. So, that's GPS

monitoring on somebody living at approved residence. They're only allowed to leave that residence for the specific activities that our staff approves them to do. Residential work facility, um, where they also are on GPS monitoring, only allowed to do the things our staff approves them to do, but the remainder of their time is spent at our facility. the pre-trial supervision program. Um the court can order folks that have been arrested but have not yet been found guilty to a limited supervision to make sure that they are not committing any more criminal offenses that they return to court when they're supposed to. And sometimes they have a few conditions the court's asking them to complete. Um those are more limited because they haven't been found guilty yet. Along with that, the pre-trial supervision officers do a morning report every morning for anybody that remains in the jail. And it gives the courts and uh the other attorneys the opportunity to know a little bit more about that person. They can make informed decisions about release should they be released, should they not, if they are, should they get any of those terms of supervision. Um and then the other things we offer are electronic alcohol monitoring and that's in two forms. It can either be a breath test device that they carry around with them or we do have an anklet that tests through the skin for any alcohol consumption. And then we also offer cognitive behavioral classes which I think are listed on the last page of the packet if you're interested specifically uh what those are. I think there's a gray box with those classes listed. And not only is it our participants that come to the classes, but also probation participants can come. Um parole also has referred to those classes. And we have had some referrals from outside county supervision agencies where that person is a Dicap County resident. So they'd rather them stay close to home and take the class with us. So, what I have put here in this colored area is kind of um a couple stories. I know sometimes when you haven't uh spent a lot of time around the criminal justice system, it's hard to imagine

specifically what we see in our community. And so, what I wanted to provide was just a couple of short examples of these are uh actual recent cases that we have dealt with um of people in our community that needed some of our services. So the first one um is a man that just described having some abusive childhood experiences uh which we know can sometimes lead or um I guess increased substance use is the way I should say it. And he's arrested for for possession of methamphetamine. He is sentenced to a short uh period of home detention and then on to probation. That is one of the choices that the sentencing courts can make to do combinations of sentences. And what we found when he came to us was that he had been approved to live at his residence on home detention. And what we found when he started meeting with us is that he didn't have any running water and he was living there with his wife and his children. Um the home really wasn't a safe place for any of them to be living. And so what his officer did was actually offer for him uh voluntarily to come into the residential work facility to continue his sentence. And um what she did was hook him up with Fortify Life, which again I know you guys are familiar with that program. And they actually um were able to approve him to move with his wife and his children into one of their temporary housing units and he could he finished his sentence there. Um moved on to probation and as far as I know is still doing well. So in the green box, what I wanted to well in the yellow and the green is what I wanted to do is kind of show how we do that step by step because it's easy to say here's what we did. Um, but there's a lot of work that goes into that. So, the yellow box is showing interventions and so you can see he earned 30 incentives for us. So, when he completes certain goals, um, reaches certain milestones, he can earn an extra pass, extra time out to do what he wants, um, maybe some tangible object, something like that. He also had 10 warnings or verbal

reprimands. This is when we saw that he had broken one of our rules. He either gets warned the first time. After that, there can be sanctions applied. um he'd worked on a case plan where he went through moral recognition therapy groups, substance abuse referral, mental health referral, and then those services continued on probation. In the green box, I was trying to show um kind of our contacts with this person. So, in 80 days, he had six drug screens, 23 home contacts with the field officer, six case management meetings with his probation officer, he did 40 hours of community service work, and we entered 298 contact notes for him. So that means our staff went into his specific case in the computer and put in 298 notes in that 80 days. So that's how much contact we're having with people and our record keeping partly necessary for us to do what we need to do but also partly necessary in case uh this returns to court and there's reasons we have time. So with success he said um for his successful outcomes he bought a car he earned visitation with one of his estranged children not the ones living with him but another one and um then completed our program successfully. So I won't walk through each of these stories but I just wanted to kind of explain what the progression was through the background the sentence information the interventions and the outcomes. Um but you can see on the the next story this is somebody who was effectively homeless. She was just kind of living with friends sleeping on somebody's couch. She had had multiple relationships with domestic violence. So, we had trauma, we had mental health concerns, and she's arrested for dealing methamphetamine. Um, when she first came on the program, she continued to use illegal substances, which we knew through her drug screens. And so, that required us obviously to have some kind of um intervention. What we started out with wasn't working. We need to come up with a new plan. and um she had some disciplinary hearings which is our highest form of like a sanction before they would return to court. She had substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, she did seeking safety which

is our group that combines substance use and any kind of trauma and she did a recovery plan which is where we try to help connect them with resources in the community and a lot of skills building. So, her um success story was by the end of her time with us, her probation officer had helped her find a one-bedroom apartment through the landlord mitigation program, and she was able to move out, live successfully on her own, didn't have to rely on a relationship where she might again be abused, which is something we worry about in those situations. And she did all of that while she was having cancer treatments. And also, her husband had some medical issues where he had um been placed into a nursing home. And so we were kind of navigating all of that with her on how she could go visit husband, get to her own treatments and do everything we needed her to do. Um the next story I think is an important one because it uh kind of highlights how we help people with medical issues. So this is a person that came into our residential work facility from the jail and had some undertreated medical including seizures. And so his probation officer worked with him a lot on finding appropriate medical treatment, helping him do medication management, um helping him get a job where he could work through those issues and still be productive and pay bills, do a budgeting class, different things like that. And he also completed successfully with some money in the bank. Um he had paid on his child support and had transitioned out to an apartment by the end of his sentence. And um the last story is about a veteran and that one um also a lot of times for veterans especially if they have service related we have to look at things like trauma and they had brain injuries and um what other things may have happened to them during their time in the service. Um he actually had been marked in the law enforcement system as officer safety issue. So that was something that we had to work through as well because this uh to us that indicates that it

could be something related to mental health but it also could be a resistive problem where uh I don't want anyone to tell me what to do which then includes so we have to watch out for that when we first start working with someone. Uh luckily that wasn't the case with this gentleman. And when his officer started working with him, he um actually did an inpatient substance abuse program uh which we allow that to happen if they're accepted into one and they need one. And then when he's done with that, he returns to us to finish the rest of his sentence. And he was participating in groups and individual therapy at the VA. And we did a safety plan for him. Um we also with veterans have to think a lot about suicidal ideiation and if that might be a problem for them. So we do safety plans with a lot of them. Um he did risk uh making a wall of resistance which is our way of pointing out all the strengths they have that can help them with their sobriety and their mental health so that they know where to turn if uh their thoughts start turning back to use or any other problematic behaviors. And by the end we um saw that he was maintaining his sobriety. he had increased relationships with his um child's mother during the program and she eventually allowed him to get a visitation and custody back which is not something he had before. So these four stories are just kind of our way to show um the things that we were trying to deal with in the community uh with fellow citizens and what can we do to help them and what can we do to help get them more stable and what can we do that causes kind of the ripple effect throughout the community. um because if we get them more stable and on a good track that affects their family, their friends, their children, the people they work with, so on and so forth and out and out and out. So, um on the fourth page, if you see the chart there, this is just an example of a case plan because sometimes I feel like we come up and we say, "Oh, this is what we do. This is what we do. What we write case plans with our participants and you probably have never seen one. You

wouldn't what I'm saying when I say that. So, this is just one example of a case plan that one of our probation officers wrote to um assist one of the participants. It's showing how we kind of break the areas we work with them down into things like uh factors that related to their criminal history, their substance abuse, their employment. Sometimes that also means education. So, sometimes we're working on getting a GED so we can get a better job. We're talking about criminal thinking patterns. Um are we impulsive? Do we have anger issues? Do we think that everything is somebody else's fault so we don't take responsibility for our own actions? Um, we talk about social supports and how to find pro-social stuff in the community. Is that joining a church? Is that joining a basketball league? Is that just making sure you don't hang out with the friends that you use with just keep hanging out with them? We can pretty much guess what the end result that's going to be. Um, and then other specific goals for each person. And we get those by doing assessments with them to try to figure out where their biggest need areas are and how uh specifically their needs could be met. And so that was the explanation on that page. And the last two charts that I have for you at the bottom of the fifth page is this is actually the Bureau of Justice Statistics simplified version of the criminal justice system. And you can see how simplified it is. Um not very. So what I tried to do on the back was actually make it even more simplified. and um kind of tailor it to our specific county in general and the problem or problems the programs uh that are offered. So it kind of starts with uh the left side with possible pre-trial supervision which would be with community corrections. Then it moves on to somebody doing um either guilty plea or a trial and if they move on to sentencing kind of what the choices are there. So, obviously the judges always have uh their decisions to make on sentencing. And that could be anything from serving time in prison or jail to

um coming out to community corrections to serve the sentence in one of our programs, also being on probation uh after they're done with us or maybe they go straight to probation. And then in some cases um there's uh no none of those options are chosen and maybe there's suspended sentences or some other uh decision is made. uh in the yellow part. The important thing that I wanted to point out here is also to how a person could move between those different tracks. So you may start uh for example at the top if they were sentenced to the jail there is the opportunity for them to then serve in the sheriff's work program which would mean coming to community corrections to serve that sentence. At the in the same vein, if they were to violate, there would be a chance we would return them to prison or jail to serve the remainder of their sentence because they aren't cooperating with their conditions and their plan. Um, in the middle that track that is uh community corrections, you could also see that sometimes we take um sanctioning options from the problem solving courts or we take probation revocation cases. So maybe somebody was in one of those programs to violate. And the decision from the court is not necessarily to send them just to serve their sentence, but it is, okay, you couldn't handle doing what we're asking you to do here. Why don't we send you maybe to the residential work facility and see if that level of supervision is what you need to get yourself back on track. So, it's just an option to try to work with a person where they are and give them the services that they need. Um, in the same vein, when people finish with us on home detention, let's say, a lot of times they move on to probation. So, we do a lot of information sharing. Here's what we've already done with the person. Here's the classes they've already completed or here's a concern that we have that we think you should know about. Um, and just sharing all that information between each other so it's a smooth transition. And, uh, in the box in the gray is those are the list of the classes that we do offer at Community Corrections that I

was talking about before. They focus on um pro-social thinking, making better decisions, anger management, domestic violence, uh the substance and trauma class that I mentioned, and then uh we also have a class about healthy relationship and how to make boundaries. Um a lot of times when we're working with folks, what we find is that they aren't great at recognizing that they need to walk away from a certain relationship. And they're also not great at having boundaries and saying, "No, I don't want to participate in that." or no, I'm not going to drive you somewhere. I don't have a license or whatever it is uh that could actually lead them back into trouble. So, in general, uh obviously feel free if you have any additional questions after you read through the packet more, you can always send an email. Happy to answer anything. Uh but we really just wanted to come and kind of give you an idea of not only numbers things, but really uh the value of community supervision in general, right? Um the idea of the community just the criminal justice system years ago was we're just going to punish. We're just going to lock up. And what research has shown us for decades is that doesn't work. What we have to do is kind of meet people where they are and say what is it that's causing this problem. How can we help you with that problem? Um so we can move forward successfully and make it better for everybody uh in the community. And this is um just kind of a quick rundown of how we do that dayto day.

Thank you, Michelle.

Uh please see me after class and make sure all of you get your credit hour for your first masters in uh community supervision. Uh she talks pretty fast. There's a lot there. But that's the that's the offer is to put a face to what we do, what she does specifically. You guys uh deserve the best. That's what we did when we went out and recruited Michelle. When you see the the state come in, take a look at what they're doing down at Decal County Community Corrections. They've recognized that. The other thing to do is we understand that you guys control the county dollar, what percentage goes here, what percentage goes there. Um I we are open to sitting down and explaining to you the recouped tax dollars that we've taken in, what we do, and what that dollar gets for Decal County. Okay? We're talking about a jail, we're talking about prisons. Those things are always going to be necessary. There's no question of that. We never argue that. Not a decision we we make. Um but uh if we want change, we got to put a face to that. Um that's what we do. Create true change. A lot of the other ones have to do with housing. Yeah, they're necessary. Never going to argue that. Um but some of those don't reach that level. Um, and if we have the ability to leave them inside the community, not break down those pillars, not break up families, not break up um, you know, loss of house, loss of this, you get out of prison in a couple years, you got to put it all back together. If you have the ability to be in a work release program, EMHD, recoup with your family, both myself and Michelle, um it seems a little uh uh counterintuitive to pass out a post um survey where they come back, look at us, and say, "How did this go for you?" You know, you would think a lot of those are, "Man, I hate you guys." That's not what it looks like. Uh Michelle's post surveys, my post surveys all say, "Just thank you. I have my house. I get to see my kids again. This is the first time I've ever had a vacation. This is the first time I have money in the bank to pay pay the things that I have. That's what we're

opening up right now for the next couple. We understand that a lot of times people look at us and don't really know what we do. We're more than willing to to sit down with any of you, educate you on exactly what we do, put a face to to what's happening, give you some real stories of what's happening in our buildings. Um so, please give us a call, write us. Um we'll be happy to sit down with you. Thank you for your time. Michael, is there a way to u you alluded to it there a little bit, but to actually give us a a cost savings that it's giving us for every for every one person. I know it's not it's exactly the same, but you know,

yeah, I mean there work on that and say in the last three years or four years of having community corrections, it's saved us from sentencing this many people to prison and having to pay all of their costs there. or you give them probate, you know, a lighter sentence and they state and they don't learn anything and they're rece you're getting in trouble again. You know,

let let's take one of the easiest numbers that we have that I use and I know it's not comp it's not specific to the exact question you're asking, but remind yourselves that both myself and Michelle were not in charge of community corrections when we first got. Uh it was uh something that was already involved. It's already being built and we're already there. Um, but before it the bricks and mortar became, our jail was overcrowded extensively. This council had to pay anywhere between 300 and $500,000 just for the housing of inmates that were over your capacity. That didn't count transportation. That didn't count medical cost. That didn't count the time periods that you had to have jailers and transportation people going back and forth. um uh all the issues that come with that just by that number that that that's what you were saving by itself. I mean it's very difficult to put the number that you're looking for. What does recividism cost a community? You know, it's our main goal. It's everything we do is to reduce recivotism. It's the it's part of both of our u um um word escapes me. our mission statements, I'm sorry. Uh to reduce recitives, it's there. You know, what does saving one person really say? Well, right now, it could save a whole family, you know, depending on who you're there for. What does it cost the jail um to house somebody for the 15th time on a misdemeanor case? If we can end that every day that they if we can end it after two, you know, or three, every potential past that, and I'm using that uh for something that would normally not get you to prison, like a public inx or or something of that nature that involves an addiction that's at a misdemeanor level that requires regular incarceration because the system has just figured that there's nothing they

can do. How much does that save this community if I ended after two? Not just the transport, the housing, the food, the medical costs, all those things. Um I I wish I could put a real number to it, but it is our main goal. Um and and the other thing is it's not just myself and Michelle. I mean, since both of our arrivals, you have every person inside the criminal justice system working on our recidivism rate. um delving into the science, really taking a look at every piece that we do to reduce that. And some of them it's reactive. I mean, some of them we didn't design. We talked a lot about pre-trial. We didn't design pre-trial. Pre-trial is a responsivity to a legislative determination that you shouldn't incarcerate the poor because they can't make bond. And we decided, well, yeah, they're going to get bonded, but what should we do about that? We're not We shouldn't just let them back out two days. What's changed? No, we're giving opportunities and supervision for change immediately. They're still going to have the inaliable rights to defend themselves against charges that they have. They're going to get opportunity to go get some counseling to get all those uh they're handed a large packet immediately by pre-trial coordinators that says you need a phone, need a place to live, need to get medical care, need any of these things. Are those the things that are that are holding you back or or making your life difficult? Let's talk about them. Let's fix them before they even get into court where they they've made an admission. You know, that work starts day one. So yeah, the cost though to look at it and put a number on it's very difficult. I could uh but that's the invitation. You guys want more of that, I'd be more than happy to sit down with you myself, Michelle. We'll give you a tour. We'll talk about what the recidivism rates are or what we can come close to and uh and also, you know, some of our actual numbers that we're seeing right now.

I just think we're fortunate that we have that choice because we didn't have community corrections. You would either have to sentence them to jail time, which we know is super expensive, and that's not going to help the rec, you know, recitism after they get out, right? Or you give them a lesser charge where they don't have much supervision, much intervention. You know, they're on probation meeting a couple week every couple weeks, and that doesn't do what this does. You know, it's not as life transfer. Absolutely.

Michael and Michelle, thank you for sharing these success stories. I mean, these are these are absolutely wonderful. and you you just provide such a valuable service not only to the Cal County but to northeast Indiana. Please keep up the great work. Council have anything else to add or just wanted to say that that that both Michelle and Michael and the whole department does a great job and we do appreciate what you do very much. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay, let's take about a 10minut break if not coming in.

That's all I can session. Next is the 2026 county salary and wage ordinance amendment. That's ordinance number 2026. Do you have a copy of that? And you might have to help me maintain it is a matrix level with four years experience. This category is merit a per hour rate $31.73. Do we need to do each one of those individually or have

it's one ordinance? It's one ordinance.

You have to do it one ordinance. The sheriff one, it's not a change to the matrix. It's a change on our salary ordinance because of their matrix. The employee that is going into that position has more years of experience accord on the matrix that they have. And so we have to change the per hour rate to match everything else that you guys have already approved with their matrix. I don't not sure how to really explain that. as transferring a road officer to a detective position.

And what the the road officer has got nine years of experience. Yep. Now, first of all, this is we need a motion to approve motion second to approve this first reading title only. The title is 2026 and hourly wage ordinance amendment ordinance number 2026-C 5 ordinance number 2025-C 12. Do we have a motion and second to approve this ordinance on

move? Do we have a motion by do we have a second? I'll second by any further discussion from the council none for the question. All those in favor of approving the ordinance on first reading only signify by saying I I motion motion is carried. Okay. Next we need a motion to suspend the rules. Do we have a motion to suspend rules? We have a motion by the rules. I'll second it.

Any further discussion from the council? None. We'll call for the question. And all those in favor of suspending the signify by saying

I okay now um we are ready to approve the salary ordinance and again I'm going to read it salary ordinance number 20 26 hourly wage ordinance amendment county Ordinance number 2026-C ordinance number 2025-C 12 second and third reading. Do we have a motion to approve third read motion by do we have a second? Any further discussion hearing? We'll call for the question. All those in favor of approval of the salary ordinance third reading signify by saying I

I motion is ordinance is adopted. Okay. Moving on now to council discussion. First item is committee discussion. Uh, it's probably going to be a Rick thing, but I will try. So, the must committee is a municipal unit strategic strategic task force that um all the counties need to put together. It needs to have um one county council representative and the fiscal officers of each city and town within the county. So, the auditor would have to be on it as well. Um Rick can add into this is going to help what all of the changes that are coming so that we can use the portal that Rick was

talking committee will essentially set the tax the local option income tax rates uh for the county and the cities and the townships and the fire departments. everybody. And it is the it will bring together all of the fiscal officers of the of the cities and towns plus the the auditor and the and a council representative which most likely should be the council president. Um the whatever is determined on the on the split on the local option income tax from the must committee must be unanimous. So it's getting it's going to be getting everybody together to agree. The portal that I spoke about earlier that the Association of Counties has um had developed using policy analytics and Larry Dbor will start with what the current units are currently collecting through their many different options. And then it will allow the the MUS committee to manipulate those numbers to show what each axe would generate for each unit. And you can and it it's going to take some time simply because in doing doing say you go in and you set the uh fire and EMS budget at um the strict point4 you how

are you going to divide it up? Uh you can't divide it up evenly. you'll you'll give somebody a great u a great benefit or a great increase and you give somebody else a big loss. So, you're going to have to manip you're going to have to work with it. Um cities and towns budgets if you do and I worked with this last Thursday at AIC in Indie. Um you want to do the s the fire and EMS but uh amount first because that will help address what you're going to set the tax rate at for the different cities. Um, and this is this will be able to show what schools are currently getting, what they won't be getting in the future uh from this kind of tax. Uh, you'll be able to help adjust the amounts that might go to the libraries. Uh, but essentially the the basic was supposed to be there was going to be 1.2% 2% would be county uh county option income tax. Cities and towns are arguing we don't need that much and they need more than what they were allotted. Well, problem is every county is different. Every city and town is different. So, it's this is a time where we can sit down and work together and that's the that has got to be the guiding principle. We have to work together. This can't be we can't be playing gotcha. Uh we can't be you know we have to support the services that we've got but we also have to be very careful because there are so many nuances to all of this. Currently we have local option income taxes of 2.13%. There are things in that uh like our

community corrections uh facility that bond payment that's in there. that we can't do. We have to we have to keep getting that money somehow. It's not going to be with that tax. Um there is and and while we are not unusual, not every county has a property tax replacement amount in the current um local option income tax. We've got a 0.5% local option income tax that substitutes for property tax. So if we didn't have that, our property tax rates would be higher. That's going to go away in some form. Uh we may have a little bit we may have an opportunity to still provide some of that, but not as universally as what we do right now. I think it might even only pertain to the um the class one the 1% class, not the business or industrial class. So anyway, there's going to be a lot of lot of work is going to have to go into this and some of the different um some of the uh different units like the libraries, like the solid waste district are going to have to um they're going to have to get us what they need. And um we're going to have to we're going to have to be able to figure out how we're going to support them. But we also need to know what the other three counties are going to do in the case of of the solid waste district. What the what the libraries are going to do. U it's it is going it's it's going to be a much longer budget process than we've ever had before.

Rick, one of the couple things. Um is is this a mandatory? Do the counties have to do it or is it an option? No, it's mandatory. Okay. I didn't read it that way. though it is it they did some changes okay um from the original legislation to this but it's essentially going to be mandatory now it may have or is essentially or is mandatory I believe it is mandatory okay now and and we can get a correction on that from David but uh from from Borf but I believe it is still mandatory

and it's and it's being done this way because of the cities and towns objections and they had some buy in with some council people from a couple other surrounding counties because AIM would really like to take part of what's been assigned to the county and take it over to cities and towns. Is this this model being used in other states? It feels like this is a new thing for the state of Indiana. Is that correct? New for the state of Indiana. And then are there other states that are using this model? Not that I'm aware of.

Okay. always scary to me to be I I don't mind being cutting edge. Bleeding edge is painful. So there's a lot of nuances to your point of what does this look like? So yeah, the the idea of how we put this together, what is the what are the what are the rules? What are the what's the objective? Like this is all of that is being developed right now. And there is a everybody should have gotten a an email on it. there is

um district meetings, virtual meetings that will show and demonstrate this this uh portal that they've developed. Um so and again this is something that's very important for people to be involved in. It's always been very disappointing that so much of this information is out there and we have so many opportunities to meet with other counties and and state repres state people to um develop our process and how we handle things and quite honestly um commissioners have somewhat been involved with AIC and the commissioners association. um where council is concerned only myself, Alan Middleton and Donna King have ever gone to the meetings where they would where everyone could get the information that's necessary. you know, and I I said this at one of our um campaign things over this past couple uh months that being a county council person, being a commissioner is a whole lot more than this meeting or a commissioner's meeting. That if you're not spending a good 10 to 15 hours a week reviewing, educating yourself, talking to people, then you're not doing your job. That's got you got to be involved. This is more than just a couple hours a month

for sure.

And there's all of this and and right now the big the big issue is SB1 was passed two years ago. Last year they've changed it. Next year they'll change it again. And every every time they make a correction or a change to any of our taxing ability or process, they always have to come back the next year and do a tweak. And when they do that tweak, it's got an unintended consequences. So they got to come back the next year and do another tweak and it just keeps rolling and to the point where you can never be ahead of the game. You're always running behind and uh that's where it's extremely important that people get involved. Um there's there's going to be with the changes that have occurred this just this past week. I would assume that in in January there's going to be a lot of changes come down uh with everything. Everybody's desire is to eliminate property tax, eliminate business personal property tax, eliminate this, eliminate that. Well, the problem is is that the functions don't go away. We still have to supply the We still have to support the jail. We still have to support the courts. We still have to support the roads. Uh none of these functions go away. And this council over the last 15 years has done a wonderful job of cutting down, cutting down, cutting down. Most of our department heads and elected officials have cut back as best they could without totally eliminating services. So when it when all these changes take place going to be very difficult to do some of these budgets um you know and we're going to end up with

I think your point earlier of we better save every nickel that we can absolutely because we don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. We don't know what's going to happen. And yeah,

you know, one of the, you know, we you've got that we're changing the phone system to do some automatic alerts. It's going to help us. We we're we're doing as much with software and electronics that we can to eliminate the need to have to hire new employees. Um, you know, because and God love the employees. Our employees are great, but they come with a cost of of not only their hourly rates, but also all of the benefits and everything that they receive. And in order to get the best employees, we need to keep those wages high and we need to keep those benefits high because otherwise you're going to always end up with the less than optimal employees. want to do what we can do what we can with as few employees as possible but at and pay them so that we keep those really good employees. So and I feel like I've been on a soap box but it's it's it's I just this this budget session is going to be probably tougher than anything since my first year. My first year, we spent a very many, many days cutting out millions and millions of dollars. And remember that some of the things that we might do today will come back and haunt us or the county officials that are here 10 years from now. You know, one of we started paying more. But we started giving extra time off so that we didn't have to spend so much in salaries. Instead of working 40 hours a week, now you're going to work 35 hours a week. Now that's come back and are we paying for it? Some of our departments have had to go back to 40 hours. Not all

of them, but u you know there was a time when we paid more of the pension so that we didn't have to raise the pay up more. Uh so all of these things will have even in our case have unintended consequences somewhere down the line. So that's all I got on that one. But this this must committee I think we can really do if it's if it's utilized correctly. I think it will benefit everybody. Dave, you

got to go in into it with you serve on that. I'm going I'm um I've been charged with putting together one meeting to bring in the Ways and Means Committee uh members that are in this area to show them what this does. But then the for all of us, we've got the virtual meeting uh that we'll be able to see it. And if you and I've already signed up for the state called meeting, but um it will also be demonstrated at the state called meeting in on June 16th or 13th. 13th. The virtual meeting is on the 9th.

Yes. So it it it can be a good thing, but again it has to be used fairly for everyone. Anything else? pretty well talked about discussion. Does anybody else have anything they want to add to the

I I think that we probably need to use Jeff Peters this time more than we ever have. I think getting him we need our we need our five-year projection without a doubt. But I also think that at least our first mud if we can get him here for that first day of budgets that um presentations or public hearings

the presentations I think we need to have him as early as possible because I think he's he's looked he's delve deeply enough into the different funds and that he can maybe help us pick where we have opportunities. You know, we we did we we did that a couple of years ago and we're too late because we asked which one, you know, where can we reduce some of these funds do have some access to them. And he told us that one thing that we were doing that we didn't need to do anymore was keep putting money at the rate we were doing into the re uh to the reassessment fund. But when we told was that it was too late for us to make an adjustment. So what we did for this year is we zeroed that out. We're spending money out of the reassessment, but we didn't need to replenish it at the rate we were doing. So we zeroed that out for this year so that we can bring that total number in the in that fund down to a more appropriate level. And you know, and that's that's this is more for the public than anything else or for the new council people coming on. Government runs on fund accounting. You might have 20, you might show that Decal County has $20 million in the bank, but if it's not in the right pocket, you can't spend it. Now, that's that's the whole issue with the rainy day fund and a jail replacement fund. uh if it's in the rainy day fund, we can use it in the case of emergency, we can use it for a down payment. But if we put it in a jail replacement fund, then it can't be spent on anything but that jail replacement. So if you need it in an emergency, and we might

run into an emergency here in the next year, uh you couldn't spend it. So that's that's why we can reduce the amount that's going into the reassessment fund because we don't need the money in there right now. Eventually you're going to have to put that rate back up, keep it at a certain level, but it doesn't need to be as high as it is right now. But we need we need Jeff's opinion for that. And I think that um going at least for the next couple of years, we may need to get him more involved than what he has been uh for our future. And we've we have 30 million $30,000 in the budget to pay for him in our council budget. I think when we look at next year's budget, we need to up that need to get Um, we're going to have to talk to Jeff about how much we would need, how much are we going to need him here and what was that going to cost us.

So, my original um reason why I had that on there was because I had sent all of you your council budget and um Bob was the only one that replied to me. A couple years ago, we had added a few lines in there for the Economic Development Commission in case they needed some um funding. It's not currently active. And so I was wanting to know if you were wanting to leave those in there or what you wanted to do with them. Bob's suggestion was to keep them, but to them down by like half. Um but nobody else replied. Half was going to be $2,000 or $1,000.

1,000. I mean, at least it's something's there if they do meet.

Nope.

Next item. Um, we as a council about bringing a real tax discussion. put it on. This is just no place the um and I this is another thing that I I need to verify, but I've been told by another elected official that that checked it out So, I'm going to take him at his word at the moment. The cities and towns, cities and towns being Garrett and Auburn, have the option to either take a cut of our county wheel tax money, which is distributed by population and whatnot, or create their own. And my question to them is, which one benefits you the most? the make creating your own or taking a share of ours. But then his question and that this was the a big issue was if we take yours, do we qualify for the second level of the um name of it escapes me right now? The additional money they get through the highway department

crossing.

Yeah. Community crossing. Do they qu do they qualify for the second level of community crossing? The answer that he got is no, they do not. So if they want to have both levels of community crossings money, they have to have their own wheel tax. So I believe that both these both Garrett and Auburn are going to address that and make a decision at some time this year. It should have to be probably before uh August 31st. Uh so if they create their own then we don't share uh the our money with them but we also don't get the u revenue that they're generating from theirs. So that'll cut out I'm the way I the way I look at it is that'll cut out whatever money we would have gotten because we were having wheel tax on theirs. I think that's the way it works. But we need to find out that information,

right? But and they can't stack it. That that part did go away. That part was in incorporated. Now, I feel bad for uh anybody that has it currently stacked is not allowed to unstack it. So, they have to keep it. But, but uh if you didn't have it stacked before and you add it now, you can add it. Um they they can they're they're apparently going to get the option to unstack it a couple years from now, but they can't do it immediately. And a lot of that may have to do with the fact that if you've got bonds attached to any of this kind of stuff, you never allowed to get rid of it until the bonds are done. Now, saying that, you know, they may let us keep the 0.13 on on our community corrections facility uh because we've got bonds attached to it, but I'm not going to count on so coming in for short. That's all this is.

Well, and you know what what Ben provided us when we talked about it in the first place was over over the course of uh five years or whatever, we were going to be about $10 million short in the jobs that we wanted to have done. We still don't have any type of a chart matrix, whatever you want to call it, that will let anybody know, you know, this is these are the projects we want and this is where they fit into the timeline and we're going to do all this in five years, 10 years, whatever. something that Noble County does have. We don't have anything like that, but u

which Yeah. Yeah. But it also gives the it gives the resident a way to understand when his road might be repaired or when a bridge might be done. Um, it all I understand that that's difficult at that point because depending on how much funds he has, that would determine which roads go first, right? So, he would prioritize based on the amount of dollars. So, he may want to do a $6 million road, but if he doesn't have six, then he might have to reprior prioritize a different road. So, well, and that's but that's what this that's what this does in that's what this does in Noble County.

It puts it out. But, you know, With any plan, it's never going to be in concrete. There are always going to be changes. Correct. But, you know, and in 38 years of hospital work, we always had a plan. We always had a five-year plan of this is this is these are the projects that need to be done. And I never saw a single one of those accomplished in total in five years. You always you always had to renovate, do something different. This

this went away because this doctor went away, so now you need to do something different. Uh plans plans are just that they're guidelines. Yeah. And Ben's given us a lot of information. So I think he's just waiting for a dollar amount. He's ready to go. We just need to determine what what money does he have to move forward with. So

but I think I think that whether Auburn and Garrett will address it here in the next probably a couple months. They're going to have to make a decision before just August 31. I don't know what they'll do. I suspect I know what they'll do, but they're e, you know, they may they may do that. They may create one, they may not. But I do, personally, I do think ours needs to be increased. Um, I think it's kind of funny that my my car u cost me more as a as a wheel tax than my motor home does. Um, and I think, you know, that's kind of ridiculous. Some of the rates that we said that all needs to be looked at again and we've got to do it between now and 31st of August.

One of the couple things I'd like us to look at before we have that discuss raising the tax is did this get us that extra million we were trying to get? That was one of the big reasons some of us voted on it for it is to get access to that other million in community crossing grant. Then there was another $50 million fund that was talked about just for rural counties that was going to be made available this year. Is that available? Are we going to be able to get that?

Well, and want to stop and I was in a meeting with the governor on Thursday. He was asked directly by me what he was going to do to u help make the locals u I didn't call it whole but reimburse us or help us because we were losing the money from the gas tax and that was before he suspended the excise tax and they are researching a way within the governor's office to help bring money to the counties to backfill until the loss of the excise tax sales tax, but that money is probably going to come from community crossings.

Yeah. So, they they've suspended taking new applications and if they're going to backfill us at all, it's very possible, didn't say that's where it was going to come from, but it's very possible that it may come from the money that's been set aside for community crossings.

I'm just saying before I'm wanting to raise I'm not a person that wants to raise taxes. I want to want to know the facts of are those available? Did we get the original million we were trying to replace? Are those available? And the gas tax thing being suspended that's coming right out of our operations for highway department. How is that going to be backfilled? And if that's going to be backfilled out of that 50 million extra for rural counties, then that's not there. That impacts my decision. Again, every action has a reaction. Every action has a consequence. So, yeah. Well, I agree with you, Bob. I think we we really need a lot more details

about what what did we get? What did we not get? Did we lose opportunities? How much are we going to be sure? We just have a lot of questions to ask before we can make a decision on that. So, if we're we're saving every nickel, then what does that look like? Lots things to consider. Y I have one more thing. Yeah. Um

if anybody was listening to the commissioner's meeting on Monday, there was discussion about an additional million dollars possibly. Um and that request wasn't from Ben Parker himself. He wasn't asking for an additional million dollars. So I wanted to clarify that. And I also wanted to everybody know from January till April 21st um for the receipts that we have received we've um received $1,34 tax revenue that again $1,34

in the wheel tax revenue process because that's all we're receiving. That's all we're now the and he is only allowed to suspend for that's not gas tax. That's not gas tax. That is what the wheel tax that you guys Oh, the wheel. Yeah.

The u the suspension of the uh sales tax and excise tax in the gas in the price of gas. He's only allowed to to suspend that for a limited amount of time. And if he wants to extend it beyond that, he's going to have to call a special session of the legislature to to get it redone. I mean, at $5 a car, that's only 200 cars. Yeah, but you don't not everybody renews them in any say. So, there's a big delay this, right? But it's still not going to be anywhere near what is needed to actually Well, again, that was new money we didn't have before,

right? And we were just trying to replace the million dollars that we were losing to be even. I mean, correct. Yeah. So, I just want the public to know that. I mean, it's not like we had to have that money to, you know, to continue operating the highway department. Here's what we bringing in so far. One last just a reminder I won't be here for budget presentations because back when we were doing the calendar we moved it to the third Tuesday and I told you at that time I was going to be out of out of country

I have one other item house security they have recommendations they have Commissioners know aware of it also and recommendations this year's budget is a security go that floors $47,000 They want to harden the doors. I'm not sure what that procedure is in case somebody that's $9,000. Then they want to upgrade and put additional security cameras. That's total is $120,000. They want to try to do that this year. Funds would come from the commissioners fund and possibly Larry's fun. And this is a discussion only, but I'm just bringing this to the council that they're going to try to comp.

Okay. So, what were those? because those have not come to the commission. What did you list? Because that has not come to the meeting. Okay. Security film for the windows 47,000 the doors that came on this year they will bring that to us we're looking possibly fun and possibly

and the security film is for just the lower level windows. No, it's 27,000 roughly to do the first it is 12,000 to do the second. So all three levels

that's that's all I have.

Yeah. I just um they've um you know we've had this committee to look and see what we're going to do with the um um Honey Meadows and I know that they're the committee is deciding that that we should retain it and lease it out and all this other stuff and abs I'm absolutely against that. I mean, we have the money right now that we can tear down the building and um it's inappropriate to try to sell it to anybody in the middle of our of our county farm. We're not talking about the barn. We're only talking about the Sunny Meadows building itself. Um there is no nobody is going if we don't sell it to somebody, nobody's going to put the millions of dollars into it that it needs to be renovated. Even if they did that, the roads leading to that facility are not appropriate to have a high amount of traffic. And I doubt very seriously if there's anything that they're going to be able to put in there that's going to um be successful. Uh we have the money. Let's get rid of it. If if we were going to uh to upgrade the building, we should have done that and kept the residents there. It's it's it's inappropriate that we got rid of all the residents and now we want to go and try to upgrade the building. Well, if we wanted to do that, we should have done that when the residents were still there. So, that's not a decision of the council. That's a commissioner's decision. But I just I believe that that building should be torn down and u you know, take historic pictures of it. If there's things in it that need to be retained for historic purposes, do it. But um if we don't if you don't take care of it now, I'll guarantee you that 5 years from now or 10 years from now, you're

still going to be dealing with the same issue. Um and it's a liability the way it is. It's un it's unattended right now. People could be breaking in, things could be stolen, uh somebody could get hurt. We just need to eliminate that alto together. This is not and this is not a history that I believe really needs um you know essentially in the beginning of time it would have been more of a mental health type situation. Um, you know, it's it's good that we've taken care of our people that that, you know, 30 years ago or 40 years ago or even last year that needed assistance, but uh that time has passed. We need to eliminate it, not leave us with something that we're going to have to support or correct in the future. It could be, but the money's there right now. I think we ought to get rid of it before the end of the year and move on.

I I that would probably be an encouragement to the commissioners if we if they did get one. I did. I can make a comment from the committee. They're they're looking at a December timeline. You know, try to find somebody that might want to invest in it or lease it. Everybody agrees not to sell it. Um but by December, if we don't have any interest, it's a dead thing.

Pull the trigger on this. And I I would say since there's money in the budget for that, then maybe by that December, we would need to have that decision so we can encumber the money that's in the budget for the demolition. I would have to have the demolition. You'd have to actually have a contract. What was that quote? About 150,000 something like that. But I I just I think it needs to be addressed. Let's not drag it out. Just take care of it. Move on. We got a lot of other things that we have to get done.

Anything else?

Yeah. Um I met with um the VSO this morning. Um the commissioners on Monday did move to approve uh the hiring of uh Rhonda's current assistant who will be taking over as the new VSO as soon as Rhonda retires in July. So Rhonda has done an amazing job at our veteran service office. Um, even when we had our space study, um, the, uh, the lady there from the space study said, "You guys have an amazing veterans and service officer and what we do here in Dec County has been amazing." So, kudos to her. Um, so there will be a topic brought up about that transition, what will that pay be for um, for her moving into that new position. um they are also going to then her first job as the new director will be to hire her own assistant. So she's um going to be starting that process. So there may be some other things that are coming up before the council. Just so you know, it looks like she has enough in her but enough money in her budget that we probably won't need to ask for any additionals, but that may become an issue. So just putting it out there in front of the council so that when that topic comes up, we'll have some idea of what where we need to proceed. Um, she also wanted me to pass along that um, they use the county van quite frequently and love it. So, we pass that along as well. That that has saved them some money in their budget and they are very appreciative to the commissioners for putting that together. So passing that along

Brian Lamb would have been the original one. Yeah. And you know, it's still it's funny that uh we still have people come up here from Allen County and down from Stuben County and over from Noble County because our office does the better job. That's true. Yeah, we are very fortunate. Yes. And I will second that. All those in favor say I I the