Montgomery County Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning everyone. I'd like to call the meeting to order, please. Is this working? There we go. If you join me with the pledge, please stands nationy for all. Pray with me. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this time together as free people. We thank you for those that have provided that freedom uh just guide our discussions today to do the people's business. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Uh good morning everyone. Uh I want to remind all the council members to please use your microphones as this meeting is being broadcast on YouTube as well. Um first item is the consent agenda which is the acceptance of the July 8th 2025 minutes the same series transfer report the cash balance report as well as the commissary report from the sheriff. Is there any questions on that? I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Have a motion and a second. Is there any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I.

Any opposed? All right. Uh, any public comment on any upcoming agenda items? Okay. Moving on to money matters. Uh, prosecutor have an additional appropriation. Morning.

So, our request, we're just moving extra money out of our general funding, special equipment. We help purchase the drones for the local law enforcement. You move a little closer. So you're to just to reiterate, you're you're helping the is it for the sheriff's department, police department, both or drones? Both. Okay. Two drones. Okay.

Yes. Second motion and a second. Is there any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Sherry. Yeah.

Six foot. I can talk loud. Sherry Hill, McGomery County Central Communications Center, also known as 911. Um, I'm requesting additional appropriation for overtime dollars. A lot of that comes from us having so many new people and um people taking time off over the summer has created the need for that. So, we're trying trying to get through this. We still have four in training and one opening. Okay. That's what I was gonna ask if there there's still just the one opening. Just one. Okay. That's good, sir. That's good.

We have a motion and a second. Any other questions or discussions for Sherry? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Thank you. And then health department. Good morning. Adrian Northcut with Montgomery County Health Department. Um, our commissioners, um, they located a contractual agreement with the Montgomery County Free Clinic and I am asking to use our local health trust, which we don't receive anymore because we now get the HFI funds, but there's some leftover money um to, um, help support the Montgomery County Free Clinic. Um we're over there working doing immunizations, STI, um testing. Um we're helping the nurse practitioner with gynecology supplies and um so that's what this is for. I'll entertain a motion. you just describe that a little bit more for me.

So, we have partnered with the Montgomery County Free Clinic. Um, they are they take care of a lot of people who are uninsured and underinsured. and it's in a good location. It's within walking distance for a lot of those uninsured and underinsured. Um plus one of our key performance indicators um for going forward with our um Health First Indiana fund or funding is to increase women's health. And so they now have a nurse practitioner there that special specializes in women's health. And so our goes over there every Thursday and spends the day there. Um we are doing immunizations on children, adults, TV testing, um STI testing if they need it. And then our nurse is also helping out the nurse practitioner in regards to doing gynecology test and um breast exams and um anything regarding women's health to be quite honest. So um this is just to um help them um survive too. So, and these are funds that the state wants us to use. Um we're not going to be receiving these anymore because we are getting the HFI funds now, the First Indiana funds. Um so that's that's what this is for. contract money.

So the money is being spent for part of it part of the money is being spent on rent for us being there um to do the um immunizations and STI testing and TB testing. And then the other part of it is is being um spent towards supplies because gynecology is new for the Montgomery County Free Clinic. They don't have a bunch of gynecology um supplies yet. So, the other part of that is going toward their supplies of what they may need.

So, you're spending overtime money. No, we are not spending over the contract. Yeah, we're not. So, we're not spending overtime money. Alex is there from 9 to 11 9:00 a.m. to 11 a.m. every Thursday morning helping that nurse practitioner. She's being paid by your Yes. Exactly. Yes. What's the contract? So, the contract was just an MO. It's Can you help me out here, Dan? Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. No, no, no. You're fine.

Health department free clinic. Uh the free clinic has agreed to provide some of the same services that you could get at the health department. It's just that some people can't get here, whereas the free clinic is located in a place that is much more convenient. People can walk there and they may already uh be going there for some other reason. as part of the accreditation of the health department, they have certain areas where they must spend money and this is one of them, uh, women's health. And so what they're doing in that partnering is they're we are using their facility, we're going there to deliver some of our services, but when we're not there because they have a nurse practitioner out, they're they're also offering some of the same services we offer just in a different location. They've agreed to do that even when we're not there. And that's the partnership that we're really talking about. supporting free.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Sorry. You said it looks It says additional appropriations, but then you said it was money that's already there.

It was a grant. It's money that we have to spend on those certain things. So, a grant. Before the HFI, before the Health First Indiana, we had we received money from the state for local health maintenance and local health trust. Our local health trust still has money in it. Um, but they really want us to like get that spent. Um, because we are receiving the Health First Indiana money now. So, we won't ever get that local health trust money again.

So, um, they want us that money. I have approximately 34,000. So therefore, I made this additional appropriation for the 25,000 to help support the Montgomery County Free Clinic. So you already have the money. I already have the money. Yes. Yeah. Second. Okay. We have a motion, a second. Is there any other questions on that? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Okay, thank you. Moving on to some transfers. Uh, sheriff need them.

Good morning. I thought we did this last meeting, but um when we were working on our budget for this year, we just noticed that one of our deputies um was a year behind on the matrix. This amount would just bring him up to where he should be. Um, and correct that issue and we have money left over in pay lines from recent retirees that can certainly cover that cost. Move approval. Second. Have a motion, a second. Any other discussion or questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Thank you.

Thanks, Ryan. And Sherry's back up. These are uh transferers worked with the auditor's office in cleaning some of our lines up that were falling short. We had had created three part-time dispatcher lines earlier in the year at their recommendation because we were paying them out of a full-time line. Um two of them are now gone. So some of those lines were in the negative. We just needed to get all that cleaned up. Moving money around basically. Second. Have a motion to second. Any other questions for Sherry? All those in favor signify by saying I.

Any opposed? Thank you.

Morning, Jake. Good morning. How are you guys? Um, so this is just the overtime transferring from vacancies of positions to the overtime due to storms and cleaning up trees and stuff. Hopefully this will get me through the end of the year. Obviously, I don't can't predict weather, but it should be good enough to get through the end of the year. Okay. Motion to approve. A motion in a second. Any other questions for Jake? Yeah, just a question. Two lines, same amount. Is that duplicate or

No, I just split the uh what what the salary was, just split it in half because those have been vacant all year. Okay. Any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. We got a few more transfers. Prosecutor short undos. And transferring money from one account to another to make up for short.

Move approval. Second. Have a motion to second. Any questions for this for the prosecutor? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Thank you.

Thank you. Uh Brian This is uh transferring money. If you recall last month, we we moved the line item out of the supplemental public defender fund, which was for one deputy position line. State told us we couldn't pay be paying that regular salary out of the public out of the supplemental fund. So, we moved it to the general fund. We started we were paying our intern out of that. Uh and then I was able within since our last meeting hire uh a full-time deputy. So, knock on wood. First time ever since I've been there in 2018. We have all the spots filled. I'm I'm really excited, but I don't want to jinx it. Uh so, but we were told we can't pay two people out of the same line. So, uh we're transferring that money to the uh the deputy. So she'll have her own separate payline for the auditor. So that should that'll pay off for the rest of her rest of this year for my new employee.

If all that makes sense motion in a second. Any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Okay. Thanks, Brian. Thank you. And last but not least, stick around for the next one or no? Well, don't go too far. Yeah. What's that? Don't go too far. We got one more to do. Okay.

Morning. Um corner's office is asking to move some money from the equipment fund over to autopsy fees. Um this year we've had a pretty sharp uptick in the number of autopsies we perform. Uh couple that with the increased cost to perform the autopsies. uh the vendor that we used last year, the group uh has changed their business model and no longer traveling to us. So, we had to go with a different vendor and their cost is somewhat more. Um but we're trying to work where we're we're managing those costs as well. But we have found that we need to move some money over so we can continue to to perform the autopsies as needed. take you at the end of the year?

I'm hoping it will. There there is possibility that I would have to come back for additional appropriations if I can't find more money to move if I need it. But this is kind of a band-aid to see if I can get us through at least a while. A motion to second. Any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Thanks, Steve. Thank you.

All right. Old business funding for the public defenders office. Uh you should have a copy of the resolution in front of you. Um was it Steve or Joyce or whoever worked on this committee? You guys want to update the council, please? um as the committee met several times and worked with the um public defenders office and um their board. We feel that this would be a good program for us to enter into as we don't want to leave money on the table is what it amounts to. The question remains if we do it before the end of the year. Not sure about how we're going to fund this because we would have to implement the raises for these people because the Ryan and first deputy I believe would get raises. So um that's the piece of the puzzle that remains to be figured out. Do you have that information about spending? Is there access or Brian? Do you

you know if there's money to cover raises in your budget if we do it effective this year or next year? My understanding we could take it out of the supplemental fund since since it's a one-time deal. Uh now my understanding is this board approves it. This council approves it today. U my board has to submit a comprehensive plan. The state has to approve it either their September or their December meeting. If they do that, then if we're in compliance as of October one for the fourth quarter, then we would get reimbured for the fourth quarter. Otherwise, we would not get reimbursed. The reimbursement would start until the first quarter of of next year,

which which raises the question to me. I thought about this. If we get approved, excuse me, before the end of the year, then do we have to go back and do retro pay because then, you know, if we're going to get paid for the last quarter, then that would have meant that we Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I don't know if we can do it retro, but we have to be it would have to be effective as of October 1st. So, the the the updated salaries would have to be effective October 1st. The case loads from October 1st through the fourth quarter, we would have to show them the state that we've been in compliance for the fourth quarter and then we would get reimbursed in the first quarter for

and do you have money in the supplemental and have you figured what those figures would be? Have you I haven't sat down there yes there is enough money in there to pay it. I haven't sat down and do the exact numbers. So there' be enough money for you and the additional. So just so I understand the timeline, you're saying if we approve this essentially today and then your board has to approve it as long as my board's already approved it, it goes to the other plan or whatever. And then they do they do a comprehensive plan which they're working on right now, right? Then that plan goes to the state. Go to the state. As long as they approve it by October 1st, we're good for the fourth. Well, even if they approve it in I'm told even if they approve it at their December meeting, as long as we're in compliance by October 1st, they reimburse. So regardless,

right, if we decide today, then it goes

I want to make a couple comments on this project. a lot of different things. This just appears to be the way it works. Judges are behind this behind this. We tried to do it all different ways. I'm saying this public had We had to prove that he was right.

Well, I appreciate everything you guys did and looking into it, working on it, getting a consensus. That's one of the big things that we as a council are trying to do is keep everybody involved in things. Let everybody know what's going on and and building the team with everybody and and judges and who and Brian and you guys, great job. And I I know what you're saying, but for us to be able to save some money and I think it's going to work out this time. I know the county tried this once before years ago and it didn't work out, but I think it's a good deal now. Mindy Buyers, auditor. Um, I just want to pipe in and say that we have 129,000 sitting a little over 129,000 sitting in the supplemental fund. Um, and I believe Brian is right. The first year we can, since it's a onetime deal, we can use the supplemental funds to cover that. The only thing we'll want to look at is the 2026 budget and make sure that you budgeted properly for that. I'm going to guess

I did put in the hider. You did? Okay. then then we should be good. ever the optimist trying to trying to be. I was told we go down go back up. So I understand. Any other questions for Brian? And I'd like to just appreciate, you know, along my appreciation to the board, uh, the council for all the hard work that you guys have done on this. Uh, you know, we started this back in March and I know, as Gary says, it's been a long process and very thorough and I just appreciate all your hard work.

I think it will be I think it will be very beneficial. save money and and you know keep us within the case loads and keep keep my feet on fire. One comment I was involved in this started office and then my question was ago three attorneys all of a sudden we can't keep up because other counties larger One thing offic multi.

We need a motion. Therefore, I make a motion that we adopt this resolution and I second it. We have a motion and a second. Is there any other further discussion or questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Any opposed? All right. Moving on to new business. Uh we have Mr. Jeff Thompson with us today. State Representative Jeff Thompson uh to kind of discuss the Senate Bill one. give us an update on that and I know the council has a lot of questions. So he said he'd be willing to ask answer some questions. Um I guess from our perspective it's just there's a lot of confusion and concern coming up uh for the next few years and you know what's what's the bill going to do future tweaks that kind of thing that we need to be aware of for our planning purposes and as well as the general public knowledge. Okay.

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate that. And when the time comes, grip, just have those questions come, make them hard. I'm used to that and and welcome those that I do better job explaining when you ask me a question. I think it's important to understand what Senate Bill one tries to fix. And a couple of key things in local government finance I think that need to be changed and most everybody agrees with this. Should the local income tax distribution be based upon property tax levies? Is that the right way to govern? Because as I said when I presented the proposed amendment for Senate Bill one, I would not lower the tax rate if I'm the county council anymore. I have to. I keep it as high as I can because when you lower the property tax rate, guess what? You also lose lit, don't you? Is that right? Is that the right way to govern? And the second thing is this. Should we have a system in place where when a local unit raises the rate, this is true in McGomery County and a lot of counties, Hendricks too, where a whole lot of taxpayers don't see a penny of change in their tax bill. Here's what happens when you raise that rate. You take from other units, don't you? Is that right? And if you drop your rate, guess what happens? Taxpayers don't see a penny change, do they? But a whole lot of units do what? Gain more dollars. Or is the right way to govern. When you raise the rate, taxpayers are going to pay more. And you lower the rate, taxpayers are going to pay less. Those are the two things that I think fundamentally need to be fixed in local government. And so you can address those with the questions. But to

let you know the complexity of where we sit today in property taxes, if a local units or local units statewide and we say we're going to look at what happens and go from a 10 cent rate to a 20 cent rate, it takes the computer two hours to make that calculation. Two hours. In the new system we're going to get to hopefully someday, the answer is easy. twice the money. By the way, you go to 5 cents, you have half the money. That's where I think we want to go. And so what Senate Bill one also does, it puts those uh deductions in place, doesn't it? And the oneird and the 2/3 aren't just just random numbers because in 2031, we get to one/3 and 2/3, don't we? And every single parcel in the state of Indiana hits the cap at exactly a rate of $3. All of them do. And there's no cap loss up to $3. And the first itty bitty amount above $3, guess what? It's all cap loss, 100%. And then the question becomes, why do you have rates above $3? Because guess what? The well is drying. We have to face the fact and I I have to agree with them. Taxpayers what 15 years ago spoke, didn't they? They said, "We're going to limit the amount of property taxes." That's what what we did. That's what the Constitution says. So, no matter what we think about things, the Constitution and the taxpayers have driven where we're at today. And so, so with that, just as I said, send those questions at me. Welcome them. I know one of the key things we did is most of this goes in the effect in 2027, doesn't it? We've got two sessions in a discussion yesterday start talking about lit. There have to be some lit

modification changes but I can tell you I don't like the word never but I'll have a really tough time going back and distributing local income tax based on levy. So the harder you push your property taxes the more lit you receive. It's just not the way to govern. And I want to get to that system where at some point when you raise that rate you pay more and you lower that rate you pay less and that's the way to govern. So with that thank you again for having me and just bring those questions.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for having me. I I was in a meeting yesterday at the desk school and talk about I learned a lot an hour and I'll learn today. So thank you for helping educate me on things I might understand. Just so you know, I hate property tax with a passion. I hate property tax. It's unfair. One of the biggest things I think is so unfair about property tax is that rental properties are a business. They they don't get any relief whatsoever. Businesses, I mean, as as far as property tax. And who rents homes? the poorest among us and they pay the highest tax. Nothing fair about that. I think that and we're in an agricultural county, but farm ground gets by really well compared to other businesses. So all this stuff, it in my mind, it needs to go away. Property taxes, there's no fair way to do it. years ago, I was going to build a pull shed on my property because I wanted a shop. And when I when I got all done figuring it out, it was going to cost me then about $50,000 to build this shed. And I said, "Well, I'm going to pay taxes on everything I buy to put that shed up. I'm going to pay taxes on the labor of the people building the building. I'm going to pay road tax to get the stuff in there and get everything when I get all done and when I get all done with that building, I'm going to be assessed a higher value and pay taxes the rest of my life. And I I to chose to take that $50,000 and invest it. And I paid taxes on the increase in in from the income on that investment, but I've never paid another

dime on that $50,000. Those are the things I think are so antiquated in today's society. I think state needs to look to raise revenues more on a use or consumption type tax and not on property. We we've had that discussion. I know the one thing that I I think is I think somewhat difficult is I philosophically like to see the people that spend the money take the vote to raise the money. And that the only really concern with what you said might have if the state raises the money and then distributes exactly who gets how much becomes a really sticky thing to deal with. That's the only concern. But I understand your I mean certain people pay a lot and I mean a lot of property taxes as some of may know I farmed at one point a long time ago and I learned real quick you pay a lot of property taxes don't you? A lot of property taxes. When it comes to lit, we've worked hard in McGomery County and I know other counties have too and the city has worked hard to bring more business to this county and I can't speak for what the city's done exactly, but we've raised a thousand jobs in a tip district and all the all that uh income tax is going to go away. county because we don't have enough housing. Now we're in this trying to promote more housing and and get families to come to McGomery County. We've got jobs, but we're the best economic development program for the surrounding counties there is because they work here and they leave. And I'm not so sure that that's the way it ought.

There's been some discussion. There has been nothing done of course as you know. Everyone's quiet all of a sudden. [Laughter]

The property tax for farmers in this county is going to go up because of what Boone County decided to do. And they raised value of farm ground through the roof in the surrounding counties because of they sold and they're going to buy three, five acres with what they sold in surrounding counties and other areas and they put the price of the value of the property through the roof and local farmers have issues trying to compete because of what the state's done with our tax. thought that on the farm ground side there's a formula that sets that that rate and it's in if it's for farm purposes.

No, I'm talking about the tax. I'm talking about buying buying. Buying which ultimately is going to help increase the farm. Buying is a different Yes. Different discussion. Yeah. It's a formula I think a Philadelphia lawyer can't explain. I don't know why it has to be so complicated. That that's on the table too for discussion.

Businesses I've been involved in doesn't make any difference whether you make money or not. You still pay the same tax. I'm not sure that's the way it is. Those are I mean those are age old problems. I don't understand why the state can't get on that stuff all the years they've had the opportunity to do it. I mean this this house bill seems to me like it's a bandaid and it's going to cause us more trouble than hell. I would disagree, I guess, respectfully. And it's because when you get to that system where when you raise the rate, you pay more and lower, all of a sudden local units can drop the rate. And guess what? Taxpayers will save. It's not true today. I mean, you you drop the rate in this county, I know what's going to happen a whole bunch of places, there won't be a penny change in the bill.

That that's that's the issue. explain to me how that's going to work because this year McGomery County needed about a little over $15 million budget. Okay. So it had a rate of four and a half cents. So if the rate drops, we still need the 15 million. Yes, you're right. And at some point you'll have a not a levy system, but a rate cap system. and still need $15 million. Yes. And and you and you change the rate, you raise the AB, you do whatever you're going to do, but it still takes $15 million.

And at that point, you can raise the rate or you can use lit because now they're independent and separate because right now they're they're tied together, aren't they? Really tight. You I mean, we really tied your hands by current law. I'll grant you that. You're in a box where you have to push your rate as high as you can. That that that's logical in the current system. The new system, it won't be that way. You got anything to add to this? You're a big player in the property tax issue. As I always say, [Music] Thank you, mayor. And I I guess kind of echoing off of that, that's my concern is the you know, this is pushing more towards the lit and as a business owner,

a homeowner, yeah, I'm all for lowering my property tax, but my overall tax bill I do not believe will go down. they'll probably go up paying more lit because different entities can now charge LIT that couldn't before. And so I in this county as it sets right now I find it correct it'd be the city of Crawford'sville and the county those are two only two bodies that will control lit and the potential rate drops to 2.9 is 3.75 by current law I was just going to um let you know that the schools would like to speak if you would allow

Rex you got something Morning.

Oh, go ahead. Honestly, that's I mean that's our job. We do that every budget cycle. We're getting ready to come into a budget cycle right now. Now, we're in the middle of it. Um, we have our budget hearings coming up in a couple weeks, and we bring every department head up here to explain their budget, what it's for, and then we take into account, uh, the potential revenue we have, and we make sure we have enough a revenue plus a cushion to make sure in case that revenue projection doesn't come in. Uh, so, you know, we that's our job is to make sure we stay within budget, within the current revenues with some cushion as well. So we do do that. You mean as far as the transfers you saw earlier in the meeting?

As far as like the transfers you saw earlier in the meeting, is that what you're you're asking about or Right. I'm just curious.

Well, that's what we're trying to figure out right now is they're telling us we've got to change our taxing system. So we've that where that's why we're asking for some guidance from the state where we've got um like the mayor said consultants that we're talking to to see where we're going to have to make up some differences and then we're going to have to decide in the next couple years whether we can maintain services or whether we'll have to cut services. I mean that's just the reality of it. We may not be able to keep everybody or everything. Um, but that's the next I guess mayor said the next few years are going to be a pretty bumpy ride uh during budget time. So, yeah, those those things will definitely be looked at. So, yeah. Thank you.

I'm gonna just throw in there for for you, sir. Um, one of the things that hasn't been discussed very much is we this county offers a property tax relief credit. Um, and we give away about 8,000 $8 million in credits to our taxpayers so their bills um can can be lowered and this new legislation is removing that. So um I think that's something that the general public needs to understand is that the property tax relief credits that this council um votes on and and provides to their taxpayers that has been um negated by 2028 by this new legislation.

Well, this discussion could go on for days honestly and and it has actually already. Um you know this, you know, for the general public, this is very concerning for us. We're we're trying to figure this out. Like I say, we're talking to our financial adviserss and running the numbers and getting the state numbers and things like that. I appreciate Representative Thompson being here to to kind of address this for us. Uh just to give us the the state level perspective. Um so if you have any closing comments or

No, I I just I think with again those two key questions once we solve those two things, the behavior changes but the current system will the same 50 years from now. It won't change. It won't change until we because it really fundamentally what we have we have a levy system with what kind of constitution? Ratebased that that's the mathematical problem. And some of you know I'm I'm a retired chemistry, physics, and math teacher. It's a fundamental math problem. We need to have a ratebased system matched up with a ratebased constitution. Those that understand that know where we're heading towards. And I I I can tell you right now the hard step will be that won't happen next session is when you set the summation of the rates at $3. That will be hard. But if we don't try, we're not doing doing our job. So I'd welcome discussion further any point. Thank you.

Thank you, Representative Thompson. And yeah, I guess that's you're right. to get from point A to point B is going to take some um some work and honestly some pain and that's our concern as the council member. We're the local officials that have to unfortunately inflict that pain at some point. So uh moving on request for funding from uh the Wbash Heartland in Innovation Network. Welcome.

Thank you very much. Uh my name is Johnny Park. I'm the CEO of WIN. I'm here with my colleague Audet Taylor and a few McGomery County residents here. Um, WIN is a nonprofit organization. It was established about eight years ago. Um, our ultimate mission is to accelerate adoption of technologies by local users, primarily farmers and manufacturing companies, but also schools and local businesses as well. Um, and uh, we There's a there should be a handout to you. Just I I'd like to highlight a few just key figures on this larger sheet. We were uh very fortunate to be able to work with a company called Tconomy to assess and quantify the impacts that we've made uh in this region. And according to that study uh we were able to make over $138 million worth of economic impact in this region. Um, and on the smaller sheet here, this is specific to Montgomery County. And as of 2024, last year, our direct investment to to McGomery County was over $2.1 million. And that includes $600,000 to three school corporations in McGomery County. As I mentioned the the ultimate mission and all the activities that we do is towards helping farmers and manufacturers adopt emerging technologies because our thesis is that if we can help them adopt new technologies faster then it's going to lead to economic growth and regional prosperity. Um, and I've asked a few of the business owners here in Montgomery

County to just share their own perspectives of working with wind. Um, and one of them is Frankry from Lakeside. Uh, you Frank maybe if you want to just share a few words about your experience of working with So as he said win, Johnny said wind works on uh trying to introduce new technologies. So we've worked with some some companies trying to uh evaluate some technology. So we particularly interested in remote sensors. You know, we've got 1.7 million square feet across two plants here in Crawford'sville. A lot of our equipment is old and predates some of that technology. So to wire all that technology is very expensive and a big But there's technology today that allows you to do that remotely. We all know about Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. So we we worked on one project with them using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth that was still not very effective inside a plant environment. However, working with WHIN we came up with a they recommended a technology that I've personally never heard of before. It's a long range wide area network and we've been able to successfully install initially some samples but we have uh we've installed sensors right now primarily for temperature. Our first applications were around the plant locations where we have people where we're measuring temperature and humidity in order to react to you know any areas that are extremely hot and humid so we can take some some actions to help our people. We've also been able to put sensors inside of electrical cabinets that are, you know, have a problem in heat, humidity when they're old. Anybody in manufacturing knows electrical problems are a big problem. And then we've done some vibration sensing. This

is an advanced technology, predictive maintenance technology that lets you know when something particular getting ready to fail before it actually does. So, we're very happy with the partnership we have there. And I would say one of my engineers He wrote something for me. I'm gonna read read something that he wrote. He said, "WIN offers more of a cutting edge tech solution that we get from other vendors at a pretty competitive price. They offer insights into what other places around our community are doing such that we can take their endorsement or caution on some of these techniount because have competitive challenges. Thanks. Another person that I invited was uh is Jake Church. Um Jake, you want to just come up?

Good morning. I It's good to see all you guys this morning. Thank you for the opportunity to come in and share a little bit with you. I gave you guys a sheet that is a little bit about my business. We're a small business up in uh the northwest corner of Montgomery County. We're in the old Cole Creek School. Uh my wife and I bought this business in 2022 uh from a now retired gentleman. And uh uh we were started out building kits for Heistister Yale. They've been building kits for Heistister Yale for 35 plus years. And uh we we like doing the work, but we had some opportunities to continue to grow our business. Uh we have, you know, about a dozen employees. Most of them are Montgomery County uh residents. A few of them jump from Fountain County to Montgomery County because that's where they live, but they live about 10 miles down the road from us. Um pretty much all the way around. Um we've had some opportunities to grow. Thank you to Win actually. uh wind was introducing technologies to the area and one of their tech partners, Symph that is also highlighted there needed to manufacture this robot and we had the opportunity to meet them and start working with them and and now we're manufacturing this robot that reduces herbicide by 86% for farmers um right here in Montgomery County. We're making it right up there at the old creek school. Uh we've made several of them in the we've made over 120 in the last couple years. We're shipping them out to customers. I just got off a call yesterday with Sal and we're figuring out taking some of their stuff to the Farm Progress show. So we're hauling their uh equipment around and helping them stage stuff and doing all sorts of stuff that small businesses do, right? We just kind of get in there and shoulder all sorts of stuff and that's the way it is. Um but I've appreciated that win has uh been kind of connecting

those different uh people and fostering business. Um as we brought Sol down here, we've used other businesses in this area, whether it was machine shop work, powder coating work, um getting some stuff cut over at um Indiana Rubber, whatever it was. We were using other businesses in the area. Um it's nice from my perspective, it's nice to be able to foster business and then have businesses do more business in the area. I think that's good for our economy and for everybody. Uh, and we're growing again. I put a little picture of a drone down the the bottom. But, um, my business is actually expanding again and we're going to start selling, servicing, supporting drones because we saw a need for the area. So, for agriculture, we're going to start selling these drones. Um, our connections with some of the things we're seeing, it just made sense for us to start doing it. And unfortunately, those things are mainly made overseas today. And I have a passion manufacturing. I hope you guys caught that already. And um I'd love to see those made in the USA someday, but um that's another chapter for another day. But um really love what WIN has done and what they do and I I ask you to consider what they do for the county and encourage you to support this organization.

Just to quickly add on to what Jake said, he mentioned about Sol. So, Sim was based in Brazil and we vetted the company about six years ago and as I mentioned they developed this robot that can autonomously navigate corn and soybean fields and apply C and SP C and spray operations. So, instead of broad herbicide application is able to just spot spray the weeds autonomously. Very cool technology. So they moved their headquarter to Indiana which is a great great uh news for us because we have built this progressive farmer network in our region because we're providing this network of very progressive farmers who are incentivized to adopt new technologies. Again that's what happens when people are more willing to use and and adopt new technologies and not only they move their headquarters and hired about 100 plus more people in this region which is great for economic uh development. Jake's manufacturing company is now manufacturing their robot right here in this region right um and then I just got a text from another farmer in Montgomery County Scott who's a member of win mentioning about how his farm has uh just incredibly u increase the productivity because of using soldix robot the robot that mentioned just kind of circle, right? As we engage farmers and manufacturers, help them use technologies that's going to lead to not only their own operational productivity increase, but it brings a lot more entities to have more physical presence in our region. um our so you know when again as I mentioned as a nonprofit organization we

rely uh heavily on grants and gifts including county support and so and as we expand what we do uh we have been very successful in attracting federal grants and and state grants as well. Um but the local support is really critical because that signals to national funders what we do here locally is being valued and appreciated. So, we are um very thankful for the partnership uh with Montgomery County over the years and we're respectfully requesting $50,000 a year uh support in the next three years so that wind can continue to make impact in this region.

Any questions?

Yeah, I've got I've got a couple questions. Um, I'm not I think this is probably a good deal. Um, I'm not sure that's something that the county should be involved in. Uh, that maybe other businesses should be involved in. Um, I know the city is not partnering again with you guys. Um, and I don't know how I just don't know how we can go from 30 to 50,000 when we're going to ask these department heads to cut their budgets. We've been talking 5% cuts to budgets, 10% cuts to budgets. um to spend $150,000 when we could be spending it for u somebody in LDOA that needs an ambulance or somebody in Windgate that needs fire or police protection. I I think the need and the unforeseen of where we're going to be. Uh I would have a hard time uh voting to give $150,000 when we don't know where we're going to be. And like the gentleman said over here, what are we going to cut? We we need to cut some things. We need to take care of some things. We Brian, we saved money there today. Uh We're going to save money uh by cutting some budgets. You know what employees I mean look behind you. What employees department heads do we get rid of if we pay you 150,000? And so I just I just I think we need to table this for right now because I I just coming in right before budget time. it I I don't think it would be right because we don't know where we're at and

what we're going to need and uh but then to come in wanting 20 more,000 when you know it's tough times. So I'll make a motion we table it for right now. We have a motion table, right? Is there a second?

Well, yeah, we've already got a motion. without they want they want us to do a three-year contract for $50,000 a year and the city's already declined doing it and right before budget time u I just don't know how we can do that and ask other people to cut and then what happens if we come up short before we've done this budget and we've already got a contract for $150,000 for them do we tell the people that we got to cut employees I mean, that's that's where I'm at. I just I there's time to cut. We

IvyTech where we're paying hit where we've got other places that we've been doing uh big contracts with and there comes a time when the businesses and other people out there need to step up instead of coming to the county. I have a question. David question. I don't know that we even take need to take action today, do we?

That's what I was just trying to clarify. I mean, any any action that we take is only even though we can say it's a commitment, but it's only for one year because we've run on a one-year budget cycle. We can change the budget any any year. So I mean it's something we look at when we finalize our budget or amount whether we continue the commitment at the current level or the increased level. But you know we're not signing a contract for three years is is what I'm saying. Yeah, you're good. I just I'm just not for it at all. I won't vote for it at all. I make a comment for the budget.

Right. Okay. I I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion. We take it we table it on the 26 budget.

Okay. We have a motion in a second. Now we can move on. Um I guess a question for you. It looks is your is your main focus agriculture or is there any other technology? I mean techn is pretty widespread but well agriculture and manufacturing are the main focus but we've been also helping schools to use technologies as well. So a and so obviously lakeside books he mentioned about all the technologies that his company was able to use. Okay. I'm sorry, Tom.

Just to clarify too, the request was for this year as well. So, if you want to take it under advisement, at some point you'll have to decide if you want to do an additional appropriation for 2025. Okay. Um, any other I'm

sorry. Uh, my understanding is that the current funding is $30,000 a year. And again, you know, we understand budget is tough. Um, and you know, my request was to make an investment to win because we have a proven track record of making a bigger impact for the community for the long run. Um, but we understand that with the budget, it's it's hard at some point and so we we understand that. Do we have any superintendent here?

Couple. Is there anything you'd like to say? I mean, can I mean, could the money I mean, could our $30,000 be spent better? Okay. And like I'm saying, I don't think it's not a bad deal, but I don't think it's a deal that we should be involved in. I think businesses and other uh partners could be in involved in it because I think our ours is going to be needed just like the school corporations. You know, what you're running into right now, too. And we've got to we've got to cut No.

Yeah. We gave grants of $600,000 to three corporations. There's a grant as a gift. I call for the question on on the motion. Okay. All those in favor signify by saying I to table the motion or table the issue. Any opposed? Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your time and we'll certainly take this into serious Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Take it under adisement. I'm sorry. Yeah, take it under adisement. Okay.

Yeah. Without a motion to which wasn't on the agenda anyway. So the motion or the request was for current they wanted 20 more,000 for this year and then 50,000 for the two additional years. Right. But the additional appropriation we would have to vote on additional appropriation at another meeting if we do that. So we'll take it under adisement. Thank you.

Did we vote? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No. Oh gosh. Um. All right. Mindy, our second quarter financial report. Actually, Jennifer is going to Yeah, that'd be great.

Yeah. Where? There we go. Sorry. Start over one. There we go. Okay. Um, yeah, we didn't do one in the first quarter. That's kind of because First quarter is boring. We don't get tax money in the first quarter. The only thing that we get are our miscellaneous revenues. So, you know, we're not we don't really have a whole lot of good news to report on the first quarter, but uh I can report on the second quarter. Um

we did receive property tax uh monies. Um the general fund saw a little over $4 million. Uh CCD about a half million. CUMB bridge threequarters of a million. Health department all of the others. Um the presentation's been sent to you. All of the actual numbers are in the sheets at the back of the presentation. I don't have it in front of me right this minute. So, um, but we're on track or better. Um, as I say, every time the hash marks, um, indicate what we budgeted for and the and then the actual colored areas are what we received. The only places of concern concerns are in the tiff districts. Um, they're coming in lower. Um we we're looking into the business personal property um AVs um a little bit further to make sure that they're being reported correctly and we're therefore capturing that correctly. You'll see it come up a time or two. Oh, whoops. I do not like laptops, guys. All right. Um, moving on to the general fund revenue. Yeah, maybe. Okay, there we go. Um, after two quarters, we're a little bit behind on what we're expecting for the excise taxes, um, the intergovernmental revenue. Those are, uh, grants and reimbursements. Sometimes those don't happen the first two

quarters of the year. Um we'll get our grant reimbursements later on after people have submitted requests for reimbursements. Uh charges for service is a little bit under the halfway mark as well. one thing that we're way above uh expectations on and that is miscellaneous revenue and that is because the um interest that we're receiving on our monies on deposit is again high this year. Uh not as high as last year, but we're still we're still getting some good interest. Oops. All right. And then, uh, financial institution tax, commercial vehicle excise tax, license permits. Those, um, are all a little bit under the halfway point as well. Um, I know you're probably thinking, "But wait, didn't we adjust the excise tax?" Yes, we did adjust the excise tax last year, but we don't see that incre. We're always three months behind on our receipts from the state on our new rates. So, the whole first quarter we were getting the prior year rate collections and we only we just started in second quarter getting our updated collections um that we made the changes last year. So that'll catch up some. Probably won't hit the 100% mark this year. All right. And then the gas tax and wheel tax revenue. Um wheel tax doing a little bit better than the excise. Uh

gas tax were a little bit above what we estimated, but again uh that's the way we want to be. Um, we estimate low on purpose because why count on something that we don't know we're going to get? Uh, the same is true on the gas tax for local road street and uh income tax. Yeah, I I just need a mouse people. Okay. Um Oh, is there one Oh, it doesn't work. All right. Anyway, yeah, because every time I touch this, it jumps three feet. But, um, yeah. So, we'll go to income tax. Income tax, we're re we're going to receive what they said we were going to receive. We're at, but we always again estimate low. Uh, one of the reasons that we're way above the halfway point at this time is that we receive a in May of every year, we receive a supplemental uh distribution from the state for our income taxes. This is money that's been on deposit there. Um, they changed the law recently where they have to uh distribute more of it to us on a regular basis than they used to. They distribute it to us uh uh they keep a lower percentage in their accounts. So, we get to use it and we have been uh going over on in here to expenditures. My goodness gracious. Okay. Um there's our number for county general fund expenditures. Our budget is just a little bit over 15 million and so far we

have spent just under eight million. So we're pretty much on track. We have some expenditures that come out of there, contractual payments that we make at the beginning of the year. Um it will probably slow down um towards the end of the year. We hope anyway. Although I know there are some projects brewing that uh may require more additional appropriations. Um the expenditures in the RDC general temper fund, the bridge fund, the CCD fund, those are all well below halfway. Public safety lit. I don't know if I'll be able to display that or not, but um it's a little under half. and uh EMS. We're above our budget because we've made both of our payments to the city for EMS services already this year. And you guys approved the additional appropriations for the training class costs that we had to pay that weren't in the original budget. The hash marks represent the original budget, not all of the additionals that happened over the course of year. Okay. And then we have health uh PAP lit and reassessment. Again, the expenditures are right about the halfway point um at this point in the year, which is where we want them to be after two quarters. Um MVH, MVH restricted and the combination of the two are represented here. Um, MVH unrestricted, we're at the a little less than halfway. MVH restricted, we're above halfway, which again, we want to spend our restricted money first because it's

restricted. We can only spend it on a few things. So, um, that's that we're we got a good ways to go for the year, but um, we're doing well in the MBH expenditures. These are the fund balances. Um the blue is where we started the year. The orange is the end of the first quarter and then the gray is the end of the second quarter. And um you'll see big jumps um for those that are paid by the levies of course because we get our our first round of tax money in June. Um, so we're we're doing pretty well. Um, we're s we're sitting okay on cash balances on on these funds. Um, the one that we do have a concern about is the RDC general temper fund. um that's money that's fed from the tiff, but we also then take the money from the tiff and use it to pay um all of the bonds that we have on the temper bonds. So, that's getting a little bit more analysis by Jeff and Sherry and I think there's a whole squad kind of looking into that uh to figure out um assessment questions that they have. And then here we are with budgets versus expenditures. Um there um the original budget is in the green. Any adjustments we've made to the budgets over the course of the year are in blue. And then the year-to-ate

expenditures are in yellow. So, as you can see, for most of them, we're well within range of uh being on track for the year. So, that's good news. All pretty much good news. So far, so good. That's this year. I don't know what's going to happen next year. And then the at the end of the presentation that Mindy sent you is other all of the actual numbers for um the graphs. So that's all I have. Alrighty. Thank you. Thank you.

And then Mindy is going to present us with our initial budget estimates.

I like Jen to present. She's way more animated than I am. We're gonna do this a couple different ways. Um, and I'm going to start by asking that we not get too excited about some of the things you're going to see because we have not yet submitted our ABS for certification. That was due August 1st. Um, last budget map we got from the state, not a single county had submitted yet. So, um there's a lot of u it's a lot of work for the vendors that are doing some things. Um and the state is still looking at some stuff, but basically we're we're waiting right now. We're almost done. Um we are waiting on the city's vendor for tiff neutralization. We have our vendor's tiff neutralization done. Um, and we just heard last night that um, we should hear from the city within a few days and then we'll be able to put those neutralizations in, get those approved, and then get it submitted to state. So, we're super close.

Yeah. Can I ask a question before you get into that? Yeah. On fund balances because I don't think you're gonna cover that today, are you? You sent out uh, No, not really. I'm a little Okay. Question. We've got a lot of funds in there that have no activity that have balances. Uhu. I saw one country something. What What can we do to clean those up? I know those are restricted funds, but when you say clean them up, do you mean use the money? Yes. I mean, there's funds that just small balances just sitting there. You can't do anything with

Yeah. If they're restricted, I mean, it's where the money's going to stay. Um I mean, we can action. I didn't hear what he said. Carrie said it takes court action. Well, there's a process there is a process we did several years ago for dormant funds. There is a way to move dormant funds from your um those funds to your general fund. But again, there are some funds that are restricted funds and they are nonreverting and so they there are some funds you can't touch and there are some that you could call dormant and move over.

So we'd have to do analis there. We did that um maybe about 10 years ago. We did that and we went through and cleaned up some. But it is not some some you can deal with and some they just have to sit there. They don't especially funds that really aren't ours and there are a lot of them. They're truly not ours. We we we are a conduit of money. But if they are uh funds that were designed for a specific purpose and that purpose no longer exists, that's what a dormant fund is. And so that country project may be one that we might might be able to uh declare dormant. You would declare dormant and then we would be able to move it. But so that may be something we want to look at as you go through the budget and try to identify. But

there are uh hundreds of funds as you know when you look at those and so every once in a while it's good to take a look at them.

So do you think some of them might just be forgotten that they don't even know they have? No, I don't think that I mean we we went through the process uh as I said about 10 years ago. What we found was there was most of them we couldn't do anything about. They were they were money that we had to send to the state or money that we had to distribute to someone else, money that could be distributed only under certain circumstances. So there just a lot of those uh some grant funds where uh there was just a little bit of excess money but we can't we can't those are restricted funds. So, but we did find uh what I would call projectoriented funds and if the project was completed and no longer exists, those are some of the funds we can declare dormant and move. There's a process the state provides a process for that and I I would recommend the council look at that every year at the end of every year. Take a, you know, have a look at that and see work with the auditor and see if there are any funds that could be declared dormant. But I think I I know Phil Bane raised this several years ago and he was um it was an educational process to learn all of the restrictions on all of the funds. But as the every year there are probably 30 new funds created, most of which are grant funds and mo most of which can only be used for certain purposes. as Adrian talked about earlier, uh sometimes you can only use it for certain things and to get, you know, it has to be returned to the grant if you don't use it or it has to be used for that reason. So when you take a look at it, it looks like, oh my, we've got all this money. What are we doing? But I would just caution you, it's not quite that simple, but but it's worth a review and then it's worth taking the action you can take. But you have to look at it. So, I'm glad somebody's looking at it, Steve, but we should maybe have a couple people work on that.

Okay. So, again, I'm just going to caution you to remember two things. One, we we do not know what our certified nets are going to be. Um, it was passed to us at like 4 billion. I don't Sherry's not in here, so I'll just look at you. Um, it was passed to us at like Yeah, 4.1 billion. Um, and after the changes in legislation, we're already down a billion. So, um, and we're, like I said, we're still waiting on our TIFF neutralizations to see where that's going to shake out. So, um, we are always very cautious. The other thing I want you guys to remember is that these are for advertising purposes. Whatever we advertise, we cannot go above that. So we want to because we have no idea um where our cavs are going to land. Um we are we are padding this quite heavily but again it's for advertising only. We will know our cavs shortly. Um we could probably discuss this again in a little bit more detail at one of our budget hearings. I would suggest that um we look at these numbers again after that. I will send them to you as soon as we have them in this spreadsheet that's been updated. But right now, just keep in mind we are being very um cautious. So um I'm going to start at the gateway um application just to show you our total budget that we are requesting all funds, all things is 48 million. Um because we don't we're just going to concentrate on the major funds today, the levied and major funds today. Um, so I'm going to skip you over to this. This is an analysis uh spreadsheet that the state gives us that we can fill out. Pardon me. Um, that's a little easier to look at than flipping through the

gateway application. Um, and um, I'm going to go in detail on county general and then the rest of the funds um, just kind of fall in line and then we'll talk about that. Pardon me. So, County General um well, let me back up. The max levy that we're going to get um is 12,965147 and that's at the top um here if you're looking in column C. The net AV that we are um basing all of this on is three billion. Um again that is after the new deductions and um stuff from the state and that is a guesstimate at this time. Okay. Um the property tax cap impact. So the cap the circuit breakers or the cap limits that we used it's a it's a loss to the county. Um it used to be at like four Yeah, 400 and some thousand. It's now at 900,000. So, it doubled. It more than doubled. Um, sorry. And so, this is representing that loss, the circuit breaker loss um in this area. So, this for county general, it's 556,000. um our budget estimates on line seven. This is what has been requested from all the department heads for county general and that's $18,677,434. Um the July through December of 2025 expenditures, and this is assuming that um we spend all of our appropriations,

is $7.6 $6 million and the additional appropriations that we know about. Um, and we've padded this a little bit for future because this is um, again through the end of the year for county general expenditures. We put that at 500,000. And the reason that's a little bit higher than what you would expect is um, we're counting the jail roof in that number. So, um, if we need to move that, were you playing paying out of that for county general or were you going to put that in lit?

Okay. All right. Well, it's

okay. Well, we put it in county general because that's like worst case scenario, right? Um so the total funds required through the end of 26 would be 26,822433 and then we need to look at the receipts that we have the cash on hand and the receipts that we expect to get. So cash balance as of June 30th in county general was 11.4 million. The December um tax settlement was 3.3 million 3.4 million almost. Um miscellaneous revenues that we expect through the end of the year is another 3.6 million and then the revenues that we expect for next year 7.3 million. So that is um a total of 25.7 million and the difference between the revenues that we the cash balance and revenues that we have versus the expenditures there's a difference of 1.5 million. Um there's a couple ways to do it. We like to look at the budgets. We like to figure the tax rates by how we want to end the following year. So, we are saying we would like an operating balance of $11 million um at the end of 2026. Just to give you an idea, we ended um 2025 at $10.1 million. So, that is an increase in what we would like to do. Obviously, that's um semifarfetched. So, that this is where we can play with that number, but this is again super conservative and super hopeful. Um so the amount that we would need to raise for county general in that levy would be

12.5 million um with the tax rate in county general of 4147. Um and no 4147 this is just the county general rate. Yeah, the overall rate um based on the spreadsheet is 6787. So quite an increase. Um the um so that that's how you read this. Anyway, wanted to walk through in detail with county general so um you can kind of get an understanding. I don't want to go through all of the funds. Um, yeah. Oh, yep. That's where I was going. Um, so County General, um, if you look at all of the Sorry, I knew I would get If you look at the levy line 25 um for all of the funds and add that up um let me get it pulled over. Make sure I'm doing this correctly. Okay. If you look at the levy that we would need to have um to cover the balance or the funds in the levy, we would need $19.2

million, but we know we're only going to get the 12.965. So that is a deficit of 6.289 million. Um, so a shortfall of $6 million um from what we've asked for, what we hope to end the in next year with, and what we know we're going to get. Again, this is based on um an undetermined CNAV. Um, and we we shot pretty high. Like I don't we've been doing really well in county general. Under no circumstances do I think we're going to end next year with 11 million but because I mean a million more than what we have been getting. Um but because we want to advertise high that's the reason we put that in. These are things we can play with after we advertise. Um, but this is where we felt comfortable right now presenting. Um, keep in mind we have a $2 million buffer in your budget. Um, again, I don't anticipate that 11 million. I don't think that that's where we'll what we'll put um at the end um of this process. And um but but the green line is where we can play as far as what we need to do because we want to have because these are paid with property taxes. You want to have at least six months of requested budget on hand in cash. You want to be able to cover six months at a time at at the

very minimum. Um you can look at um things on this uh the bridge. We're sitting right now at 7 and 12 cents. Um we do this every year. It's a little game we play. Um we have 300. If we did the seven and a half cents, did the full budget, spent all the monies, we still have $38,000 above and beyond what is necessary to cover that and end with a $2.7 million operating balance at the end of next year. So, that is something you could discuss with the commissioners. Um, again, this is a little game that gets played every every year with that rate. Um, I shouldn't call it a game, but it's a little back and forth. Um, so that rate will if we offset if we lower that rate, that allows us to have a little bit more into things like county general. Um, but overall the levied funds look pretty good. I'm not that concerned with that six um million dollar deficit at this point knowing what we have in the budget.

Mindy, could you talk about two things? One is um your AV assumption for purposes of this calculation, how what number did you use and is it higher or lower than last? Okay. Um we were rolled a AV of four billion 4.1 billion. After the deductions we came up with 3ome billion and we took 98% of that. We never base it off of the full amount. Um and that again covers us um for people appeals adjustments people who don't pay taxes

and then you alluded to this but then later in the process you'll get a certified AV net AV later which then we we can plug into that equation. Correct. Yeah, we should have that um what's today? Tuesday. I'm hoping to have that yet this week, but um as soon as I get that, I will um or we will probably update the spreadsheet with the corrected AV and I'll send it out to you guys. That's the reason I wanted to make sure you understood how to read this because the actual numbers will be coming very shortly. Um and but we always do go at 98% um of your AV and that's suggested by the DLGF. So

could you talk to the council just a little bit about the assumptions you make on the collection side because I know that we don't use 100% there either that that's would not be a good practice. Can you just talk to the council about that?

Yeah. Um so Jennifer kind of alluded to this in the quarterly report. Um our estimates for revenues are never at max. We go through we literally print out everything we've collected. We take out anything that's a one-time deal, a reimbursement or a refund or, you know, we wrecked a car and got our money back. We don't we don't include anything like that because it's a onetime thing. It's not real revenue. Um the other thing we do is we don't um assume interest in the way that you might. I mean, you have no idea what you're going to get. We have no idea when another COVID is going to hit. God help us. um we have no idea when a SP1 is going to hit, you know. Um so we we never assume full revenues. Um we usually go about 85%. We take what is real, meaning no refunds, no reimbursements. Um we add that up and then we take um about an 85% hit on that. Um, and that's what we adjust our or that's how we estimate our revenues. It's usually anywhere between 80 and 90% but lately we've been hitting about 85%. So, um, it is lower than what I know some of you would like us to look at, but we would always love to have our revenues higher than expected um, and not end up lower than expected. what happened and the reason we started doing this was about 12 years ago. Um, county general started the year with zero dollars. Um, and there needed to be a lot of adjustments made and one

of the ways that we got to a $10 million cash balance was not assuming full revenues. Um so that is how we that is how we move with that for me you know I'm I'm good with how you approach it as long as I understand the assumptions. Yeah. So I'm good with that.

Okay. Yeah. And you know we're we're happy to share um the detail behind where we come up with these numbers. You're welcome to come to our office and we can show you how we do this every year. Honestly, we've gotten it to a pretty good little we've gotten a pretty good little system going. We've been pretty spot on. The only places that we've uh you know, you just never know with the interest and you never know with COVID and other things. But any you know, the fact that we've been able to do that and bring it from you know, a zero cash balance to a $10 million cash balance, it's going to help us through things like SP1. So, um So, we've talked about the levied funds. I want to look at the major funds. And the reason I want to look at these, um, it's the same kind of thing. Um, we feel really comfortable about most of our funds where we have some discomfort or concern and Sherry is aware of this. Uh, Sherry Hill with uh, CCC, our our dispatch center. We we have to figure something out. If you look again, keeping in mind that we want to have about half of the budget or half we want to have um a cash balance that'll cover six months. We are nowhere near that um for statewide 911 or paplet. That has to be addressed. We have to figure out a way to fund this moving forward because it continues to be a struggle for um that department to to get the funding that they're going to continue to need, especially with um with the way it's set up right now. So, that's a concern. Um local road and street also looks concerning,

but it's not because they haven't spent a penny this year out of that fund. So it

it will okay. Um it's a this is this projection is assuming every penny will be spent out of their current budget. Um are you spending the whole shebang? Okay. All right. Um well then we may have a little bit of concern with local street. But right now, my biggest concern and and like I said, we we've talked about this with Sherry um Jen and I um is the funding for the dispatch center and the redevelopment um temper fund. Again, uh we are there is I think Jen called it a squad of people kind of looking at that one. So, hold you know, hold tight on that one till we have some more data. That's that's really

on that on that temper. Is that is that the amount they pay or it's it's not being paid or they're behind or we just where we at? I mean, when you're talking about a little problem there and they're looking into it. I guess I'm ask I'm just kind of curious uh how come we're in the position we're in on that. I will say that um what was expected in business property. What the the taxes for the collection being brought in for the collection for business personal property property are lower um than what was discussed or projected during abatement. Okay, that's that helps me out there.

But just so there's no misunderstanding, when that project was done, I think it's just a slower ramp up than we might have originally projected, which means that their tax the tax revenues on personal property are lower. However, when that project was done, Temper signed a taxpayer agreement where they agreed that if their tax collections were short that they would cover the difference because we have bond payments we're making on that. So although the the numbers are shown are completely accurate, I wouldn't want anyone to think that Temper has not met their obligations. They are they are meeting their obligations. The ramp up is just slower than uh was originally estimated.

Okay. And that happens, I know, on a lot of things. And it's like the Bridge and and Jake will tell you the Bridge looks like it's healthy and it looks like it's a, you know, a big fat cow, but the projects cost a lot to do those. And if you've got a lot of projects, it doesn't take too many to knock that money out, too. So, we there's been times that the commissioners have cut that down and then you don't have the money to cover it.

So, you can you can go both ways is what I'm saying. I will say that the the overage that we show in Cambridge assumes every penny is spent that they've budgeted. So um um so that is um if you don't have any questions on that uh Steve wanted a quick kind of overview wanted me to share a quick overview. This is something that I sent you guys. Um it's just a budget flowchart for how we do things. Um, so we we we enter the data for the current financial worksheet, the debt worksheet, um, the form ones, which the department heads, that's their budgets, um, and then we do our estimates of miscellaneous revenue, and that all feeds into what's called a form 4B. in that form 4B um is where we play around with everything to see um what our tax rates are going to be um what the overall what it what the budget looks like overall. And that's where we can make some adjustments like I said on on our estimates and on our um if we want to look at you know not ending the year at $1 million if we need to bring that down a little bit. But this is where we can play with all of those calculations. And then when we're done with that, um that is when we have when we feel comfortable with our all the requests that have been made. Um and we end the budget hearings and we we come up with what we're going to submit to the state. We have the form three which is the notice to the taxpayers. That's our publication of our budget. and then the form four which is the ordinance or um to accept

that budget. So um just kind of wanted to give you an overview on on how that all works. And we talked about you know um a format that you'll provide numbers for us budget time. Yes, we um we are starting to work on the budget books. Yeah. Um as soon as this meeting is over. Yeah. We talked about providing a format that help us understand. Tom, you and I got together when we're going. You suggested something and I thought that was a good idea. So

Tom did or I did. Tom or I did? The three of us got together. You suggested it. Yeah. I we're going to try and mirror and we did this a little bit last year. Um we're going to try and mirror um what you're used to seeing from Jeff Peters numbers. So you're not looking at it two different ways. We'll have Jeff's um projections as well as our projections kind of side by side. That's our hope. Um and to use more of the same language that Jeff uses in our presentation so it's not um as difficult to follow. I think that's what we talked about.

Yeah. Good. And uh criminal justice comparisons. How we coming on that? We have2.

Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I've been patient, so She'll probably um just a heads up, she's off next week, so she'll probably work on the um public safety portion of it. Um and I'll be working on the budget piece or the budget book piece. Um but that'll be right up until budget hearings. So it's it takes a while to put all that together. Unfortunately, it's not just an easy report. We have to create a lot of create a lot of that. But um that's where we are right now. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Got a lot to look at, a lot to think about in the next few weeks. Uh, next item, the local unit budget tax cap warning levy recommendation. This is something that we do every year. Um, we just need to have a I guess a resolution or no, just a a motion that the auditor send the letter uh to the unit units notifying of those budget tax cap warnings. your recommendation. I'll make that motion. Have a motion in a second. Any questions about that? This is like I said, this is just a format we do every year. All those in favor signify by saying I.

Any opposed? And then next up, uh we just passed down these are copies of the tax abatement compliance resolutions for uh the four four abatements uh listed. Uh just states that they're all in compliance and for 2125 into 26. So we just need a motion to accept that correct or vote on the resolution.

Yeah. Each resolution uh you're required to make a finding after reviewing the CF1s that have been submitted by the taxpayers that they are in substantial compliance and that I think that data shows that. So you have resolution 20255 which is a finding of compliance for steel technologies. That's your first resolution and you'll need to approve these resolutions one by one. Oh okay for steel technologies. Yeah. Okay. Just so we're clear. Uh we have a motion for the 2025-5 resolution for steel technologies. All those in favor signify by saying I.

Any opposed? And then 2025-6 for Carbil 5 solar array resolution. They're in compliance. Entertain. Got a motion in a second. Any questions? All those in favor signify by saying I. Resolution 2025-7, the Darlington Solar Array resolutioning compliance. Have a motion and a second. Any questions on that? All those in favor signify by saying I.

Any opposed? And the input resolution again. Same thing. They are in compliance. Have a motion and a second. Any questions on that? All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Finally, staff and funded or staff and elected officials. Any funded organizations have anything?

Yeah. Go ahead. a little help with it trying to navigate and trying to save money at the same time and and I know you guys are too and my question is always how does it benefit the taxpayer when I'm looking at things and I'm I'm sure that's what all of our elected officials are trying to do. I have a fund called the clerk's perpetuation fund that we have talked about multiple times. I was made aware in June at the clerk's conference that I can invest that fund and it's a pretty healthy fund right now. um talked with the treasur and as we already know she's done a fantastic job investing uh for the county already and I would love to give her an opportunity to invest that money so that fund can continue to support my department and I find some ways to maybe take some of the burden off the general fund in using some of that perpetuation fund especially if we can invest it. seems like a no-brainer to me. For some reason, I've hit a cog in the government will. And I don't think I need any approval, but maybe if you can help us navigate through that system, I would definitely appreciate that. And maybe it'll help the budget from our office in the long run.

Is there something we have you look into, Dan, or do you already looking into it? Okay. Yes. We'll uh and we'll advise the clerk. No, I think that's I think it's a great idea. Anytime we can get money like that, I think it's perfect. and she is doing a really good job on interest. You know, if you're going to borrow money now, you're not liking the interest rate, but if you've got money and and you're getting the the income off of it, it's uh it's big right now.

Well, just to clarify, the question isn't whether the money can be invested, it's where the interest is allocated, whether it goes back to that fund or goes to the general fund. That's the issue. And I did send an email from the state board of accounts that indicated it does if it's if it's invested from the clerk's perpetuation fund, it goes straight back to the clerk's perpetuation and that came from our county council's um uh plan that they that Jennifer sent over. I can provide you with that Indiana code. You've provided it. I have it. It contradicts what the state board of accounts said two years ago. We're going to look at the actual statutes because every statute in the statute on the clerk's perpetuation says where the interest goes. We'll find the legal answer. appreciate it.

And and we just want to make sure because when we have our audits like we just did, they're going to track that. So the statute, the law will say where that interest goes, but just it's not whether the money can be interested, where it goes. It's where the interest goes. And each each statute that creates a fund design that if it doesn't say it comes back to that fund, it goes to the general fund. That's what the law says. So it's a legal question. We'll help it out. I don't regardless. I guess it helps the county out at the end of the day and we're all on board for doing that if it can help my fund out and help my office. Yeah, we'll take a look at it. We just want to make sure we do it right. I appreciate it.

Yeah, we just we do not I'll just say this. We do not if I get an email from the state board of accounts and it says this is what I think. I do not rely upon that. Not that I don't appreciate it.

Now, let me explain. Not that I don't appreciate it. It's just that as our auditor can tell you, we just had they told us one thing last year and a completely different thing this year. So, we look we we look up the law because they are not the law and they tell us different things. So, we're going to corroborate the information or say it's not accurate. We'll tell you what it is and then you'll have your answer. But, but if you say to me, I have an email with State Board of Accounts. I I just want to tell you how little that means to me because uh two years ago they said the RDA did not need their own internal controls because they're an agency of government. The next year they came in and said, "Oh, no. We we've changed that." Well, did you tell us? No, you didn't tell us.

And I appreciate it. I just from a business owner, the quicker we get it, the quicker we get the money back and and I would appreciate any help in Thank you.

We'll take a look at it. Thank you. I think Andrea's up. Andrea Beach, do it. Andrea, chief probation officer. Just letting you know that we are looking into joining the TX program. It's the tax refund exchange and compliance system. The association of Indiana counties is the one that fought for that and it came into existence in 2017 per statute. Uh the treasur's office currently utilizes the program. is on with the state from that existence. So now we just simply become a sub account with them. The judges have approved this request. It's on the commissioner's agenda for this next goound and it's just simply letting you know that we're doing that. Love to answer any questions about it presenting on it at JR today.

All right, Brian. Green light. I just want to clarify issue because I haven't seen the resolution. Did the council do they want us to be compliant by October 1st? I guess that was the goal, isn't it? Yeah. And that's fine. I mean, that was the understanding if

because personally I can't be here at your meeting next month in September. We'll be out of state that time and we'll have to with Mindy, but we'll have to transfer that money. So, it's just I won't be here to be able to explain that. I want to make sure everybody if anybody any questions right now, I try and answer them, but that's that's I just want to bring that up. So, yeah, I think to understand if you can do it in the fourth quarter, that's fine. I'm sorry. If you can do it in the fourth quarter, which is October 1st, right? Yeah. I mean, roughly with what we're projecting, that would be, you know, we'd get back potentially between 25 and $50,000 for each quarter. Yep. Sooner we could do it, the better. as our understanding, I believe, unless I'm speaking. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Yep. Okay.

Anybody else? Any other elected officials? Oh, Mindy hadn't done talk done talking yet.

I know. Sorry. I know you're tired of hearing from me. I just wanted to kind of follow up with what Dan said. Um the state examiners are finally gone. We had the exit interview this week. That's about all I can say on that. Um, but I just wanted to thank all the department heads that um, helped out with that. And I especially want to thank my team because having someone in your office for two months looking at every single thing you're doing and pulling multiple documents, that is quite a chore in addition to what we already do. So, our team as always knocked it out and they finished pretty early this year. And, uh, that's really all I can say right now. All right. Thank you.

Start down there, Brett. What you got?

All right. First of all, I I I want to thank Jeff Thompson for coming in and talking with us. And if anybody else has any questions for him or you need to email him, he's been great to uh to work with. So, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Um, I did talk to the city the other day, uh, talked to the mayor, and they're shooting for a 2%, just FYI, a 2% raise, and they've already started making some cuts on some of the budgets that we, you know, we talked about doing maybe a 5% whatever 10% cut in some of the budgets, not on salary. Uh, and, uh, you know, because I I I think we we've got the salary where it needs to be, but there might be that we could trim. That's just my idea. And then also I want everybody to know that's uh interested New Cor Road there's going to be a meeting here tomorrow night at six o'clock. Isn't that correct, Tom? And uh for that overpass over 1:36. So uh there's there's been a lot of interest and questions on that. So I want everybody to know that's going to be tomorrow night. So and then again, thank you guys for doing the the job with with Brian and that I think that's going to be a big that's going to be a big savings for us. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Yeah, I just also like to thank Representative Thompson for being here and all the department heads for for what they do. Also, when we were talking, you had mentioned you had some school people here that wanted to talk, but I don't know that we ever given them a chance. here. I don't know if you wanted to say Rex is being quiet back there, but you got anything you want? All right. Okay. All right. [Laughter]

Thought you didn't want to speak. Yeah. Again, thanks Jeff. You've always been a good team player with our community. You show up to legislating breakfast and you're always there. So, thank you.

Thank you for coming. Um, and then Leah, I was going to let them know on Tuesdays, is it the second Tuesday of the month that we do table talk? The Soil and Water does table talk at the tablespoon and All right. Thank you. And again, thank you uh Jeff for being here. Uh appreciate everybody's uh time for sitting through a longer meeting than normal, but we had a lot of good participation. It was good to see some public members of the public here uh quite a bit. Uh thank you, Rex, for inviting us to your meetingformational meeting a while back. That was very uh helpful as well. That kind of collaboration uh between all of the entities are what's going to get us through this next few years, I believe. So, thank you for that. Um, I did fail to recognize at the start of the meeting, um, I just want to let everybody know Lori Dosset's sister has passed away. So, keep her family in your prayers. And then a longtime employee, Susie Conrad, also passed away. Former dispatcher and worked in the courts, I believe. So, just keep those families in your your thoughts and prayers. I'm sorry I didn't announce that at the start, but uh, we do have, uh, three claims that need approved. Uh, as always, Mr. Taylor would like paid as well as Mr. Peters. and Wagner, Irwin, and Shield.

Have a motion, a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Again, our next uh regular meeting is September 9th, 9:00 a.m. Right here. We do have two special meetings for the budget hearings. August 25th at 4 PM and August or I'm sorry, 25th at 4 pm and 26th at 4 p.m. Sorry, I was sitting too close to my computer. I couldn't see it. Um, and with that, I appreciate everybody's time on this long meeting, and I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.