Montgomery County Council - Regular Meeting

year we did receive it this year so we paid both both segments for this year and this is just to pay the second invoice for last year okay and then the next two um are to deal with uh the grant match for um the grant match sorry um this is for the owner occupied rehab grant we have to do our $50,000 match, which to get it up from the $450,000 up to the $500,000. And that's what that money is for. It's to put the cash in there. And then we just have bills to pay, and that's what the second additional appropriation is for.

Okay. Any questions on those three? I'll entertain a motion. Second. Any questions or discussion?

There were a couple of repairs, additional repairs, yes.

Any questions? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Probation.

Andrew Geigle, Chief Probation Officer. The next six are associated with the local coordinating council's mini grants associated with the drug-free Montgomery County. So we write for these every year. And so those six are in alignment with what we've been writing for. It's a total of $17,240. Okay.

Move approval.

Second.

Motion and second. Any questions or discussion on that? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you.

Thank you. Next couple are from Sherry.

Sherry Hill Montgomery County Central Communications Center. I have two. One is for the HSA line in the 1222 and that merely is just a budgeting error on my part from not counting any zealous payments that might need to be paid out of that. And then the second one is the 1235 and this is a rollover from last year really where we didn't use all of our money for our locution project so it went back to the cash balance. And now I've had to start paying those bills in the first quarter of the year, which has left me short in the equipment line to pay our yearly caliber bill, which is licensing for pretty much the entire county.

Okay.

Second. Got a motion and a second. Is there any other questions or discussions for Sherry? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Mr. Lowe.

Good morning. The first one is lane mile direct distribution. This is what the state paid us for having a wheel tax per lane mile. It's going to go for pavement preservation. And then the second one is our million dollars from the state that They awarded us for the community crossing matching grant. That's going for 625 east from 500 north to 32 and 600 east from 32 to 136. Very good.

Hey, Jake, how much was the community crossings grant last year?

I think we got the full amount, a million dollars.

Move to approve.

Second. That motion is second. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thanks. Mapping.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Okay, so it looks like the County General Mapping, the trainee line is just for me to receive pay just until Mike Davis retires. That's all I have for you.

I move approval.

Second.

I motion to second. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you.

EMA.

Morning.

Jessica Berge, EMA director. These three lines are for our local emergency planning committee. It is industry fees that's given to us from Department of Revenue. It's nothing from the general fund. It's fees that we get every year, and so we just have to appropriate them.

Okay. Got a motion and a second. Any other questions or discussion for Jessica? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed?

Thank you.

Thank you. Transfer of appropriations. Reassessment.

I don't think she's in here. So she is just taking a. full-time line and splitting it into two part-time lines. Or splitting her part-time line into two part-time lines. My apologies.

Got you.

Got a motion and a second. Any questions or discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Next up, dispatch to cover some overtime. Is that?

This is us utilizing our part-time dispatcher because we have so many vacancies right now, and she is home for the summer from college. She will return in the fall, but most of it will be remotely, so we plan on using her as much as we can, the balance of the year.

Okay.

I'll get into that further when I speak later.

Okay. I'll entertain a motion. Motion is second. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed?

Thank you.

And then next up Superior Court.

The only thing I have is it said to pay claims. Okay.

There's moving from one fund to another it looks like. Yeah. Okay. Got a motion and a second. Any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Moving on to new business and welfare. Mr. Holman.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Requesting an allocation of $3,000 from the county option dog tax fund. I'm sorry. 3,000. Yes.

Motion to second. Any other questions or discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you. Thank you. Sheriff.

Good morning. Morning. Just requesting to purchase a new washer. We have three total. We purchased two a couple years ago. We have one that is broken down. The repairs are estimated at $4,000, almost half. So it seems kind of silly to do that. I would just like to purchase that out of commissary. So I'm just bringing that to you.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Gary's enthusiastic about that one.

I told the next guy I was going to spend all of it.

Got a motion that's taken. Any other questions or discussion for the sheriff?

This is from Indianapolis. It's from Wash Commercial Laundry. Yes.

Any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you. Jake's up next.

So back in 2021 when I gave a presentation about being short $2.5 million, the first page you're going to receive kind of checks off where we're at with the Wheel tax increase in 22, 23, and then also maxing it out in 25. You see where we were at after we did that. The commissioners decided they were gonna budget $700,000 into the general fund. I'll let Jeff reference that again here in a little bit. We're still short $830,000. that direct lane mile distribution that we just did appropriation for as we sit today we're still 350 000 short so we've we've chiseled away at that two and a half million dollar deficit below that is the direct lane mild projected revenue if we receive that from the state obviously we were supposed to get that this year it was half um if we get that you see we're we're above that projected amount of the $2.5 million. So we've ate away at that deficit. The second page is just the wheel tax. As you guys increase that, those are actual ledgers. So that's documented revenue. You can see as you increase the wheel tax what that revenue created. The third page is my equipment needs. That $2.5 million shortfall, that doesn't reference the equipment needs on the third page. They have been prioritized. Obviously, the pug mill is the number one priority. It's a 1965 that we currently have. By going to a new one, it's going to double our production. Not necessarily roads paved, but two guys sitting out there making asphalt for all day they can make double what they can. So it's going to free up basically two man hours. And then the tractor, currently we have one Kubota tractor that we can pull a bush hog. It's actually getting worked on as we speak. Other than that, we have no other tractors. They're currently broke down. So there's my top two priorities. Jeff and I has been talking. I know he sent you guys that list of roads and saying $15 million. Those are roads that we're behind on. So we have the top 30 roads. We have the equipment. But as far as doing day-to-day operations, if we get this direct lane mile distribution, we will be able to sit comfortably and be able to do just our normal maintenance. So I'm going to turn it over to Jeff and he can talk about options of whether $700,000 in the general fund is sustainable. And he's also going to talk about the equipment needs as well.

Thank you all. Today I believe your appropriation in the general fund toward highway is like $393,000. So if you up that to $700,000, you're just looking at another 300 or so thousand. When we walked through the fiscal plan before, we looked at, in the general fund, you're looking at consuming some cash in 26, 27, and 28. Biggest result of that is the new implications of SEA 1. But when you set your new income tax rates, and we talked about if you get the ability after the legislature meets two more times, to impose 1.2%, and you do impose that 1.2%, you will be positive in the general fund $900,000 to $2.5 million as you're going forward. So consuming another $600,000 over the next two years and then imposing an appropriate income tax rate shouldn't be a problem for the general fund if you want to do that. And as Jake said, that should take care of these roads on a pay-as-you-go basis based on the list he has today and the schedule that they're working on. So from the road funding side, it kind of goes back to, does anybody need a handout from what you had last time? Everybody still have that one? I got extras. So if we go to the backside for road funding first, again, if you allocate that money in the general fund, utilize your other road funds, and continue to undertake these projects, the highway department will work through those projects across the next seven to 10 years, at which time they will be replaced by new projects. However, if you want to get ahead of that curve, these are the road funding options on that second page. You can increase your income tax. You can do an increase in income tax in 27 and 28, if you would like, in like economic development income tax, which you would have to share with the cities and towns. But that would give you a new revenue source that then you could then dump in toward roads and try and get ahead of that curve. You can also do, as we've talked about before, public works loans if you wanted to put it on the property tax rolls. You could have the highway director chunk off $2 million projects because for a county to put road projects on the property tax rolls, the only statute that I'm aware of is this public works loan, and it limits you to a $2 million project. People will do, and this is what you did, your bridge, was it 179? Bridge 179 was done under this same premise. It's on the property tax rolls. You can't extend the repayment period more than 10 years, can't exceed $2 million.

Now, Jeff, does equipment qualify for that, or does it have to be roads?

That one would be roads. And on the front side, we'll get to equipment we just do as a general obligation bond. The last one would be if you told me today, hey, we want to get ahead of this. I want to do $15 million now. We can do lease bonds for the redevelopment authority, and we could repay that either with property tax or LIT. If it were property tax, though, it would be all the property tax base outside of Crawfordsville because Crawfordsville has its own redevelopment commission. Now, theoretically, you would be doing roads outside of Crawfordsville, even though everybody would be benefiting from them. But the tax impact would be higher because you would be levying those taxes on a smaller tax base on the property side. Also, you could repay that with income tax. And again, as we talk about these future amounts of income tax as you impose it for 2029 and forward, you could do it that way. Again, those are options I think for road funding if you want to get ahead or are you comfortable with what Jake has posed to you at this point, which is if you just add a little bit more to the general fund, you can stay at the schedule you're on.

Question. The law probably doesn't allow us to have a spatial assessment on heavy trucks, Or an above will tax?

I do not believe so. I've had another attorney from the northern part of the state look at that very thing, and again, it's a legal question, but I don't think they came up with an option. I don't know if you're aware of any. Yeah. I think, yeah, the wheel tax is the best you can go on that.

Yeah. Hey, Jimmy, can I lean on you? Does commissioners have a perspective here on... What they prefer? Getting ahead of the curve? So you'd support that? Right.

Thanks. Would we have the manpower to get it done if we did it all at once as opposed to doing it annually?

Yeah, so when we were talking about the 30 road list, it would have to be contracted out. We could prep the road, but it's going to take a couple years to get there. And that's where he was referencing the 2029 local income tax as that option just because that's going to get us moving in that direction and give us a buffer.

So do I hear you saying you prefer the slower method than the jump in and get it all done?

And with the increases that you have given in that short amount of time, our pacer rating, which is the pavement asphalt assessment, it's went from a 3.4 to a 6. So we are gradually making our roads better. And the financial side is what's backing that.

The wheel tax that you estimated for 2026, I'm guessing that's still not fully funded. Is it 2027 will be more?

2026 should be, because we enacted that in 25, so we should have the full revenue in 26, the way I understand it correctly. So what that is projected, that one point... Eight. Yeah. Okay. With an extra $400,000... Okay, good. And I did budget that into my NVH to spend it this year as well, so I'm counting on it.

This question, if we look at property tax, I assume, That's probably going to end up on residential property taxes, corporate versus agriculture, because agriculture is pretty well set, right, on the maximum?

Well, I think it's going to hit all of them. And, you know, when we get into the property tax conversation, as all of these deductions to assessed value happen, you know, the rates are going to go up, and everybody is going to be pushed closer to their 1%, 2%, and 3% tax caps.

Yeah.

The other thing we don't know and the problem or, you know, I should say the issue with property tax now until we get to the full implementation of these is the legislature, and I think Representative Thompson came out and talked to you guys as well, that their goal is to have a fixed tax rate for each unit of government. Today the county's tax rate is about 50 cents. we've estimated that that's going up north of 60 cents when you get all these av reductions in unless the natural or the extra growth in the county exceeds that and helps keep that rate down what we don't know and i met with representative thompson a couple weeks ago we do not know what the rate is going to be for a county is it going to be 50 cents is it going to be 40 cents it's going to be 80 cents We don't know, but they want to fit all tax rates within $3. So schools, counties, cities, towns, townships, special taxing districts. That's going to be a tough issue. So if you have to get down to a certain tax rate, and I had that conversation with him, you know, what will that look like? And he thinks that, you know, they'll have to be a runway of five or six years to get that down. Well, that will be levy that you have the authority under your maximum levy but won't be able to actually go out and harvest because it will be beyond your rate. If that's the case, then a lot of these revenues are going to be impacted and they're going to be less. Now, he said in January there will be legislation out there with tentative rates that they're going to talk about the 27th session. But we don't know if those are going to be the final ones by the time we get to 28 or if it's going to be, you know, a five or six year window for you to get down to that rate. So all of those revenue things may change and that's my caveat for property tax. Be aware of that. We don't know what that is yet. But you do have that option and, you know, it's at least two years away. So if you wanted to, you know, If you wanted to fund it through property tax, and again, I don't know whether you guys, if you were going to get ahead of the curve, want to use property tax or income tax or a little bit of both. But if you wanted to do property tax, I think you could chunk off the project and do it. And you could actually go with a higher rate in a couple year period and amortize that debt across two years instead of 10 years or three years instead of 10 years. Then you could jump off or take off the project and fund it that way, but the impact would be higher in the interim.

Yeah. I think my preference would be to stay away from property taxes because, you know, this tax credit comes off, you know, I'm a little concerned about that, so.

And so, again, on income tax options, You do have the ability to raise income taxes in 27 and 28. However, you know you're going to have to revise all of your income taxes in 29, which politically I think is probably the easier discussion because we'll have more information when you get to that 29 period. But if you said today, hey, I really want to undertake some of these projects. We need income tax to do it. You have a mechanism to do that by raising Your income tax, what I would say would be raise the economic development income tax, and you would share that with cities and towns, but that would give you additional money in this two-year period that you could potentially knock off some of those projects. Again, alternatively, if you want to wait until 29, I think as Jake's told you, you know, they could work on prepping more of those roads if you say, hey, we're going to allocate more income tax to you beginning in 29. Be prepared to knock out more of this list quicker.

Just me, I'd like to see us get ahead of the curve. So, try and figure that out. Okay. Again, that's me. Just one.

So we can do both, is what you're telling me. We can increase some income tax to help do this. And then if we want to put these projects expedient, we can add it to the property tax roll and do a little of both and get this road thing kind of straightened out. I mean, we have two years to do that, basically, with the property tax.

You have at least two years before I think you'll have a finite rate that you have to be under. But again, I don't know what that rate's going to be or what your rate's going to be. Yeah, shooting moving targets from moving platforms.

Jeff, how much money could be generated by an increase in the edit?

Let's see, increased lit on that road funding, economic development to provide if you wanted to provide a million dollars for the years 27 and 28, median household income, it gives you your impact there. I can't remember what the maximum is. I think there's ability for a couple million dollars that you could produce. There's more than a million there. Yeah, I'm probably going to have to go back and look at what the maximum rate is. I think we could potentially produce a couple million dollars. And again, that will also produce money for the cities and towns. So I don't know if Crawfordsville is in the same position where they want to accomplish some additional economic development type things, roads, et cetera. This would give them funding to undertake those things as well across that time period.

Let me ask Jake. What would you like to see us do, Jake? What's on your wish list there?

Well, I'm like any taxpayer. I don't want my taxes raised. But at the same time, I feel like our pager rating is showing what we've already accomplished by increasing the wheel tax. I think the $700,000 that the commissioners have budgeted, that is my, I'd rather see that maintenance side be able to at least keep up with what we have. So that $700,000 is probably my biggest question, not the 30 roads that's probably been on that list for the last 18 years, not just in the last five. So that's probably my biggest thing is making sure that monetary money can be sustainable across. Because if you do these 30 roads and that fund dips, I won't be able to maintain those roads in the future. So that $700,000 right now I think is the biggest key for you guys to figure out whether general fund can sustain that or cash flow in can be sustainable because no sense of paving a road today if you can't maintain it five years from now. That's my opinion.

Jake, you mentioned the pug mill a couple times, which is older than I am, obviously. So we keep putting that down the road, but if we find a way to fund that and the equipment, does that exponentially increase your, you said it frees up your productivity, but is that gonna exponentially increase your maintenance abilities? Is that a better focus right now, given the unknown funding options?

Yeah, so right now we can make three loads a day. A new pug mill's gonna make six loads a day.

Okay.

So... It's going to take a day off, basically, of two guys just sitting back there making sure the asphalt's running properly.

What kind of time frame would it take to get one of those if we decided to fund it? I'm going to say probably a year. Okay. So, I mean, that's something we need to look at sooner rather than later because of the lead.

Yeah. Time it goes through the bidding process, it's as built. So, as soon as that bid gets placed, and we award it, then they have to build it.

OK.

Thanks. So real quick follow up on Dan's question. The current LIT rate is 1.95 on the expenditure side. Maximum is 2.5. So you could go up 0.55, which would put you almost to about $3 million a year in additional. income tax money in twenty seven and twenty eight for projects if you wanted to go that way talk more about roads you want to talk about it is levied on who lives here Correct. Whoever lives here pays that, irrespective of where you work or if you work. Right. You pay in the county in which you live, regardless of what county you work in. Yeah. Housing is going to be really important going forward. So you want to switch to equipment or you want to delve further into the roadside?

Yeah, those equipment options as well.

Okay, front page. As Jake had talked to you about the list, equipment funding, I think you have three basic options or any mishmash thereof. First one is cash. His list is... You know, with financing and everything, it's probably $2.4, $2.5 million, which is what I think I calculated for your bond issues under the 15 and 10-year methods. So if you wanted to do cash, there was some cash reserve in the MVH fund, although it looks like you additionally appropriated a lot of it. CCD fund had some excess cash, but I think Roof Project and, Some computer stuff may accomplish a lot of that. You've also, in the general fund, as we talked about before, you started the year with about $12 million. That is wonderful. You guys have done a great job of accumulating and sitting on that cash. Based on the unknowns that we talked about with SEA 1 and property taxes and so forth, I think it is important to, again, retain cash. If you were to say I was going to spend $5 million of cash out of the general fund, I would not say that's unwise at this point in time. But again, there are things that we don't know that are going to happen over the next few years. So if you wanted to fund that equipment, I think you could do it in cash from the general fund. If alternatively you want to be more conservative based on those unknowns and retain that cash, I think you could fund it at 15 years or 10 years. 15 years I think would be the max. We talked to Jake about useful life of those assets. We never want to fund anything beyond its useful life. So I think 15 years would be the maximum. You could do that in general obligation bonds. General obligation bond cap I calculated at the top. It's about 7.1 million today. If you'll remember historically, when you pursued the Tempur-Sealy projects, you did those through economic development, and they needed to eat up or utilize the GO bond cap of the county. That's why your bond cap today is so low until those continue to pay off. But today it's back up to $7.1 million. So if you spent $2.5 million of that, you'd still have $5 million of general obligation bond cap. If you wanted to go out and pursue other equipment needs, if you wanted to undertake on the backside a couple of those public works projects for roads, that goes against your GO bond cap. But on the 15-year scenario, I showed you potential property tax rate increase would be about three-quarters of a penny. Cost for $250,000 homestead is about $5.76 for the year. Alternatively, again, as we get into resetting your LIT rates, you could always fund that money with LIT going forward. You could fund it with LIT today if you didn't want to hit the tax rolls. And you did actually do that with your public works loan for Bridge 179. You said you didn't want to hit the tax rolls today. So you paid for it with income tax for a couple years and then let it go onto the tax rolls. So you can do any type of hybrid there of funding it through property or income tax as you deem appropriate. And then the 10-year amount, if you shorten that amortization to 10 years, the rate is just under a penny. Cost per homestead is about $7.70 for the year. But I think those are kind of your two basic options for funding that equipment today, cash or geobond debt.

Lease to own? Have you thought about that?

Lease to own are typically higher interest rates. Typically they come from the vendor. However, you do save all the costs of issuance for debts. You don't have to pay bond counsel. You don't have to pay legal counsel. You don't have to pay financial advisor. So if you're going to do individual pieces of equipment, say you guys want to fund the pug mill and the tractor, I think you go to those vendors, see what their options are for financing, see how cheap they are, and weigh that against doing all those projects together and issuing a bond. and then you may want to pay for them that way. However, in that scenario, you're not creating a new property tax levy to pay that debt. You're paying it out of these existing funds.

Right.

But again, I think you have the ability that you could do it cash today, so you could always make those payments and delay that decision.

Well, I was thinking as you do lease to own or if he has to buy dump trucks, he's going to have to replace the equipment as well. you like to try to have a certain percentage of your equipment to where it's still under warranty. And then the warranty helps take care of if there's any issues with the equipment, which if you bought the pug mill, I'm sure they would have a warranty and stuff with them as well. But just kind of mixing a few things in and trying to keep some of your vehicles under warranty, then you don't have to worry about emergency repairs if you're if they're being handled that way that's just kind of what i was wondering yeah and then you know the thought of if you buy all this stuff new even if you buy it all at one time you know they'll have the warranties on them as new equipment until such time as they're gone right and like on the trucks you like to stagger them out we didn't have a choice at one time But if you can stagger them out, that helps on your cost.

Jeff, you mentioned $5 million. Is that the total payments for the bond if we did it that way?

No. If you told me today how much money can I take out of the general fund and still feel comfortable, it would be $5 million would be the tops. we're still subject to those unknowns that we're not going to know for a couple years. I wouldn't want to shed more than $5 million out of there, but I think that could be done.

On the 1.2% county lit, expected to produce $920,000 to $2.2 million. Why is that such a big spread?

It's still within that implementation period of the property, the reductions to the assessed value, and your maximum levy growing. It's all that, all the assumptions in the fiscal plan, that's how it falls out.

It starts at like one year.

So it's just not what?

It starts at 29 at 900,000, then it goes to a million, a million and two, then it jumps up to 2.2. It jumps up to 2.2 because the way they wrote the statute is your existing income tax account held by the state is going to go basically dormant. Now, I think there will be excess funds in there due Montgomery County, but the statute doesn't say how that money is getting flushed back out to you. Today, you get a supplemental distribution if you were under-distributed. Well, that statute seems to go away too at that point in time. I don't think the state's keeping your money. I think it's coming back to you. I think they just haven't addressed it yet. But beginning in 29, they've said we're going to set up a new trust account at the state and we're going to distribute you 95% of what we believe your taxpayers are generating for the first three years to build up a 15% reserve balance. So these numbers are based on 95% distribution in 29, 30, and 31. When we get to 2032, then it jumps up to 100%. So that jumps it from $1.2 million to 2.2. Because yes, now you've funded your reserve at the state. And again, I think there's other income tax money in your reserve account today that they have yet to measure because they're working off of audited returns. So they're two years behind of where we are today. They're giving you money today based on what they think your people paid in, but they won't know for two more years.

We financed the courthouse for what, seven years?

I believe so.

Yeah.

Well, and you've only got this, so much of this pie. and this thing's going to have to get cut up, and we're going to have to have fire protection, libraries. Everybody's going to want a piece of this by 911, highway. And we're looking at this, like you say, this moving crystal ball. It's kind of hard to...

Yeah, and let me elaborate a little bit more on that the fiscal plan looks at you as the county just taking your 1.2% You have two other bites at that Apple when you reset these new income taxes fire and EMS The way the law is written today you can impose 0.4% and share that for all the municipal and fire districts fire territories townships and but you can also pay yourself some money because you provide EMS for the county excluding Union Township. And you as the fiscal body, the way the law was rewritten in 26 said you get to decide how that formula is divided up. You have to consider service area and population of fire and EMS, but you get to decide what that model looks like. So potentially you could have more than what we've shown and still fund the others. But again, I don't know that because I don't know what the needs of the others are. So it may be that 0.4 only funds the others, or maybe it doesn't even fund them. The third part of the apple that you can get to is you will have the ability to issue up to 1.2% income tax for what in the original legislation was small municipalities, cities, and towns. Now the big municipalities who have the ability to levy their own income tax can opt into your pool. And if you make that amount high enough, they will opt into that pool because the new formula in 26 says if you're in that pool, you get 150% of your proportionate share based on population. So anybody who can get in that pool, if you set the rate high enough, will get into that pool because they'll get more than they can get by themselves. However, when you do that formula, anything that is not consumed in that formula for the other cities and towns, you as the county get to keep and utilize for countywide purposes. And I think you said... As you can tell, there's a lot of different calculus going on at once that we don't know, but you have the ability potentially for more income tax than I showed in the plan. What I tried to show was if you only impose that for you based on the way the statute's written today, that would be your outcome. So you appear to be in good shape. But again, we have two more legislative sessions. Will you still have the ability for 1.2 when you get through with that?

Our all-in tax rate today prior to the PTR is, what, 1.95, right?

It's 1.95 on the expenditure side.

Yeah.

You have a different one for property tax relief. Right. Which also goes away.

Yeah, that's, I guess, what, 70 cents?

Could be something like that. Yeah. And under the new legislation, today you can go to 2.5. Under the new legislation, you can go to 2.9. However, none of that can be allocated to property tax relief.

Right. Right. But at some point that could be shared with the city.

Of that 2.9? Yeah, it has those caveats of the 1.2 for municipalities, the 1.2 for you, the 0.4 for fire and EMS. Each other underlying unit of government, like a township, special taxing district, a library, they cannot have more than 0.05 for each unit type. And total of those... or the county, the fire and EMS, and those other units of government, the sum of those can't equal more than 1.7. Because if you have the 1.7 and then the city imposes 1.2, or you impose 1.2 on the small cities and towns, that equals your 2.9, which is your maximum. I'm working on it.

Well, thanks for that information, Jeff. It's a lot to digest and try to figure out. I guess personally, my opinion, I think our best option right now is to kind of pursue the equipment side of things, get that squared away for Jake to be able to increase his productivity. It's kind of our safest bet and our best bet money-wise, but if we can figure out how we can do that here in the next year or so to get that whether we cash it out or whether we do a bond or split it one way or another but um if someone wants to maybe work with jake to kind of get some better numbers put together and we can go over some options right These numbers on this equipment, how old are these numbers? Are these estimates or are these actual?

Some are actual, some are estimates, but they're all within a month.

Okay. And you have those prioritized as to importance in your work? Yeah. So whether we can do all of them or not is kind of what we'll have to figure out here in the next few months to take a look at. But I think... Obviously, a 1965 pug mill should probably be in a museum. I mean, that's just my opinion. I'm one person amongst the council here, but I just think looking at the totality of everything with the unknowns. taking out a bunch of bonds and putting anything on the taxpayer right now is, I don't think, wise. But I think if we can figure out a way to fund this equipment, increase your productivity, I think that's just going to get us farther down the road. And then maybe once this state nonsense shakes out and we get a better funding idea, we can start increasing our productivity as far as the roadside goes. I mean, thoughts? That's just my... This is my thought. Yes, please. That's why I asked the question earlier. Yeah. Right.

Right.

And that's why I think this is our best avenue right now is to start getting this equipment instead of continually putting it down the road.

So is this, I think everybody agreed, Pug Mill, do you want me to go out for bid? Let's get a solid bid on it and then we'll figure out how to pay for it, I guess is what I'm saying right now.

And whether we're going to be able to fund everything, part of the things, we'll take a look at that and get a better... idea here in the next month or two, hopefully.

Should he go ahead and just get bids on all of his equipment?

Yeah, if he wants to bid everything and then we'll be able to, or if we can fund it.

Is that going to work? If we don't move forward, we'll have advertising costs and other stuff into it. I would rather do one at a time, get it marked off the list, figure out how it's going to be paid for. Let's just

Your pug mill is probably your biggest lead time and your biggest expense right now. Why don't we focus on that for now and then we'll get the rest of it.

Thank you.

Well, luckily those are all

separate they don't rely on one another until you get to the bottom the pneumatic roller and the chip box they go hand in hand but the rest of it is right right yep that's a good question all right thanks jake all right speaking of money uh next item up is discussion about the rainy day fund we usually talk about this this time of year um I know we've made a transfer the last several years into the rainy day fund just to move that money out of the general fund and protect it. It obviously does not spend the money, but it does, I guess, protect a little bit. Mindy, do you have the number that we did last year? Was it 750? Am I remembering? Yeah, we haven't done that. Okay.

We haven't done that. We didn't do it last year.

We didn't do it last year?

Oh, okay. Oh, okay.

I'm sorry. I thought we did it last year too.

The current balance in the rainy day fund is $527,000 if you want to know that.

What's our cash balance?

I propose you put in a million dollars back into the rainy day fund. Because it's not, we're not spending it. We're just putting it in the account.

Yeah.

Yes.

I make a motion that we do that. A million dollars.

The rainy day is still accessible. It's just a more restricted fund.

Yeah. And didn't that kind of help our state how much, it shows the state how much we have. Basically it takes that out of it or something like that.

There you go.

Didn't get on his couch. Yeah.

Yeah, but the state's not going to limit you or your ability to levy taxes based on how much cash you have in that fund.

Right, yeah.

So if you leave it, moving it is a good idea because it's your way of saying we do not really intend to spend it.

Right now, yep. Okay. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to move a million dollars into the rainy day fund.

Any questions, comments, discussion?

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Make it so many.

Hey, Jake, when you get those bids on the PUD, ask them what they do on financing on that, on terms. Thanks.

All right. Next up, discussion of the Municipal United Strategic Task Force, or the MUST committee that may meet. Tom, do you want to talk about that?

Well, just real quick, I handed out a summary from a presentation from Association of Indiana Counties showing the new income tax structure effective in 2029. Just to remind you, county services rate can be 1.2%. Fire protection and EMS, as Jeff mentioned, 0.4%. Non-municipal civil taxing unit rate, 2%, or 0.2%, sorry. The total rate of 1.7%. There also can be a municipal tax rate of 1.2%, with a total tax rate of 2.9. And you'll also notice on the side it says, for the municipal tax rate, unit adopts for municipalities with more than 3,500 population, unless the unit elects to be treated as a small municipality, less than 3,500, then the unit requests approval of rate by the county. The second page just shows you who approves those rates. So county services rate is county council. The tax base is the AGI of local taxpayers of the county. Fire protection and EMS services, county council rate adoption, tax base AGI of local taxpayers of the county. Non-municipal, which is 0.2%, county council competition from non-municipal units, again, taxpayers of the county and then municipalities less than 3,500 it's County Council competition from the municipal units and then it says the AGI of local taxpayers of the county excluding those that live in municipalities with a population of at least 3,500 and then municipalities go greater than 3,500 it can be the city or town council and it would be the taxpayers of that municipality and then there's a note below that says municipalities greater than thirty five hundred population may also petition county fiscal body to be treated the same as municipalities below thirty five hundred this would apply the municipal local income tax rate to the countywide AGI that kind of lays the groundwork for you the must committee which is a may committee uh... if you choose to have it convened it must convene prior to October 1st. Representatives include one county council representative and then the fiscal officer of each city and town. And if there's a unanimous agreement is reached on the tax rates, you would submit that report to the DLGF, which would then submit their report to the legislative council by December 1st of 2026. So the question before you is, do you want to convene the must committee? If so, then we would act to have that implemented. And if not, then we would not do that.

Do we have a comparison on how things are funded today that we can compare this to? Like I said, our all-in rate today is 1.95. How does that compare to what we're looking at here? do we have I guess I don't understand your question can you yes we have where all the income tax goes yeah so you know if we're looking at an all in rate of 1.7 you know what does that 1.7 compare to what's being funded today what I'm trying to figure out is you know are we Losing money, are we ahead, behind on what we're doing today? Okay, we collect taxes today, right?

Yes.

Okay. The all-in rate's 1.95, more or less.

Right.

What all does that fund? How does that compare to 1.7 that they're talking about here?

I don't have that comparison. Yeah.

I don't think we can control them.

That's what the state's pushing us to give to 1.7, right?

Okay, but... At the end of the day, we losing, you know, 25, I don't know what, how our rate today compares to this. That's what I'm trying to figure out.

And I think that's part of what the must would be that you would look at if we impose these alternative income tax rates and distributed them to fire and EMS based on, a formula, but see that's the whole thing. The formula's before you. So what is that number? If you impose the 1.2 for small municipalities, you can determine that amount and you can see what it looks like for the income tax they get today versus what they would get otherwise. But then you have to throw in the calculus of if I put it at 1.2, Crawfordsville's coming into that pool. How low do I get that that I offset the revenue for them and keep Crawfordsville out of that pool? Or maybe you want Crawfordsville in the pool. The other parts to think about that is what are their property tax losses? Because are you as a fiscal body going to impose income taxes that just replace their income tax loss? Or are you going to replace their property tax loss due to the SCA1 property tax losses? and new homestead credits and then are you also going to entertain are there certain units of government out there that are unfunded that are volunteer fire departments that maybe should be have some paid standby or combination departments are you going to potentially going to increase the lit rate enough to fund and get those operations to the level they should be i think those are the the questions that all have to be fleshed out between now and the middle of 28. But again, you know, based on two more legislative sessions and the changes they'll make, I don't know that, because again, we don't know what your rate's going to be fixed at, nor that of anything other than fire and EMS they seem to have coalesced around, it's going to be 40 cents. And, you know, based on my conversations with Representative Thompson, that will include any debt they have and any CUME funds. but the remaining $2.60 of that $3 rate, don't know how much is city town. And you know, I posed to him the question of, you know, what about a city or a town that does or doesn't impose fire and EMS? Is fire and EMS 20 cents and 20 cents or 25 and 15 or 30 and 10? And they haven't hashed any of that out yet or schools. So, I really don't feel like you have nearly enough information to make any of those decisions. That's why I think this must is a year to a year and a half premature.

We have a question in the back there.

Megan Noggle, Ladoga Library. I was wondering if this also takes into account the consolidation of townships. I know the state is looking at consolidating townships. We were curious about Scott Township and Walnut Township and the possibility of adding them to Clark Township because we are doing the fire territory and that they won't dissolve a fire territory, but that that might help consolidate some of these funds. So just a thought for you. Thanks.

That's about my pay grade. That's a, yeah, that's another calculus. You're going to have townships that go away. So the pool, if you look today, well, what does this township get versus if I assign this to them, those townships may not exist by the time we get there, which actually helps your income tax distribution, makes it a little easier as you have fewer units. Let me ask this.

What's our disadvantage to doing this initial meeting at this point other than we just don't know anything to actually meet about.

Yeah, it's kind of that. Yeah, it's like, you know, we are going to have this meeting and you guys show up and we're going to talk about this and there is no possible way that we can derive an answer because we don't have, we don't even have answers for most of the segments of what it is we need to come to a final answer on. If you want to use it as the time to have the discussion, I think that's good because I think you as the county fiscal body will want to know what are their expectations. Again, do they want just income tax? Do they want income tax and property tax replacement? Do they have other needs? It might help you better understand where they're coming from. But again, like I said, I think we're going to need to have answers before that. and before you actually set these rates after July 1 of 28 and before October 1 of 28.

I think it's a good idea to build that committee so that at least there's starting to be a discussion. I mean, I'm sure the mayor's pretty well versed on it. I've heard him talk on the radio about it. At least he's talking about it and looking into it. But some of these towns, they may not even know it exists. or what's going to happen at all, at least that starts a conversation and people thinking about what's coming down the pike, and I think that would be a good thing.

I have a question for Jeff today. In your conversations with Representative Thompson, does he indicate that this may fall? Maybe he can't. Maybe he can't. That's the way a lot of legislation works. It starts out as a may and then becomes a shall.

You know, we didn't really discuss the must. Okay. We just talked more about, because I was trying to get them to give me some sort of indication. I was actually in there with fire people. So we did get them to confirm that fire and EMS, they're pretty certain it's going to be 40 cents and include all debt and QM. But again, that doesn't help me unless I know. everybody else's rate caps, and they would not give me any indication at all as to what those might be. But he said legislation should be out in January, but he said even those won't be the amounts, but this will be the first volley for them to discuss as a legislature.

Okay. Yeah, a question today from Jimmy is, have you had any discussion with the mayor regarding any of this in your admin meetings? I think it would be good to understand the mayor's expectations here, which ways he's leaning. I'm sure he has an opinion. I think it would be good to have those discussions. Please start.

Are you volunteering?

I think we've got somebody that is in mind, don't we? We received a message from Joyce, and go ahead. You talked to him, didn't you?

I did talk to him. I got the message from Joyce. Okay. Mike has kind of volunteered that he would like to be on this. Perfect.

At least that's what Joyce told us. No, that's fine. So I'm seconding it and blowing the train whistle.

I think it would be good to have someone on the council that's going to be on the council next year.

And I do know that there's a conference up at Blue Chip right now, and Amy sent me a message last night about they're already talking about this, and they're having a class, and they're spreading this at a conference right now. And like you were saying, they have no clue about what's going on, but now they're telling all these – all these towns and communities about this. So it's out there, and there's going to be a lot of questions about it.

Okay. So we'll appoint Mike Warren unless he opposes it. And then, like I say, it's not like he's making a decision, but he's just gathering information and kind of pointing our Any questions about the most committee or discussion about that?

Go ahead.

Right.

Do we need to reach out to the towns and the other government entities saying, hey, you're going to have to put somebody in this? It's their fiscal officer.

Which I think is an odd choice, given that that's not the fiscal body representative from the other governments. But the statute, that's what the statute says. It says one council member and the fiscal officers, not the fiscal body representative, fiscal officers of the other units.

Yeah, I think the mayor's wanting to set it up, probably like a Fusion 54 type of thing or something like that.

So we'll make sure everybody's invited.

Yeah, we'll make sure everybody's invited. Yeah.

When I just be clear, the mayor's not a member of the committee. He can attend, but this is the peculiarity of the legislature. Why would the mayor or a town council president not be the representative on this very important committee? Do you know why, Jeff? I don't know if they hate mayors or what they, I mean, but the statute is really clear. Who are the members of the committee? one representative of the county council and the fiscal officers of all the others not a member of the fiscal body and last time i checked you guys make those fiscal decisions so i don't know so what that's going to mean also is that when they meet it may be such that the members of the committee say well i'm going to go back and talk to my council i assume they're going to have to talk to their council so i'm not sure why it's

comprised the way it is it seems like a unusual way to do it so dan also it is a public meeting so i would assume that there'll be elected officials from the town council and city council and the county attending those meetings they just can't participate in the final vote

And then again, the question arises, what if the clerk-treasurer disagrees with the council? Game on. The statute says the committee decides if they can reach a unanimous decision. And so I don't know, like I said, I think it's an unusual. But I guess you just move forward. What if the clerk-treasurer for the city disagrees with the mayor, for example? Can you guys take that back to the mayor for me and ask him?

All right. Moving on. We've got a request from the CCC governing board about doing a study compensation for the structure of the dispatch staff. Sherry, do you want to address that a little bit? Or Jimmy's going to? Yep.

Sherry's going to give you some information that she prepared for you guys to look at. At the last month's communication board meeting, we voted to send this on to you guys to have a compensation study done for the 911 center. This thing has been bleeding and bleeding for a couple, well, for several years, but when the new compensation study went into effect, at that time we had a compensation committee within the county that we had asked to look at this address and try to help out the situation. The three things that the request was asking for to be looked at is the starting salary as well as skill-based pay and seniority. And I said this at the governing board meeting the other day and it is something that is getting very competitive in public safety and that is a Seniority pay for people that come in from other units of government where they've maybe had this job with Tippecanoe County, Fountain County, or somewhere like that, you know, and going back in pay due to the fact of what the compensation committee has or the study showed and set up for us. You get somebody that's got eight or ten years experience in a dispatch center, even though equipment may be a little different here and there, The general topic of what they do is exactly the same. We're seeing people in public safety and fire police that are moving on from one department to another. And when they start in, matter of fact, Avon just put out an advertisement again the other day for fire to do lateral transfers. So say they leave Crawfordsville or Lafayette and they go to Avon as a 10-year man in Lafayette, they start 10-year pay in Lafayette. Avon on their pay scale so this is something that is continuing to be a issue for our for Sherry and Ziv to try to get people in and keep people and it may not sound like a big deal you know the door may open again and somebody else may come but when you continue to have people coming in that are new and have not worked in this line it is a big issue not only for them to try to run the dispatch center, but also for your police, fire, EMS, whoever's out there that's relying on these people to be the first line of defense. And they have the backs of everybody that's outside that building. So it's something that's got to be addressed. Tom reached out to Addie after that discussion. And she says that they've seen this before, where they just have to go back and reevaluate information. And that's what Sherry's kind of put together for you guys. She's going to give Tom a copy as well to send on to Addie. But we have to do something. The days of standing back and saying, hey, we'll take a look at it. We'll take a look at it. It's time to take a look at it and get it fixed.

I presented all this to you. It's very much the truth. We've been fighting this since 2020. I went to the compensation committee in March and my request was denied. And so I've asked that it be taken further and looked at again. As you can see as well, it's not a huge blow to the budget for the rest of this year. And we're gonna be turning in a lot of money back to our cash balance at the end of 26 due to not being able to fill these positions. We filled two this year and we were able to keep one. I did speak to someone the other day and our starting salary is not that great. You can see by the surrounding counties. Now I do understand that Boone County and Hendricks County and Tippecanoe County have the ability to pay more because they have a larger population and more tax revenue. But I certainly didn't expect to find us down near the bottom. That was very disheartening. I did receive an email this morning from a West Lafayette dispatcher who would be very excited to come to Crawfordsville. However, she's not going to come for $24 an hour. What Jim touched on is extremely important them having any experience. I also asked for two employees at 6 and 10 years that left and returned. Can I please give them more money than $50,000? Somebody coming in off the street that knows nothing, and that was denied as well. So now one of them is left. And I'd like to keep the other one. And I also requested that a 10-year employee who I made a supervisor on the night shift and runs a crew alone. I asked for compensation for her and I was told she fell within the range. And so she is currently, for seven months, been doing that job with no pay increase. So it's just a very serious situation and I think if we take a look at it and we can make some decisions about improving it, The quality and caliber of people that we're going to get to apply will be much better. We've just not had a good field of applicants, if you will. If they pass the test, they can't get through training. And technology has been a great thing. I've been in dispatch since 2001, and I promise you that technology is amazing. But a lot of people haven't been raised in technology. We've got a real small area of people that want to get involved in public safety, first of all, and who can actually make these software systems work that we're using and continue to bring on to make dispatch a better environment, not just for the dispatchers, but for our community. I simply just... added the matrix on the back to the other public safety entity within the Montgomery County employment, and that would be the Sheriff's Department. And I think we often forget that that's what dispatch is, public safety. Any questions?

I do agree. Yeah, the whole, I don't understand how we ended up with a, supervisor making less money, but there's some kind of glitch in the system somehow, but nobody should take less money for taking on more responsibility, so I agree with that. Exactly, yes. Basically, we just need authorization to tell our consultants to take a look at this and then come up with some solutions and then present this back to the council, so.

Need a motion?

Yeah, I believe we do.

I make that motion.

Got a motion and a second. Any other questions or discussion on that? All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? We'll get it in motion.

Thank you.

Thank you. And then next up, Tom. You still awake back there? Whatever it is, yeah.

Good morning. The request is to reclassify the existing drainage tech position into a deputy position. Just a little bit of background. That position originally in the office was a deputy position. At the time when we finally were able to hire somebody in that position, we were kind of in a budget crunch and that position kind of got molded into a joint position between my office and Soil and Water Conservation District. Since then, that position has been solely 100% in the surveyor's office. So this reclassification is just to clarify some supervisory responsibilities as well as field work that wasn't originally part of the drainage take position. So what I'm asking is for the original compensation study did not break down any kind of guidance for any position other than just chief deputy position. So this position is going to be what normally used to be called first deputy, which would be under the chief deputy. So because there's no guidance in the compensation study, it requires this step to be taken. So.

Is there money-wise, whatever the budget is currently the amount, or is this going to change compensation as well?

It's changed the compensation, but not for this year. This is for 2027. Okay. Tom?

Yeah, just to further add to that. So when the compensation plan was adopted, it established a timeline when people had to request changes in classifications January to April. That's why the request is coming to you now, because you have to authorize us to do the study. So this would be submitted to... a compensation consultant who would conduct a study to submit a recommendation for the pay for a deputy surveyor. Gotcha.

Yeah, it's a little late, but I guess given budget time right now is wise to get it done and get it straightened out.

I assume budget time would be the time that this would be done.

And it's one of those things that, yeah, it's probably just one of those things we didn't take into account one at all.

You said that it was a joint?

It started out as a joint position.

And now it's all in the department.

Yes, now it's 100% in the surveyor's office, correct.

If the job hadn't changed any?

When we're talking about the joint position, that was eight years ago, ten years ago, was when the position was originally established. So it's been in the surveyor's office for the last, well, we hired Bree two years ago. And even before that, the position was 100%. And the dual position only lasted for two, two and a half years, something like that. And then when that person, the reason what being the person that was hired for that position came from a soil and water background. So it made sense for that joint position between the two because we do a lot of the same activities. But it was recognized pretty early that we have completely different standards and rules that we have to follow by. So having that joint position between those two offices really didn't make any sense. Regulated drains versus grass waterways and things of that nature are two completely separate animals. So when that person left the position, we made the decision at that point that that position would just be within the surveyor's office 100% of the time. Does that answer your question?

I'm sorry.

Right. The duties of the position are what's changing.

And nothing's changed as far as duty, what they're doing?

The duties will change. I've submitted the revised job description for the deputy position as well as the form for this reclassification request.

So you've got a need for a person to do other things?

Correct, and more responsibility as far as supervisory responsibilities for other positions within the office as well as contractor work out in the fields.

So you're planning down the road to add people to your office?

No, that's why I'm reclassifying this position as a deputy position. That should really be the only, because our office is only one full-time, myself, one full-time employee, and one part-time employee to work the office. So that full-time position should be a deputy position from the beginning. That's the way it should be structured. It just never was because of that joint position that we did when the original budget crunch happened in 2011, 2012.

Tom, you recommended that they look at that and see that it's classified properly. Is that what you're saying?

Yes. So the policy is he submits it to me. I review to see if it meets the requirements for a reclassification. It does. He filled out the forms. It looks like the form indicates changes in job description, which merits a review of the classifications.

I think from an employer standpoint, it's important to have the job descriptions right for the people doing the jobs. I'm sure our attorney would agree to that.

And I think Tom's right. I think if you go back far enough, there used to be a deputy in this department.

I was actually hired as a deputy originally. Yeah.

And then when the, I think you're right, 2007 or 8, it was Jim Ford who first ran the council that year. Blame Jim. The council decided we need to reduce positions. You guys decided, not you guys, but the council decided we had to reduce positions and there were like 18 positions either eliminated or changed to the county. So then Water and the surveyor's office said, well, what if we shared a person? And it was a specific person who was an employee of Soil and Water, and then he retired. Right. So then I think what Tom might not have expressed is that so then he hired someone, and obviously that person has learned a lot and can take on more responsibility now. Maybe they couldn't have when they were first hired, but now Tom wants to recreate the position that the department once had and get back to where they once were. And I think that... It's good to know. The council makes decisions though on what the positions are. You guys decide whether to make that change and the consultant merely recommends if the change is made, what would that, how would that affect compensation? So you have two decisions really. Allow them to create that new position and then what is the compensation? But I think the request is do we want our compensation consultant to study it?

Just to clarify, the plan is not to reestablish the drainage tech position in addition to the deputy position. It is to take the place of the drainage tech position.

No new position, just a new classification.

Correct. Just cleaning up what we've got. Correct.

Looks to me that would be, I mean, we've initiated, but when they looked it over, that would be the decision they would, or the recommendations they would make, whether that would be reclassified or not. based on the job description now? Is that what I understand?

They'll look at the job description Tom has provided and make a recommendation to you what the compensation would be for that position. But whether to make the change is still up to you. But I do think he's right in saying this is really just going back to how it used to be a long time ago. I remember it, but it's been a long time.

what motions do we need just a motion to authorize the compensation study to take over second a motion to second any other discussion on that all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed thank you all right thank you and then we've got a request from the city uh... for their transit uh... program

Good morning, Belinda Young, Crawfordsville Area Transportation. I'm here to request the 2027 budget to include $35,000 from the county. What we're looking at is an expansion to the transportation program. Right now we're operating 8 to 4. This additional funds will contribute to us expanding from 730 to 5 on a daily basis.

This is going out in the county some too?

Oh, yes, absolutely.

You know how many, what your ridership has been? I've heard a lot of good things about it.

So our total right now, our total miles within the county is 18,000 miles for the first and second quarter. That's a total. The first quarter was 2,227 trips within the entire county, 2,800 for the second quarter as well. Okay.

So in 25 or 26 budget process, the county council appropriated $25,000 into your budget for the funding for this program. So this is a request from them to add that into your budget for 27. We just need direction if you want us to put that in your budget.

And I've just got a question for you. How do you get the word out to people to know that this is available?

So we handle all of our communication, social media, radio, print, along with we work hand in hand with Franciscan, all the doctor's offices, the healthcare facilities, United Way. We are actually just starting an expansion with CARA Education along with the food banks to provide a weekly transportation program.

To let everybody know. where you're going and what's going on. The reason I ask, I've been to Legion a few times, and there's some of the older gentlemen, and I don't go to the VFW, but I just know that some of those veterans don't really...

know when and where and i just didn't know if there was if you ever posted anything at the at the legions or anything at all we do have a writer's guide along with brochures that have been distributed however um if they're not handing those or distributing those to their membership um and a lot of legion guys aren't

online and things like that. But I just know I've just heard that from a couple. And I just wanted to see how you were getting the word out for everybody. Because I think it's a great thing. And if that's the way that they can get into town to go to the grocery store or go get their drugs they need or whatever they need. So I think it's a good thing.

We've had our largest expansion in the second quarter being local transportation. Right now, some of the transportation we're providing is students going to football practice, individuals, teenagers that need rides to work because parents can't leave. Something we're working on with the Drug Coalition in probation is providing transportation services for their programs as well.

Yeah, good program. I'd like to see it be a part of the budget.

Okay. Is that a motion?

I'll second.

I'll motion to second to add the increase our allocation from $25,000 to $35,000 in the 27 budget.

Any other discussion or questions?

Yeah, if we do this, is that going to add more manpower to you?

It is.

Just by coincidence...

Right actually right now We're in the process of hiring two to three more drivers because of our expansion We also just received one new low floor minivan. We have two midsize transit buses that will arrive later this year as well nice All right all those in favor signify by saying aye aye

Any opposed?

Thank you. Thank you. All right. No old business. Any funded organizations? Department heads?

Just very quickly, I'd send an email to my two liaisons and to the auditor associated with the potential of how to submit my budget. And I've submitted it as the email represented. So if you don't want to proceed in that direction, if you could let us know from the standpoint so that we can make sure we change it before advertisement.

Yeah, I do apologize. I've been gone quite a bit, and I'm crazy at work, so I'll take it like that again.

It's actually a reduction in county council request, but it's not a sustainable feature. And so it's one of those, as far as with Jeff Peters' projections, we want to make sure that we stay within the positions that are currently in county general. Stay in the projection moving forward, but for a one-year period we could reduce it. It's approximately 300,000 that we could reduce, but just for a one-year period. OK. So, but if you don't want to do it that way, that's the way I've submitted it. So just let me know if we need to change it.

We'll take a look at it.

OK. Thank you.

Any other department heads, elected officials? Brett, you finally talked out or you just got something to say? No, it was good. Wow.

Okay.

Steve?

Yeah, just bring up, you know, from the get-go, I've had an interest in our criminal justice piece and how it's funded and uses and sources of funds, and I'm still interested in having those numbers updated. I don't know. I know the auditor's office and I've had some conversations about it, but I don't want to be the only one that has an interest in it. If council's interested in it, I'd like to pursue it, get those numbers, but if we don't, we'll move on. I think criminal justice now, I don't know, funding's probably $13 million. If we include Sherry's group, it's quite a bit more than that.

On that note, it's one of the bigger costs of the county. One other thing I want to say to Jim, congratulations on retirement. That gives him lots more time to help the county out there. That's all I have.

Yeah, like I said, congratulations, Jim. Well-deserved retirement. And thank you to all our department heads for a long meeting. And I know you guys have been working on your budgets. We'll begin to that before too long. Our next scheduled meeting is August 11th. Then the budget hearings will be August 24th and 25th at 4 p.m. Any other public comment?

Sorry, I skipped that. Motion to adjourn.