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For joining us, you'll. 00:00:10
Stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. 00:00:13
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:00:16
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:00:22
Say everybody is here correct? Correct. 00:00:29
If you have cell phones, please. 00:00:33
Do what I'm going to do and silence it. I'm going to turn mine upside down and. 00:00:36
If you need to have a conversation or text a lot, please use the hallways. 00:00:41
We have the one item on the agenda today that I'm aware of. 00:00:47
I'm hoping to have some time for public comment at the end of this meeting. 00:00:52
Just as I get kind of a temperature of the room. 00:00:58
Board and. 00:01:01
Attendees, is there anybody here whose mind is totally open on this subject? 00:01:04
Willing to entertain any and all options. 00:01:11
OK, anybody whose mind is totally closed. All but one option. 00:01:15
Anybody who's willing to entertain multiple options. 00:01:22
You don't need to look confused, I'm just asking a question to set a tone. 00:01:25
I'm willing to work with anybody who has more than one option in mind and I hope we can move the ball forward here during today's 00:01:32
meeting on this. 00:01:36
So we're going to. 00:01:40
Open up here. I think everybody got an e-mail late from me. It was sent late because I received it late, but I got it. 00:01:44
And sent it out within about 10 minutes. 00:01:50
From a bear Pro with her updated numbers and options. 00:01:52
I send it at 3:30. I received it about 3:15. 00:01:59
I sent that. 00:02:04
To Danny, who sent it out, and I sent it to you specifically because you had asked for that specifically as well, so. 00:02:06
We can look those over and talk those a little bit over in a little bit. 00:02:11
I do want to ask Mr. Fox to come and give us some opening remarks before the board goes open because. 00:02:17
Just want to. 00:02:25
Kind of. He's done a little bit of research on this and see where we are and things. 00:02:27
Rick, Fox County Attorney. 00:02:32
I heard that a couple motions were made by the County Council at their meeting after our last joint meeting, so I went back and 00:02:36
with the transcript. 00:02:40
And if anybody has ever done that before. 00:02:45
You can't tell who's saying what that you you can see what was said. 00:02:49
And it also shows what the votes were. 00:02:55
So in terms of them, I wanted to do and find out what the basic motions were that were made by the County Council. 00:03:00
And as best as I can ascertain, the first motion that was made was a motion to support fire board in the EMS. 00:03:11
And the second motion that was made was that. 00:03:21
A motion that we will not fund a full. 00:03:27
County funded EMS service with Ameripro, and both of those motions failed. 00:03:31
So regardless of what the motions are, the the the purpose of doing that was. 00:03:38
To determine. 00:03:46
What the job is of each of the two bodies that are here. 00:03:48
We've got the county commissioners, we've got the County Council. 00:03:52
And the statute that I cited at the last meeting, Indiana Code 16-31-5-1, is clear. 00:03:56
That statute is under the Emergency Emergency Medical Services Statute. 00:04:06
And so it defines who's responsible for what. 00:04:12
And you take this statute and you blend that in with. 00:04:17
The general provisions in terms of duties and responsibilities for the County Council and duties and responsibilities for the 00:04:21
County commissioners. 00:04:26
And it's very clear as to who does what with regards to this subject. 00:04:31
And there's a bright red line. 00:04:37
In terms of. 00:04:39
Who does what? 00:04:41
And at the end of the day, it's very simple and that is that the county commissioners are responsible for. 00:04:43
The emergency medical services, the ambulance. 00:04:50
Services and implementing the ambulance services. 00:04:55
In terms of how they want to do it. 00:05:00
The it's very clear with regards to the statutes that. 00:05:04
The county council's responsibility is that of appropriation. 00:05:09
That is funding. 00:05:14
And so you know I in going through. 00:05:16
The transcript, it seemed to me that the County Council had $800,000 was a number that appeared that they. 00:05:23
Were able to put forth. 00:05:34
And deck against ambulance service, so. 00:05:36
You know, with the job of the County Council being appropriation. 00:05:40
It seems to me that the County Council. 00:05:45
If they have $800,000. 00:05:48
That they could appropriate. 00:05:51
Towards this that. 00:05:53
They've done their job and then it's up to the commissioners to figure out what can they fund with regards to ambulance services 00:05:56
with the $800,000. 00:06:01
And so, once again, the fiscal body, the County Council, is responsible for the funding. 00:06:06
The Commissioners are responsible for, and again, I'll read the statute. 00:06:13
Establish, operate, and maintain emergency medical services. 00:06:17
Authorized franchise or contract for emergency medical services, that is. 00:06:23
They handle the implementation of the services. 00:06:29
The other thing I wanted to point out again, which I talked about last time, and that is. 00:06:34
Passing money off to. 00:06:40
The Highlander Fire Board. 00:06:43
Is in terms of EMS. 00:06:46
Is inappropriate for two for a number of reasons. You know, the first reason is is the state statute. 00:06:50
That flies in the face of what the Commissioners are supposed to be doing. 00:06:58
And it's the state statute says that the commissioners make that decision. 00:07:02
And then you look at the local ordinance, which we talked about and the local ordinance. 00:07:07
Does not provide for Highlander Fire District to implement EMS. 00:07:13
So to pass that money off to a body who doesn't have the authority at this point in time to do EMS makes no sense. 00:07:19
But that's what you'd be doing if you. 00:07:29
If the County Council just took money and sent it to the Highlander Fire District without the input from the commissioners. 00:07:32
You're just setting yourself up for. 00:07:41
A problem with regards to each of the bodies legally. 00:07:44
And you know. 00:07:49
Where I think in terms of the EMS, all I hear from everybody is we got X number of days to get this done. 00:07:53
Well, what we're looking at doing are what the commissioners I know are looking at doing is ambulance service for the whole 00:08:00
county. 00:08:03
And that $800,000, if that gets passed off to the Highlander Fire District, does nothing for the full county. In fact, it it 00:08:07
excludes. 00:08:12
A majority of the county. 00:08:17
So you know you've got a difficult. 00:08:19
Decision to make with regards to. 00:08:25
What you're going to do, are you going to follow the law, which is a state law? 00:08:28
The local ordinance, which is the law? 00:08:32
Or are you going to? 00:08:37
Appropriate, which is what your job is under the statute. 00:08:41
That's all I wanted to say. 00:08:45
OK. Thank you. Mr. Lang, did you, did you have anything that you wanted to add to that? Yep, sure. 00:08:47
I get paid by the hour, right? 00:08:54
$10 00:08:59
I know this stuff is serious. I in. 00:09:00
I don't completely disagree with what Mr. Fox is saying. I. 00:09:04
He grabbed my glasses so I could read a little bit of the statute. 00:09:08
The statute does it most certainly that the county can establish the EMS, but. 00:09:11
So can a city a town, a Township? 00:09:18
Or any combination. 00:09:20
So it's not just the county that can establish the. 00:09:22
An EMS entity. There are a number of. 00:09:25
Local governmental entities that can do this. 00:09:30
So if we had any disagreement, it might be a little bit there. 00:09:33
You've got a political issue here. You got a legal issue. 00:09:37
I think if Lafayette or Greenville or Georgetown or any of those wanted to establish EMS, they could do it legally. 00:09:40
If they. 00:09:48
Could they get everything up and running by June 1st? 00:09:50
Probably not. 00:09:53
So I think really it's more of. 00:09:54
You've got more of a. 00:09:57
Political decision to make here that you do. Anything else? 00:10:00
You have any questions on that? Yeah, when you said? 00:10:03
Greenville could establish their own EMS who can establish it. Not Township. The Township, yeah. 00:10:07
Does the. 00:10:14
Does that statute discuss who would fund? 00:10:15
Such a service. Well, yeah, I mean, obviously the County Council is what's going to fund. But I mean, even if even if a Township 00:10:18
declared their own service, right? Yeah. Mr. Langdon. 00:10:24
Does the statute say in order? 00:10:32
Of what is supposed to be done, whether the appropriation comes first or the contract. 00:10:35
Not that I'm aware of. I thought the question you were going to ask was, is there an order of priority that's right of who can 00:10:42
establish? 00:10:45
It I don't, it doesn't appear to be an order of priority. 00:10:49
What the statute says is the governing body of a city, town, Township or county. 00:10:52
By the governing body's action or in any combination. 00:10:59
May do the following. 00:11:02
Establish, operate, and maintain an Emergency Medical Services Levy taxes they're under. 00:11:04
Authorized franchise or contract for emergency medical services. 00:11:10
So look, I'm not telling you I'm just the dumb attorney. 00:11:14
You guys are elected. 00:11:20
I'm just here saying that there are a number of different things in different ways, different entities that can create it. 00:11:21
But by June 1st? That's tough, but we can't create it for them. 00:11:27
No, they can create. 00:11:32
Thank you and if and if created, they cannot. 00:11:34
Without. 00:11:38
Without approval. 00:11:42
Provide service for another Township. 00:11:44
Or town, That's absolutely correct. 00:11:47
Yes. So in other words, again, let's say Lafayette created an EMS. 00:11:50
Entity Umm. 00:11:54
They can't force their services on Georgetown. 00:11:55
Or New Albany Township. 00:11:58
And again, it doesn't say in which order the appropriation of the contract comes. 00:12:01
But I'll speak to that a little bit because I did talk with David Bertoff and he said that the commissioners should not be signing 00:12:06
contracts. 00:12:11
Without an appropriation, so. 00:12:16
From the legal standpoint? 00:12:20
I don't know either. 00:12:23
And I and can I just say I take a little bit of offense to this because I really think that we need to be working together. Our 00:12:25
job as a council is also. 00:12:30
To come up with the best viable solution. 00:12:35
That is. 00:12:40
That that gives our constituents the safety they need, but also. 00:12:43
Burden them overly, overly burden them. And so we have been trying to do our job in that regard. So I I understand that we need to 00:12:48
work together and I think we're trying to work together to come up with. 00:12:55
With a good solution, I really do. 00:13:02
And and honestly, I take a little bit of offense, offense to the way we're approaching this. We need to come up with a solution 00:13:05
together that works and we don't need right now. 00:13:11
A bunch of legal stuff telling us which way we need to go. I politely disagree because I think if we come up with a solution, 00:13:17
that. 00:13:21
Goes beyond the legal guardrails then we would have to start all those I I agree with that have our discussion frames. I agree 00:13:25
with that with those parameters and that's all that I was wanting to do tonight with having. So if I could just add one more thing 00:13:30
afternoon. 00:13:35
I just add one more thing. 00:13:40
When we're talking about the Highlander Fire District in it Ronnie, and that's gonna not running this, I probably would disagree 00:13:41
to some extent that. 00:13:45
The Highlander ordinance would need to be changed for what they are currently doing. 00:13:50
I think. 00:13:56
The services they're providing now and for what Lafayette has done, I guess for probably 20 years now. 00:13:58
It corresponds with. It runs parallel with. 00:14:04
Their current duties? 00:14:08
Extinguished fires, Emergency medical, emergency services. OK, so I don't think the current. 00:14:11
Ordinance needs to be changed. 00:14:16
However. 00:14:18
If what you're looking for is Highlander, to. 00:14:20
Run its own EMS entity. I think there's a statute for that. 00:14:23
I don't think. I don't think Highlander can create it. I think the county could create it. 00:14:28
I think Lafayette and Greenville townships to band together and create it. 00:14:33
But I don't think for what Highlander is currently doing. 00:14:38
I don't think there needs to be any revisions to that ordinance. 00:14:42
If, however, you want them to do more, I think there would have to be a separate ordinance, you know. 00:14:45
And my first non legal professional instincts would be to agree with that. 00:14:50
I'm sorry I said my I'm not a lawyer. So I said. But my first instincts would be to agree with that last statement, To agree with 00:14:56
that. Yes. Yeah. 00:15:00
All right with that. 00:15:06
I'd like to point out one thing, and yes, Mr. Langdon read through the Statute with regards to who can provide the fire services. 00:15:08
I want to bring your attention to the fact that it doesn't say fire districts. 00:15:20
That's not in the statues. 00:15:25
And I've done very little research on this, but my understanding is, and from what I've looked at, there are a number of fire 00:15:31
districts who do run EMS throughout Indiana. 00:15:35
I have not researched how they got there. 00:15:40
I don't know. 00:15:42
I could, but I've not gotten there. I've not been asked to. 00:15:43
But it is my understanding that there are a number of five districts that do run EMS. Now whether or not you could do that by June 00:15:46
1st, that's a political question that it's above my pay grade. 00:15:51
OK. Thank you Well for you. 00:15:57
You'll both be there if we need questions answered, right? 00:15:59
All right. I want to cover two more things before I. 00:16:03
Kind of go over to Denise because I think she was working on a spreadsheet on a couple of things, but as far as information real 00:16:07
and information perhaps not real. Did everybody receive the letter from the health department? 00:16:13
Yes, I think it was sent out I think by electronically and also snail mail. And I'm not going to read this into the record, I 00:16:20
would just. 00:16:23
Reference two points that might be germane to our conversation later, which is. 00:16:27
At present, they do not feel that the Wrights building would. 00:16:32
Fit their future needs, and it's their contention that they hope that whatever money was earmarked for the future home of the 00:16:36
health department. 00:16:40
Is in some way, if not truly kept as an earmark, some way allocated for how we're going to return that to them in the future? 00:16:44
And then I was addressed by two or three people today about, you know, just putting all options on the table, so to speak. 00:16:51
And the question about, well, what about going to New Chapel to ask them for a one year continuance on the contract, In my opinion 00:17:00
the only way that that would. 00:17:04
Even be something we could discuss would be if they received. 00:17:09
Clearance from the SBOA on the audit that I believe they have undergoing and. 00:17:13
Also. 00:17:18
If the issue that was just in today's paper was was. 00:17:20
Cleared, which is that their former director Jamie Knoll seems to still have access to their. 00:17:24
Credit cards. So until both of those were resolved, I don't think that that's a viable option. 00:17:29
If both of those are resolved, then I think it makes sense to go back and make the ask. 00:17:35
Of what that would be just so that we would have all those options on the table but. 00:17:39
Again, I'm only one of 10 here, but. 00:17:43
In order to to do that, I just don't see where that's anything I want to put the county. 00:17:47
In jeopardy of if someone still has. 00:17:52
Possible access to that credit. 00:17:55
Report and so I'm not seeing any dissenting that I had knots or shakes so. 00:17:58
So yes, that's a possibility. 00:18:03
In the theoretical, theoretical world. But in the practical world, as we discussed that right now, I don't see that as anything 00:18:06
that would move forward. 00:18:10
So with that is kind of a backdrop. 00:18:14
Denise, you and I had a conversation. I didn't have numbers, so I couldn't put a spreadsheet together without knowing what the 00:18:18
options were as far as how much revenues we really needed to produce and just. 00:18:23
So that may or may not seem like it was gamesmanship, but Mr. Rose is here, He'll tell you that I contacted him last night asking 00:18:29
for numbers, and this morning and asking for numbers, and I got the numbers when I got the numbers and you got him 10 minutes 00:18:33
later. 00:18:36
That's the way. That's the way it happened. And I know I got accused of things like that when I was president as well. And 00:18:42
sometimes that's just the way things happen. I understand. 00:18:46
And I get it that you weren't necessarily prepared, but do we have any movement or further thought on anything that we had on the 00:18:51
the chalkboard? 00:18:55
Dry erase board, I believe. I believe Steve did. Dale, you want to pull that out maybe for everybody please. 00:19:00
It's mostly still intact. 00:19:11
Do we know how much we need? 00:19:14
I mean, what are we, What are we looking for here? I mean, so without knowing how much we need. 00:19:16
I mean for the e-mail, yeah, the emails that you have should be accessible to you. If you want to go through it in real time, I 00:19:24
will tell you that. 00:19:28
The one that had the most movement in my mind. And again. 00:19:33
I'm one of ten. There was an option we proposed that was. 00:19:36
The entire county with two ambulances and a chase vehicle, all three ALS certified. 00:19:40
At just over 78,000 a month and that would be. 00:19:45
The quick math that I did $937,200 per year. 00:19:51
Which is less than. 00:19:56
The oh, great, Please. Yeah. And I'm going to kind of highlight those because the one thing that may seem counterintuitive to the 00:19:59
folks is that when they broke it down to the entire county exclusive of. 00:20:05
The High Winder Fire District. 00:20:12
Bandor, Georgetown. The amount of the subsidy went up because they didn't have as many billable runs. 00:20:14
And so the subsidy went up. So. 00:20:21
Connie while she's working on those. 00:20:27
But the, the number from before, if we left the coverage, the same would be unchanged. If we went down by one ambulance then 00:20:32
you're looking at 930-7200. So one thing that I did I want to talk about before we go there is one of the options that's on the 00:20:39
two of the options that's on the table is legacy foundation and one of them is the legacy foundation spend rate. 00:20:46
The difference between what is being granted this year and what. 00:20:54
And what? 00:21:01
And what the spend rate could produce, So $17 million at a 5% spend rate is $850,000. 00:21:05
So I I. 00:21:13
Thought Stephen had put together some. 00:21:16
Umm some some resolution? 00:21:19
Sure. 00:21:26
To ask the. 00:21:31
Legacy foundation for the entire spend rate to go towards that. So the the, the spin rate would be if at 5% would be 850,000. 00:21:34
I don't. They've already got the grants out, I believe, right. And I don't know, have they been vetted? They are being vetted. 00:21:45
The cutoff date for that is the end of next week. My suggestion was to ask. Just ask the legacy board. 00:21:54
To maybe take 350 of that and grant it out and give us the other half million to put against the first year of this. 00:22:04
Ambulance service, so we'd have a half a million to start with. 00:22:17
But I think we need to a resolution to go directly to them. 00:22:21
To ask for that, I don't this seems to be in writing and have you looked at the timing on that? It would have to be a vote. 00:22:25
Now and another vote at the beginning of the year or what is I did after they look at it, there are two sections of that statute. 00:22:31
I think if you go over the. 00:22:40
Now of course I brought that up. I don't have that here in front of me. If you go over the $2,000,000 mark, my memory is you do 00:22:42
have to have it in two different. 00:22:46
We're not. I'm not talking about principle. 00:22:50
Well, that's what the statute talks about. So whether you're talking about the interest generated or the interest generated, it's 00:22:53
not spent because. 00:22:57
So we are talking about principle. I'm just talking about this year's spend rate. OK, let me just what the statute says is at a 00:23:02
joint meeting. 00:23:07
Of commissioners and council members. 00:23:12
Commissioner's vote. 00:23:14
A majority council 5 out of the seven vote for it. You can then access. 00:23:16
The lesser of 10% of the three-year average balance or $2,000,000. 00:23:22
From the principal amount of the donation. There's a statute on that. 00:23:28
Well, everybody's thinking about that, Connie. Can you read those off because I saw some people kind of straining to to see that 00:23:34
because it's down a little bit low, so. 00:23:39
They have four options, Option one. 00:23:43
And option two are the entire county. 00:23:46
Option three and option four are Georgetown and New Albany Township, Sun Link. 00:23:49
Option one is 3 ALS and one quick response vehicle. 00:23:55
1.535 million. 00:23:59
Option two is the entire county to ALS and one quick response. 00:24:03
936,996. 00:24:10
Option 3, which is new, I mean Georgetown, 2 ambulances and one quick response. 00:24:14
That's 1.343. 00:24:22
And then? 00:24:25
Option 4, which is also just new Omni and Georgetown 2 ambulances. 00:24:27
987,000. 00:24:32
So of course I had some questions on those because it says ambulance, it doesn't say ALS, so I'm guessing maybe that means BLS? 00:24:37
It is also ALS. 00:24:46
So all the. 00:24:49
Would you mind coming up just for a second? 00:24:51
And I appreciate you being here. 00:24:56
And I know, I know the numbers that you. 00:24:59
Forwarded over. We're kind of you sent them as soon as you got them from your executive team as well. 00:25:02
So everything that proposal was all ALS certified vehicles regardless. OK, That's correct. OK. 00:25:08
The other question that I had was on the Georgetown. 00:25:16
New Albany, Does that also include Upper Lower Franklin? 00:25:20
Yes, yes, OK. 00:25:25
And then the one question I had just because I don't have all the the. 00:25:27
Numbers from the previous RFP in funding, but was option one the same price as what was listed in the RFP that we received? 00:25:30
The 1.5. 00:25:38
I think it wasn't the original one like 1.6. Yeah, the RFP that we received is, is option one, the same price that we had listed 00:25:41
in the original RFP because I think it was the same level of service. I mean, from a, from a financial standpoint, we're on option 00:25:47
26, I believe on our end, yeah. 00:25:52
I would have to reference the documents to be. I think it's very close. 00:25:59
Totally understood. 00:26:04
OK, well stay nearby to the mic if you will, yeah? 00:26:05
All right. Thank you. Thank you. 00:26:10
So did the resolutions that you have. 00:26:16
I don't know. Do we have resolution? 00:26:21
I mean. 00:26:24
I've not seen them. I I don't know. Do you? 00:26:27
Pretty sure I sent it to Mr. Short. 00:26:31
It's a draft. Obviously. Mr. Fox would want to take a look at it. And and. 00:26:35
You know, make any changes that you guys thought were necessary, but then the statute says. 00:26:39
At a joint meeting. 00:26:44
Commissioners majority vote Council 5 out of seven Social supermajority for the Council. 00:26:45
If you vote together, you can take the lesser of 10% of the three-year average. 00:26:51
Or $2,000,000. 00:26:56
And I think that's different than what I'm asking, although I didn't see the resolution to any. I don't know, did that just not go 00:26:58
out to everybody? 00:27:01
It just came to me for proof. 00:27:06
Proofreading. 00:27:08
And umm. 00:27:09
Didn't disseminate it because. 00:27:11
That wasn't the. 00:27:14
That wasn't a motion that we had on this. 00:27:16
Table and we were still. 00:27:18
Still working with it, so I think it's it's a real reasonable option to consider. Of course, the Council's representation on the 00:27:20
board and the commissioners are only two. 00:27:26
Loads and I think the nieces question is. 00:27:32
Different than just talking about the interest earned this year that would rollback the principle right? And I didn't set up all I 00:27:36
just looked at how do you access I'm sorry but this but what I really want a resolution for I I don't know that I'm. 00:27:44
Wanting to get into the principle, I I think we should talk about that. I think it is a viable option. 00:27:52
And maybe we should take a vote about whether we want to do that or not. But what I'm asking for first of all is just. 00:27:58
There is a 5% spend rate that is available to be used and granted out this year. 00:28:06
By the Legacy Foundation. 00:28:14
If we ask the legacy which produces? 00:28:17
A $850,000. 00:28:21
To be possibly granted out now, we've never granted out the whole 5%. 00:28:24
But could we? 00:28:29
The board of the Legacy foundation. 00:28:31
Only to grant out 350,000 and give us the other 500,000 to support the first year. 00:28:35
At the cost of some of the first year, cost of the ambulance, the new ambulance service, I just brought Mr. Box up to make sure I 00:28:46
wasn't dreaming. But that's something I think we do every year. I think we do it toward the end of the year. I could be wrong, 00:28:52
yeah, but that is. 00:28:57
We do that every year and again it's cooperation between the it's already done for 2024, it's already done and it was 5% that we 00:29:03
signed off on. 00:29:08
So it's available to us. 00:29:13
So that's what I'm asking for. 00:29:17
I mean, I'd like to have. 00:29:20
I mean, my thought is that I am I, I I I hate to go that route, but I think everybody's going to have to give some on this 00:29:22
discussion and I'm willing. 00:29:26
To go that route, provided that we get coverage for the entire. 00:29:31
County. 00:29:35
Again, I think we're getting a cart for the part because I'm not going to go down that road if we're not going to get coverage for 00:29:38
the whole county. 00:29:42
Because. 00:29:46
I mean, one of the things that I'm close minded about is, is. 00:29:48
We have to have coverage for the entire county. 00:29:51
And if we can get that, then I think the other part that I really, really insisted upon is that. 00:29:55
We don't quote, UN quote, kick the can down the road like everybody's been saying we we put together. 00:30:02
A plan to go forward trying to really explore fire based EMS for the whole county, EMS standalone for the whole county, 00:30:08
privatization for the whole campus something that. 00:30:12
Is a Nexus for the whole county. 00:30:16
So I'm willing to. 00:30:18
To go down that road. 00:30:21
And draw some of those funds from there if we can secure. 00:30:24
Coverage for the entire county. 00:30:31
I don't know what other people thought. They all you sit on that board with me, so. 00:30:33
You know that in the past we've always said, well, we don't want to cover normal budget items, which this, well typically it's 00:30:38
been my, you know, y'all pardon me for. 00:30:42
I said at the last meeting that one reason why that statute is so difficult to get the principal out. 00:30:47
And so politicians don't get their filthy, grubby hands on it. 00:30:53
Because once that money. 00:30:56
It's gone pretty much unless we're real discipline like Dave Ramsey wants us to be and I don't think we're that disciplined. 00:30:59
So generally I don't like the idea of. 00:31:05
Tapping into those funds because that was specifically set up for a specific reason, not for general operation. Interesting. 00:31:08
This is not principle we're talking about, just the extra interest that we don't grant. 00:31:16
But still. 00:31:21
Fine line. 00:31:23
I would just like to make the point that. 00:31:29
We already do this. 00:31:31
The commissioners get. 00:31:32
$400,000 a year. 00:31:34
The state doesn't recognize two different silos. 00:31:37
We recognize two different silos. 00:31:39
That's a tournament we made-up. 00:31:42
So we already do this. The commissioners draw $400,000. 00:31:45
Approximately per year to. 00:31:49
Paved roads or fix a bridge or whatever it is that you all. 00:31:51
Do with that. 00:31:56
So. 00:31:58
I would take it a step further. 00:32:00
And for me, I would ask for it every year. 00:32:03
Now that might be extreme to some people, but to me that's a that's a funding source. 00:32:08
So, well, at the moment the Commissioner silos are. 00:32:13
Are obligated to. 00:32:17
Support of various bonds, Absolutely. And I'm not talking about touching your Alls. I'm talking about this. 00:32:19
Extra that is on the granting side. 00:32:24
John. 00:32:30
I'm, I'm taking it all in tonight, guys. I'm sorry. 00:32:32
A lot of discussion here. 00:32:35
Bran. 00:32:36
Tony, Brad. 00:32:39
What? Which thoughts on? Any thoughts on what Denise is proposing with regards to? 00:32:42
Possibly getting after some of the interest money from the legacy. 00:32:47
Because I don't have a lot of data to know. 00:32:56
What's being asked what? 00:32:59
Who is who has applied for grants? I. 00:33:03
Just for me personally, I think I would. 00:33:08
Need to have the. 00:33:11
Legacy board. 00:33:13
Check the the temperature from them. 00:33:16
On what they would recommend based on. 00:33:19
What our request is, I don't know that I have an opinion other than. 00:33:23
I need more data to know. 00:33:28
How I feel about that, I don't have enough. 00:33:30
To go on. 00:33:32
Fair enough. I think more data is. 00:33:33
Better than not enough in the moment. 00:33:36
Jim Yeah, I mean, I'm, I support what Danny says. I think I'd like to see us get part of that money for a long term. And we're 00:33:39
talking about the interests, not talking about digging into the principal. 00:33:45
I think there's quite a bit of money there that we can use as a as a. 00:33:52
Annual source of funding. 00:33:55
So I definitely support that. I will say state also though that. 00:33:58
I don't know the specifics, but I'm aware that the commissioner side. 00:34:02
Took the full 5% for several in a row. 00:34:06
And actually dipped off into principles that this, so that amount is actually less than what we deposited in that account. Is that 00:34:09
what we want to get into and use the whole 5% each year and that that original principle just keeps going down and down and down, 00:34:14
Is that what we're going to get into? 00:34:19
We stopped that as soon as I'm aware of that. So you know, but there was a problem with that. It was, but it it. 00:34:25
It is has not been one in the recent past, but it was just stated that we could use that full 5% each year. That was what I heard. 00:34:32
I don't think I would. 00:34:36
Be hard pressed ever for me to want to dive into principle on that. That's just. 00:34:41
At that point, you're cutting your own risk, but that's not what we're discussing. Needs to be cited at budget time every year 00:34:46
based on projections. I don't. I'm not in favor of. 00:34:50
Dipping into the principal either so. 00:34:54
Right. That's something that we would need to take up every year. There was a probably a timing issue too, because generally 00:34:56
you're going to make more than 5% on an average over long term I. 00:35:01
So I don't see you 5%. 00:35:06
Traditionally going to dip into it over an average it may. 00:35:08
Periodically, but as an average no. And as Danny said, you're going to vote that in each year anyhow. 00:35:13
If you see that it's dropped one year and you're dropping below the three-year average, then yeah, you can change that. 00:35:19
Well, I I would like to see. 00:35:28
I I'd like to see a resolution asking the. 00:35:32
The legacy board to take up that issue to see what their. 00:35:36
What they're willing to to do. 00:35:40
For us, just for one year. 00:35:44
And then we can every year do the same thing, but for this year I think it needs we need to absolutely ask them. 00:35:46
To take a look at. 00:35:53
Putting a. 00:35:55
Upper ceiling on the amount of money that they're going to grant out and then if we can at least for this year, get. 00:35:57
The, the, the difference between what they grant out and the full spend rate, I think that would be a real help for us in this 00:36:08
situation, at least for the first year, but. 00:36:13
The honest to God, I mean we. 00:36:19
We've got to have a sustainable. 00:36:22
Revenue source here. 00:36:26
And. 00:36:29
The only way to do that, especially if we're going to go with a mayor pro full? 00:36:32
County is to put a EMS tax in place. 00:36:40
It I don't I don't see any other way to sustain this over 2 even a two year period. 00:36:45
We're talking $3,000,000. 00:36:54
So without without that I. 00:36:57
I don't see how this works. 00:37:01
And you and I have talked about that and I've talked with several people at the the podium and also in the. 00:37:06
Out, out in our row. 00:37:13
Room tonight. 00:37:17
And I think if you're going to, if we're going to have that level of commitment, we have to have a solid plan in place where we 00:37:19
show people where their money is going to be going. 00:37:23
And again, that, that. 00:37:29
Takes time to do that. It's a hard sell and it's one of those things that I feel like it's the right thing to do. Then I'm willing 00:37:31
to. 00:37:34
But how do we come up with, I'm not saying not to do it, I'm just saying that it needs to be done in a very, very. 00:37:39
Concrete, organized way where we can show people where that money is going to be going and completely agree with you when we've 00:37:47
got till. 00:37:51
October to get there, is that right? 00:37:55
And that's one of those things that if I feel it's the right thing to do and I feel like we can show people the service that 00:37:59
they're getting for it, then I'm willing to. 00:38:03
Put myself up for a personal referendum, you know, come election time, OK? 00:38:07
I think you've said the same. I said the same thing, so. 00:38:11
But again, if you do that and you're and let's say conservatively you're bringing in 2 1/2 to $3,000,000 a year. 00:38:17
Then it becomes. What type of? 00:38:23
Of system are you going to have, is it going to be fire based, is it going to be county based EMS, is it going to be continued to 00:38:25
be privatized? And that's where I agree with Mr. Strie well that we have to have the data to do that because I know John and I or 00:38:30
Jason and I have butted heads on that a little bit because. 00:38:35
He seems to think that. 00:38:41
The county way to go is the way to go with it and I I still intuitively think that privatization. 00:38:42
Might be the way that that would play out, but either way, you have to have the funding, you have to have a funding source, it 00:38:47
doesn't matter, or else we come back to this discussion. 00:38:51
Every year. How are we going to pay Peter, Rob, Peter to pay Paul? 00:38:56
And I don't know, Baker Tilly is going to be down here next week, is that right? 00:39:00
And I mean, I I really want to ask them what their uh. 00:39:07
What their suggestions are for? 00:39:12
For funding something like this, is it appropriate to? 00:39:18
To really take down your cash reserve to nearly nothing over the next two years. 00:39:22
And I think the other side of that coin is we have asked them to look at what a. 00:39:30
An EMS. 00:39:35
Local income tax will bring in, right so. 00:39:36
And and so yes, I'm looking forward to having them here as well so we can get more information. 00:39:40
And again, I compliment Brad. I'm putting this meeting together because it was a nice bridge to the next meeting that we're going 00:39:47
to have and getting some of these questions and other things out of the way. 00:39:51
Or on the table, so to speak. 00:39:55
Let me ask you a question. So you've got 500,000. 00:39:58
And this is for the entire county, so where does the other? 00:40:02
Option one is 1.5, so you're still short 1,000,000. 00:40:07
Option 2. 00:40:10
Is you'll be short 437,000 Well for the first year I. 00:40:12
With the mayor pro option. 00:40:20
At. 00:40:24
See, you see, half of $1.4 million is what I use. Like I said, I didn't have exact numbers. So at 1.4 million for 2024, we're only 00:40:27
going to be doing seven months, right? 00:40:34
So. 00:40:42
That's 800 and let's call it $820,000 that we need to come up with for 2024. 00:40:43
So if we get the 500, we would still need any other 320,000. 00:40:51
To cover that. 00:40:56
So we could use another 125 in riverboat. 00:40:59
And my suggestion would be that the. 00:41:04
The rest of that would need to come out of ARPA money. 00:41:07
That's my suggestion. 00:41:11
What's that balance? 00:41:13
No, but what you said the rest of that, but what is the rest, What is the number in here? 00:41:15
200,192 thousand. 00:41:41
So 200,000, yeah, and then? 00:41:44
And I think again, what we have to kind of come back and entertain is. 00:41:47
Is option 2 something Option 2 is not less coverage than what we have now? 00:41:52
I'm in favor of option 2. 00:41:58
And I'll just do the quick math like you just did. That leaves us 546,000 for the next seven months. 00:42:01
Finish up this calendar year. 00:42:07
125,000 from riverboat. We've got 100,000 approximately budgeted. 00:42:12
For the for the next seven months, right around there. 00:42:18
Which leaves us about 325. Could easily be done with. 00:42:21
Legacy or. 00:42:28
Part of what the recorder is returning, that's not going toward. 00:42:32
Sheriff's repairs. 00:42:35
Rainy day. 00:42:39
So 100,000 from the Commissioners movie. So I might, I'm just going to say this, so I think the first year we can cover this, my 00:42:40
problem is sustainability. 00:42:44
In year 2025 and in 2026, I mean we need to come up with. 00:42:49
$1.5 million for 2025 and. 00:42:56
You know, 583,000 for 2026. 00:43:00
OK, because I assume the contract is going to go from. 00:43:07
June 1st to. 00:43:12
Yeah, Danny Kirk, if I'm wrong what you were taught option #2, is that right? 00:43:14
That's what I was talking about, yes. 00:43:19
She did option one and I did option two. Yes, that's right. 00:43:22
But again, my problem is not the first year. I think we can sustain this the first year. I think we can come up with the money the 00:43:28
first year. 00:43:31
Without digging too far into our. 00:43:36
Rainy Day fund. 00:43:40
But then in 22 in 2025 we really. 00:43:41
Draining our rainy day and then we have the health department coming on board then too. And lots of other things, right? Yes, but 00:43:46
with option two, I will say that. 00:43:50
The executive team that America Pro stated that they were more than confident that they could cover the needs of the county with 00:43:54
that. Now again, that's not. 00:43:58
Super optimal if you will. It's not, it's not. 00:44:02
But the Advisory Board had recommended. 00:44:06
And I think that's the most important thing that came out of that board is in an ideal situation, this is what we would want. 00:44:09
But if we went with option. 00:44:15
And then we also. 00:44:17
The thing I like about that is it kind of gives. 00:44:20
Any fire district that wants to provide EMS kind of incubator time to get an organization together and give us. 00:44:24
A look at what Fire based EMS. 00:44:30
Would look like. 00:44:32
You know, are we willing to give them any kind of money to staff up? Well, they already have. 00:44:35
Two ambulances that have been giving to them but. 00:44:41
Again, uh. 00:44:44
In the world of give and take, I'm willing to look at possibly. 00:44:46
Giving them some money. 00:44:51
With the proviso. 00:44:52
New Albany Township needed it. We have to play equal with everybody. If Georgetown needed it, we have to make sure that. 00:44:54
They all are treated. 00:45:00
You know equally, or at least on a pro rated basis on their population. I completely agree with that. 00:45:02
So. 00:45:09
But one thing too. 00:45:12
If our ordinances are not up where they should be. 00:45:15
For fire based EMS we need to get them up. 00:45:18
That way across the board. 00:45:21
For New Albany Township, for Georgetown and Highlander, they all at the same level. So that way. 00:45:24
There's no question. Is it Someone mentioned, is it for transport only or. 00:45:31
But they all need to be at the same level, so that way. 00:45:37
Because if we do option two, we're going to, we're going to be depending on. 00:45:40
Highlander and also Georgetown to be responding. 00:45:44
OK. Because at some point in time, AMR Mayor Pro, I'm sorry. 00:45:48
Ameripro may have a shortage. Are you going to guarantee is 2 ambulances? Is that correct? 00:45:52
And Chase and the chase. 00:45:57
OK, so we're going to have to have backup with with Georgetown and Highlander. 00:45:59
In order to do that. 00:46:05
And I think at some point. 00:46:07
It makes a logical sense to also talk to the city about formal MO use with regards to backup as well. 00:46:09
And and really broaden this discussion and. 00:46:17
Edit Niece Edward, we're kind of all in this together. We need to work in IT. We need to work together to make this happen. And I 00:46:21
don't think the city would be opposed to doing that. I mean, America already provides services for the city of New Albany, so. 00:46:27
Anyway, the. 00:46:37
We got the data when we got the data. So that's we're doing the best we can with that at this moment in time, but we do have the 00:46:42
23rd. 00:46:45
Around the corner too, and I would look for that to be a what does anybody think about about 25 and 26? I don't think we can 00:46:48
really go into this. 00:46:53
My thoughts are on the table. You know I I really look. 00:47:01
I think Jimmy'z observations earlier on about having to have discussion about it. 00:47:05
Trimming portions of the budget, I think that kind of would get us part of the way there. I don't think it would get us all the 00:47:12
way there, but a big step forward. 00:47:16
And you know, I fought him for for kind of champion going down that road and I look forward to our meeting. 00:47:21
Put that in mind on the 23rd. 00:47:28
And I'm I really think that we need to. 00:47:31
Explore the option of a local income tax Dedicated. 00:47:36
And I mean dedicated via IT be a non reverting fund dedicated to EMS services. I think we'll have a clearer picture Monday or 00:47:39
Tuesday. 00:47:43
On the outlook as well. 00:47:47
I mean, right now we're just kind of revenues, yes, the forecast. 00:47:49
You know what we look like? 00:47:54
Now and what we looks like we're going to end the year at and. 00:47:56
So that I mean that's. 00:48:01
That's a big piece of the puzzle for. 00:48:03
25 as well. 00:48:06
Have you heard any of you? Heard anything more concretely about the 350,000 from the reporter's office? 00:48:08
Yeah. 00:48:16
Sheriff's Department Chicken Sheriff took some of the first repairs, so. 00:48:18
I mean, he's got a new suit on him it all. I'm only joking. 00:48:22
It all went to general. 00:48:30
So it's not. 00:48:33
I mean, it's like we dedicated it to him, but. 00:48:34
And we did already have an expenditure that was unexpected. So that was a joke. I do want to go on the record just saying that. I 00:48:37
think he's been doing an admirable job stringing along on, I mean. 00:48:43
We don't have to talk budgetary items too often, although I know we're going to be talking about next week. Again, it's been. 00:48:49
Kind of reactionary over there, but you've got an old shift you're trying to keep afloat. 00:48:55
Let me ask one out real quick before we go on is you know as we talk more and more about. 00:49:00
Stand alone or Firebase? I would like to remind that everyone on this board is that we do not have an established fire district in 00:49:07
Franklin Township, so I'm not sure. 00:49:12
What the plan would be to provide them? 00:49:17
EMS in accordance to that plan. So I just wanted to point that out. 00:49:21
They might be working toward that. 00:49:26
Let me ask Jim a question, Jim. Robert. 00:49:29
You know your concern was and help me with the terminology where. 00:49:31
The Burp Pro Bills. 00:49:37
And the what's what's in excess of insurance to be responsible? 00:49:40
For the for the the patient. 00:49:45
Yeah, the individuals. Yeah, the Ameripro. 00:49:48
Averaged almost double of what Hollander Fire District was. 00:49:51
Putting their numbers out which? 00:49:55
Come out very close to what the information I got with our home county is paying for our employees. 00:49:57
So that means half of that bill is going to go directly to some of these individuals to payout of pocket in addition to whatever 00:50:05
taxes they're going to have to pick up to cover all this. So what's your feelings on that? I'm just, I'm curious because I think 00:50:11
that's a good argument. I don't know. I mean, I thought I heard Al make a comment. 00:50:16
Prior and prior. 00:50:22
The Ms. Advisory Group that those are things we need to look at and that's a big concern of mine is the additional out of pocket 00:50:25
expenses. 00:50:28
Provider that. 00:50:35
If if you saw Jason as a dermatologist across the street from me as a dermatologist, you may get two different bills based upon. 00:50:39
What contract rate we set with our insurance providers but at the end of the day. 00:50:47
A lot of that is written off because you're only allowing too much of the of the. 00:50:53
To build anyway, a lot of that goes back to Medicare rates and I assume the ambulance world works a little bit that way as well 00:50:58
where most things are keyed towards Medicare rates, but. 00:51:02
Just because you build $100 doesn't mean that you're going to. 00:51:08
Receive $100. Nor does it mean that you're necessarily going to stick the patient with. 00:51:12
Nor does it mean that you're going to stick the patient with the balance on that. 00:51:17
But again, Joe, that might be something if you guys could look at and maybe. 00:51:22
Jim, if you could give him a more kind of detailed question that he could prepare for with regards to that at the meeting on the 00:51:27
23rd? 00:51:31
I guess I'm confused. They quoted some numbers and now you're saying those numbers aren't accurate or they're going to change, 00:51:37
they're going to be pliable. That's like I guess they they are the medical world building is very pliable, which is why you have, 00:51:42
you know, a billing service and. 00:51:48
Yeah, none of it's. None of it's crystal clear. It's not like going to a restaurant and ordering a steak for $40 and paying $40 at 00:51:55
the end of the the meal. 00:51:58
But Joe didn't come up with that, nor did, nor did I. 00:52:03
Yeah, it seems, I mean it seems like they would put that in their quote. I mean we know for a fact Hollander Fire District, what 00:52:06
theirs is going to be is probably going to fall within the range of most insurances, so. 00:52:10
It's not even gonna be a question. There's not gonna be. 00:52:14
Ambiguity or Gray areas or hoping that they don't get build additional amounts. 00:52:17
And that that may be for the first year, but what they might find is they can't continue with that reality. 00:52:23
They might find that they can. I'm just. 00:52:29
Again, pliability. 00:52:31
I like that word. 00:52:33
I'm just looking at the board. 00:52:42
To see if there are any. 00:52:44
We talked about legacy, we talked about the recorder, we talked about riverboat, we talked about. 00:52:48
The CARES act a little bit at least is wanting to not touch that if possible. 00:52:54
I guess was that portion that was already budgeted for 2024 included in that initial discussion for the remainder, yeah, I added 00:53:02
approximately 100,000. 00:53:07
For the rest of your. 00:53:12
And then the rainy day fund. 00:53:14
Again, you have the option of taking it all or taking it none, and Baker Tilly's going to kind of tell us what makes. 00:53:20
Reasonable sense so that we don't overexpose ourselves. I I agree. I think we need Baker to weigh in on that. I mean, we know 00:53:25
that. 00:53:29
We, I mean, we had two breakdowns of the. 00:53:33
Elevator this week. I mean, we can't. And the thermostat? We can't leave ourselves completely exposed with no cash on them. We 00:53:37
just can't. 00:53:41
I will say more information will be forthcoming, but. 00:53:49
All of the studies and everything that we've done on the building to date this year have been covered by the. 00:53:54
The fund that was put in place for it, the funding source that was put in place for if the projections. 00:53:59
Meet out so. 00:54:05
So with the two with the option #2. 00:54:07
Um, it seems like Highlander is going to be. 00:54:12
Running ambulances up there, then. 00:54:16
Some of the time I think they would be called upon for backup as their ServiceNow exists and like John said. 00:54:19
I think there's a need to flesh out and further define. 00:54:25
What the fire districts may and may not do and make that. 00:54:29
Uniform across. 00:54:33
All districts. 00:54:36
Is that something that's going to? 00:54:38
And you said we need to make sure we have dates and make sure that we, you know, have some metrics when, when will something like 00:54:40
that. 00:54:43
Be done before we get into a contract? 00:54:48
With the mayor from. 00:54:51
Even as far as trying to put. 00:54:53
To rewrite these charters, yes. 00:54:56
I would. 00:54:59
Get up to get my boat. That's got to be done. I want to make sure it's. 00:55:02
It's not a promise. It's a it's going to be done. But I don't know that that can be. I mean. 00:55:05
Rick you would be the one writing those charters so and just a matter of men the the ordinances is all it is right. So whether or 00:55:11
not that. 00:55:15
Can be done in a timely I'm. 00:55:20
What would be your projection on that? 00:55:24
We would have to have your initial draft and input on that and input from any of the. 00:55:26
Fire boards that wanted to have input on that and then. 00:55:33
The majority of the commissioners to approve whatever we put together. So is that doable in two weeks? Is it doable in? 00:55:36
I think probably. 00:55:45
OK. So we could tentatively. 00:55:49
Have an agreement together and I'm sure there's ordinances out there already, Rick. 00:55:51
You know the fire districts have already. 00:55:56
Been created or commissioned have created ordinances. 00:56:00
Providing EMS. 00:56:04
Barbasing this service, so it's not. 00:56:05
You know, it's not like, you know, creating a new wheel. It's, you know, I'm sure there's some out there. 00:56:08
And on the 7th day he rested right? You don't. You don't rest on Sunday stuff. 00:56:19
Well, I mean, I think the majority of that is not so much the graphic. 00:56:25
What it is that you're doing with? 00:56:31
The Stakeholders County Council and includes the fire districts themselves. 00:56:32
Right now for the other fire districts. 00:56:42
My my question is. 00:56:47
Who approves the revisions or the new charter or? 00:56:49
Is that a function of the commissioners or is that the individual fire districts or townships or? 00:56:53
Just the target. 00:56:59
Defines what happens in fireworks. 00:57:04
Defines or what does happen or what might happen if they decide to do that right? 00:57:09
It doesn't mandate anybody to do something. It just kind of sets some parameters on what they they may do and I think whatever we 00:57:16
put together, if we did it. 00:57:20
You know, in a short enough time frame to make everybody as comfortable as they can be, I mean. 00:57:25
All of these chargers can be fine-tuned. 00:57:30
Down the road as well. 00:57:34
So you know what you're doing is laying out with the ordinance that commissioners. 00:57:36
What they can do, but then they're going to have to go to the County Council to get the funding for what it is. 00:57:43
Or I mean, is it possible in the Charter just to say that it will be covered by the fire districts through their levy? 00:57:53
That's. 00:58:00
I'm willing to work with anybody on that. 00:58:10
Make it happen as fast as it can be done. 00:58:12
We probably reach out to them. 00:58:16
Coming, she would, probably. 00:58:18
No, there, I've used the agent for George for New Albany. 00:58:21
And also for Highland. 00:58:26
And a couple in Clark County as well. 00:58:28
I'll reach out to Urban on him. 00:58:31
All right, Mr. Chairman, I won't weigh in a little bit. A couple things. 00:58:36
It's not my decision to make. 00:58:41
But I would. 00:58:43
Recommend version #2. 00:58:44
And it will be a slightly better than we have now because it's got a 24 hour chase vehicle which we don't have now. So it's 00:58:47
slightly better than what we have now. 00:58:51
Only got two 2 1/2 Hamlets is now. 00:58:55
We'll have two ambulances plus a chase vehicle, so it's slightly better than what we currently have. 00:58:58
Like I say, I understand it's not my decision to make. 00:59:03
But I would recommend that my from where I sit and then also I'll just make a. 00:59:06
A statement that. 00:59:11
I think government, I tell people that, tell people all the time, told my son this very day. I said local government's job is to 00:59:13
provide services for the community. That's. 00:59:17
All we do. 00:59:23
And in my mind, that's public safety and infrastructure. 00:59:24
That's very limited. 00:59:28
And at the end of the day, somebody got to pay for it. 00:59:30
And if that includes a tax increase, then that may well be what has to happen at the end of the day. 00:59:33
Mr. Fox, in order, if we were to. 00:59:41
Agree to pursue option 2. 00:59:46
Would not the Commissioners have to convene and? 00:59:49
Formally make that. 00:59:52
Our recommendation? Right now we have. 00:59:54
Basically option A that we have formally proposed. 00:59:57
So if we were going to. 01:00:01
Now pursue option 2. 01:00:03
Would we not have to formally do so? 01:00:06
You would have to formally do that. 01:00:09
Do it through contract and the. 01:00:14
County Council. 01:00:18
The approach whatever funding fixed money took place where that's where it comes from. 01:00:21
OK. 01:00:27
And I'm not prepared to do that at this moment because having just received that data a few hours ago, I'm I would really need to 01:00:29
Mull that over, but we could certainly have a. 01:00:34
Meeting prior to the 23rd to. 01:00:39
To confirm. 01:00:42
About that. 01:00:45
I'm sorry. I got a hard stop at 5:30. OK? Do you have anything else that you? 01:00:49
OK. 01:00:54
Anybody else have a hard stop? 01:00:56
OK, umm. 01:00:59
Well, any final comment from that you just gave us some final comment Mr. Bagshaw and. 01:01:02
And at this moment you do not have any correct. OK. 01:01:09
I I do. Are you going on the line? 01:01:14
Yeah, I want to do that. And then, you know, but if they need to leave, they need to leave and then we can. You know, I don't have 01:01:16
a hard stop tonight, so anybody I definitely would want to hear some public comment on. 01:01:21
On that so. 01:01:27
Tony, I don't have anything. I just received these options. This is first opportunity, but I've had to look at them when I sat 01:01:28
down here tonight. So I don't, I don't have anything at this time. 01:01:34
Several things. Again, just received this right before the meeting, so really haven't had an opportunity to to go through it. Do 01:01:44
you have a clarification question on? 01:01:49
Option 3:00 and 4:00. 01:01:54
Does that include? 01:01:57
Franklin Township. 01:01:59
OK. 01:02:02
I'm going to digest the data I think I have. 01:02:05
Some ideas? 01:02:10
That would help the discussion. 01:02:11
I need to bet this before, you know, I just wasn't prepared for this meeting to present those. I know we have a full agenda on the 01:02:14
23rd on Tuesday. 01:02:18
So I hope there's ample time to present that. 01:02:23
And is that you all have a meeting directly after that or no, so no one does. We already had our monthly meeting, so. 01:02:28
At what time? 01:02:36
5:30. 01:02:40
It's our meeting at 4:00 or 4:30. 01:02:41
So we're starting to. 01:02:44
Agenda well, what we can, I mean this, this clearly takes priority over everything else. So you know we can very, very brief or we 01:02:46
can remove some other agenda items that could be. 01:02:51
Put EMS at the top and. 01:02:59
Leave everything else for right now. 01:03:02
That that. 01:03:12
That makes the most sense. And then we got. Baker. Tilly is going to present numbers as well, so we got. 01:03:13
I'll see if I can get them to. 01:03:19
E-mail their packet Monday. 01:03:22
And then? 01:03:24
If we still want them to present, we can or we can ask questions, or we can because they're going to remote in anyway so. 01:03:26
Susanna, do you have a? 01:03:33
This Community Foundation still in there. 01:03:39
Susannah, did you? 01:03:43
E-mail to all asking for questions. 01:03:45
If you all have anything here before. 01:03:49
You know, as of today, she has her backroom in front of them, so we all can get those in. That book didn't say sometimes too. And 01:03:52
there's no alternate site for the health department meeting to take place. 01:03:57
OK, so we'll we'll we'll we'll work to try to create as much time as possible for this. 01:04:07
Yeah, cuz I again. 01:04:13
I think there are a lot of good things that were discussed here. I'm going to have some ideas about. 01:04:16
Some timelines and some and some things that we need to hit in order to make things happen. I. 01:04:23
Obviously don't agree with option 2, but I'm going to, I want to. I want to be able to fully bet what that, what that means and. 01:04:30
Be able to provide something that had that the whole county. 01:04:37
Has service and others a narrative out there about partial you know leaving some some people hanging in some townships and that's 01:04:40
obviously not the case I. 01:04:45
From from my standpoint, so want to be able to do to be able to be able to present. 01:04:50
From this an option five that's not here and be able to present that to the public, to the to everybody here. And then I want to 01:04:56
clarify one thing that was said earlier in the meeting. 01:05:01
Which is that the Council put forth 2 motions and both of them failed. They did not fail, they were withdrawn. 01:05:07
So that needs to be cleared for the paper and anybody else that's here or that's listening. 01:05:16
Denise. 01:05:23
I think we work together well tonight and move this thing along further than we were. I'm anxious to see what Brad has don't have 01:05:25
a, don't have an idea, but. 01:05:31
I I do like the way we work together tonight. 01:05:39
Came up with some. 01:05:43
Good, Good progress. 01:05:45
All right. Thank you, Jim. 01:05:47
Yeah, there's really not a lot I can add. I think we're just going to need to meet again Tuesday and get some of this additional 01:05:51
information to really. 01:05:54
Move this any further at this point. 01:05:59
Connie. 01:06:01
It's hard for me to come up with a. 01:06:08
Pending source for future years when we don't know. 01:06:11
Where we're headed? 01:06:17
I think the more information and the more that we drill down on. 01:06:18
What's going to happen in three years? 01:06:23
I think at that point. 01:06:26
Give much more information and a much better educated decision on how to fund. 01:06:29
Going forward? 01:06:35
Thank you. 01:06:38
I just I had a question for a point of. 01:06:41
Clarification and I meant to ask this at the last meeting in the Highlander plan, does that include for billing department? 01:06:43
Is that all in? Is that I think they allowed 7% for billing or something like that if my there was a. 01:06:51
I believe the page that I thought it made presented, it probably did, but I just want to make sure that was in there. I didn't 01:06:58
know if it was. Are you saying that the subsidy number, does that include reimbursements? No. Does that include them employing 01:07:03
people for? 01:07:07
Billing. Oh yes. I think the last line allocated like 7:00. They have a contract or something like that. OK, that's I just want to 01:07:12
make sure that was in there and we didn't. 01:07:17
You know, leave something off. I was just. 01:07:22
Came to mind, so I. 01:07:26
No, I. 01:07:29
Yeah, we're we're getting closer. We just Baker Tilly's projections will be a big piece and I. 01:07:31
Yeah, we don't really have much else. We're. 01:07:41
Good, Good conversation. 01:07:45
Jason, it's one of my everybody were 43 days out from this contract being expired. 01:07:47
And you know when we get to the decision. 01:07:52
Be fruitful. 01:07:56
I think the constant addition of different options is becoming very taxing, but. 01:07:58
I appreciate the conversation. I'd like to. 01:08:03
All right, and. 01:08:05
I enjoyed conversation. I always do and glad about everybody's. 01:08:07
Kind of helpful approach tonight with things. 01:08:13
I think it's very productive and. 01:08:16
I'm gonna try to continue to keep my mind open to. 01:08:18
Multiple options as well. 01:08:22
Joe, thank you for being here tonight. Thank you everybody else for being here in attendance and as promised, I do want to leave. 01:08:24
Can you raise your hand if you are wanting to have public comments? We got 1234. 01:08:31
All right, A5. 01:08:37
All right, so let's do. 01:08:39
2 minutes each there, if you will, Sir. If you want to come up here, first is we'll need a name and. 01:08:42
At a minimum, kind of county of. 01:08:48
Residency and. 01:08:50
Dan Schmidt, Floyd County UP near Starlight. 01:08:52
My questions? Everything you've been doing and this may compound the whole issue. 01:08:56
Is you're talking about a county wide ambulance service? 01:09:02
And not once have I heard anything. 01:09:07
About what? New Albany. The city of New Albany? 01:09:09
Is doing as far as England. 01:09:13
Aren't they part of the county? 01:09:15
Where are they involved in this whole picture? 01:09:18
At present they have a separate contract with the mayor wondering how it's going to, how that all ties together, Because it 01:09:21
should. At the moment. It would not tie together. My hope would be at the future that we could have conversations with them on 01:09:26
that, but right now they have. 01:09:32
Their own contract, just like they have their own Parks Department, Police Department and things like that. 01:09:38
So because I think it's. 01:09:44
If you're talking county wide. 01:09:45
Let's say hey. 01:09:49
It is counting. Why? 01:09:51
You're preaching to the choir. 01:09:53
So that's my question. All right, very good question, very good thought and much appreciated. 01:09:56
All right. 01:10:02
Anyone on the on stage? 01:10:04
On my left, Mister Man. 01:10:08
Man, George, I appreciate you all working on this pretty hard, everybody. 01:10:16
I say again, what Georgetown Township has, what my neighborhood has is the best we can get and why everybody else is complaining. 01:10:20
Lafayette, Greenville, Something's wrong. 01:10:26
But if you put Merrick Pro in and Georgetown Fire Department does what they do that helps their first parent. I don't know Green 01:10:32
if Lafayette does that or not. 01:10:36
But it works fine and I'm very satisfied, and I don't think you can find anybody in Georgetown that's not satisfied with the way 01:10:41
it worked. 01:10:44
There's something wrong somewhere else is in the county. Thank you. 01:10:48
Thank you. 01:10:51
I think there was another hand back. Another. Yes, Sir. 01:10:53
Tim Hobson, Georgetown. I'll be really brief. 01:11:06
Good job. You guys worked really hard today. I applaud you for all your hard work and the way you guys worked with each other 01:11:10
today. 01:11:14
And I hate to disagree with Mr. Bagshaw after he left. 01:11:18
But I am a child of the 70s and I grew up for Watergate. 01:11:22
And I do trust honest politicians. 01:11:28
But I do not trust crooked politicians. 01:11:32
And I have to say, I was really disappointed that the name New Chapel continues to come up. 01:11:35
In the conversations and I would love it. 01:11:42
If you would restore Mr. Bagshaw and the rest of the public's confidence in politicians. 01:11:47
I no longer mentioning their names, right? We know they have issues. 01:11:54
I'm not quite sure why that still comes up. Thank you. 01:11:59
All right. Thank you. Anyone else in the middle? 01:12:03
And on the right hand side we have 2-3 people, all right. 01:12:07
Yeah, I'll just go. 01:12:11
I'll the Wall. 01:12:13
Thank you. I'm Michael Moody, Georgetown IN. I'm the chairman of the Georgetown Township Fire Protection District Board. 01:12:17
At our meeting last night, we passed a motion in support of the commissioners negotiating with Mayor Pro to accept their proposal 01:12:24
for two years. 01:12:28
Georgetown stands by to continue the conversation on what EMS is going to look like in our county in the future. 01:12:34
We're not saying that's the end all be all, but it gives us time to get the right people together to work on the issue. 01:12:40
Georgetown, very much appreciate the public comments towards the work that's done. 01:12:46
We work really hard to provide the best service possible. We're the largest fire department on the Hill. 01:12:51
And we do a really good job fiscally. 01:12:56
I think that we can bring something to the conversation. 01:13:00
We haven't been asked. 01:13:03
So I'll just leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you. 01:13:05
I have one more and then you're going to close this out. 01:13:12
Really glad to see movement. 01:13:20
Thank you again. There's the other people said for your hard work. 01:13:24
I am sad to see, though that you're. 01:13:29
Considering anything other than option one? 01:13:32
Somebody one day. 01:13:36
We'll have a very bad outcome. 01:13:40
Because they didn't have the quick response. 01:13:43
They didn't have a Pyramid plug. 01:13:47
I, as I've preached so much about DMS tax 3750 is actually what it was. 01:13:50
These achievements and the other day 39373750 was my steam. 01:13:58
EMS This is all my life. 44 years of EMS. 01:14:06
In Perry County, Harrison County, wherever. 01:14:11
I've had to. 01:14:13
Bay County government to fund EMS where it should be funded at. 01:14:15
Just one little thought for you, OK. 01:14:22
We're talking about doing less to save money on EMS. Something. 01:14:26
We're talking about. 01:14:31
People's lives. 01:14:33
Would you all consider? 01:14:35
Telling the sheriff. 01:14:38
We need to save some money on your sheriffing. 01:14:40
And we're going to cut. We're going to cut 2. 01:14:43
Road officers. 01:14:46
For every shift. 01:14:48
Or would you cheat? 01:14:52
And say, well, we'll give you one. 01:14:54
Actual law enforcement. 01:14:57
Two security guards with guns. 01:14:59
And one security guard to go around you accident reports. 01:15:02
I don't think you would, because that's not what we want, not what I want. I love what the Sheriff's Department does. 01:15:06
I'm sure my time to. 01:15:13
You had 10 seconds. Good job. 01:15:14
Again. 01:15:18
Please always remember. 01:15:20
What the service is about? 01:15:23
All right. Thank you very much. 01:15:25
All right. 01:15:28
Diana Mayfield, Excuse me, 6408 Rick Drive, Floyd Doms. 01:15:40
I appreciate the way you all kind of talked back and forth and worked. 01:15:47
Together tonight. It's a shame we couldn't have seen that a month ago, but. 01:15:50
It's here. All right. I have a question on Highlander. They were issued or? 01:15:55
Two ambulances were brought earlier in the year, I was told with care funds, and I had a Highlander farm and tell me they're 01:16:02
expecting another one to be delivered in January that's being paid for the same way. What's going to happen to those two 01:16:08
ambulances? We go to America. 01:16:14
They, you know, there's $500,000 right there that could have went. 01:16:22
For the budget. 01:16:26
So that that's an issue for me. 01:16:29
Then if you say that it's one went to Greenville Township and one went to Lafayette Township, that's fine. 01:16:32
Because Greenville Lafayette merged, and it's all Highlander now. 01:16:39
So that's just kind of under the cover there. And as far as coverage, there's no excuse not to cover New Albany and Franklin 01:16:43
townships. You can't ignore the fact that they're part of the county and they deserve to be treated as such. It's not fair to 01:16:51
treat them like unwanted stepchildren. Adding this coverage amount will put will race. 01:16:58
The bids, I'm sure, but it's something that you have to do is decent human beings. You have to cover the whole county, there's no 01:17:07
doubt about it. And last meeting there was discussion of $600,000 in an Internet fund. John Schoenberger didn't want to touch 01:17:13
that. 01:17:19
All right. Well, sometimes you don't want to touch things that you got to do and. 01:17:25
That's 600,000 that you've got available. 01:17:32
And he wants to keep it for Internet if you have about 15 seconds if your child gets hurt. 01:17:34
Are you going to worry about the Internet? Are you going to worry about the ambulance? 01:17:42
I think that's a pretty. 01:17:47
You know, plain answer there. 01:17:49
And that's it. I will tell you one thing though. 01:17:52
25 years ago, I thought about getting into politics. My daddy told me don't do that. You're not sneaky enough. And I have to say 01:17:56
now I can agree with my dad. Sounds like a wise man. All right, I have a motion to adjourn. All right, all in favor. 01:18:05
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For joining us, you'll. 00:00:10
Stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance, please. 00:00:13
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, 00:00:16
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 00:00:22
Say everybody is here correct? Correct. 00:00:29
If you have cell phones, please. 00:00:33
Do what I'm going to do and silence it. I'm going to turn mine upside down and. 00:00:36
If you need to have a conversation or text a lot, please use the hallways. 00:00:41
We have the one item on the agenda today that I'm aware of. 00:00:47
I'm hoping to have some time for public comment at the end of this meeting. 00:00:52
Just as I get kind of a temperature of the room. 00:00:58
Board and. 00:01:01
Attendees, is there anybody here whose mind is totally open on this subject? 00:01:04
Willing to entertain any and all options. 00:01:11
OK, anybody whose mind is totally closed. All but one option. 00:01:15
Anybody who's willing to entertain multiple options. 00:01:22
You don't need to look confused, I'm just asking a question to set a tone. 00:01:25
I'm willing to work with anybody who has more than one option in mind and I hope we can move the ball forward here during today's 00:01:32
meeting on this. 00:01:36
So we're going to. 00:01:40
Open up here. I think everybody got an e-mail late from me. It was sent late because I received it late, but I got it. 00:01:44
And sent it out within about 10 minutes. 00:01:50
From a bear Pro with her updated numbers and options. 00:01:52
I send it at 3:30. I received it about 3:15. 00:01:59
I sent that. 00:02:04
To Danny, who sent it out, and I sent it to you specifically because you had asked for that specifically as well, so. 00:02:06
We can look those over and talk those a little bit over in a little bit. 00:02:11
I do want to ask Mr. Fox to come and give us some opening remarks before the board goes open because. 00:02:17
Just want to. 00:02:25
Kind of. He's done a little bit of research on this and see where we are and things. 00:02:27
Rick, Fox County Attorney. 00:02:32
I heard that a couple motions were made by the County Council at their meeting after our last joint meeting, so I went back and 00:02:36
with the transcript. 00:02:40
And if anybody has ever done that before. 00:02:45
You can't tell who's saying what that you you can see what was said. 00:02:49
And it also shows what the votes were. 00:02:55
So in terms of them, I wanted to do and find out what the basic motions were that were made by the County Council. 00:03:00
And as best as I can ascertain, the first motion that was made was a motion to support fire board in the EMS. 00:03:11
And the second motion that was made was that. 00:03:21
A motion that we will not fund a full. 00:03:27
County funded EMS service with Ameripro, and both of those motions failed. 00:03:31
So regardless of what the motions are, the the the purpose of doing that was. 00:03:38
To determine. 00:03:46
What the job is of each of the two bodies that are here. 00:03:48
We've got the county commissioners, we've got the County Council. 00:03:52
And the statute that I cited at the last meeting, Indiana Code 16-31-5-1, is clear. 00:03:56
That statute is under the Emergency Emergency Medical Services Statute. 00:04:06
And so it defines who's responsible for what. 00:04:12
And you take this statute and you blend that in with. 00:04:17
The general provisions in terms of duties and responsibilities for the County Council and duties and responsibilities for the 00:04:21
County commissioners. 00:04:26
And it's very clear as to who does what with regards to this subject. 00:04:31
And there's a bright red line. 00:04:37
In terms of. 00:04:39
Who does what? 00:04:41
And at the end of the day, it's very simple and that is that the county commissioners are responsible for. 00:04:43
The emergency medical services, the ambulance. 00:04:50
Services and implementing the ambulance services. 00:04:55
In terms of how they want to do it. 00:05:00
The it's very clear with regards to the statutes that. 00:05:04
The county council's responsibility is that of appropriation. 00:05:09
That is funding. 00:05:14
And so you know I in going through. 00:05:16
The transcript, it seemed to me that the County Council had $800,000 was a number that appeared that they. 00:05:23
Were able to put forth. 00:05:34
And deck against ambulance service, so. 00:05:36
You know, with the job of the County Council being appropriation. 00:05:40
It seems to me that the County Council. 00:05:45
If they have $800,000. 00:05:48
That they could appropriate. 00:05:51
Towards this that. 00:05:53
They've done their job and then it's up to the commissioners to figure out what can they fund with regards to ambulance services 00:05:56
with the $800,000. 00:06:01
And so, once again, the fiscal body, the County Council, is responsible for the funding. 00:06:06
The Commissioners are responsible for, and again, I'll read the statute. 00:06:13
Establish, operate, and maintain emergency medical services. 00:06:17
Authorized franchise or contract for emergency medical services, that is. 00:06:23
They handle the implementation of the services. 00:06:29
The other thing I wanted to point out again, which I talked about last time, and that is. 00:06:34
Passing money off to. 00:06:40
The Highlander Fire Board. 00:06:43
Is in terms of EMS. 00:06:46
Is inappropriate for two for a number of reasons. You know, the first reason is is the state statute. 00:06:50
That flies in the face of what the Commissioners are supposed to be doing. 00:06:58
And it's the state statute says that the commissioners make that decision. 00:07:02
And then you look at the local ordinance, which we talked about and the local ordinance. 00:07:07
Does not provide for Highlander Fire District to implement EMS. 00:07:13
So to pass that money off to a body who doesn't have the authority at this point in time to do EMS makes no sense. 00:07:19
But that's what you'd be doing if you. 00:07:29
If the County Council just took money and sent it to the Highlander Fire District without the input from the commissioners. 00:07:32
You're just setting yourself up for. 00:07:41
A problem with regards to each of the bodies legally. 00:07:44
And you know. 00:07:49
Where I think in terms of the EMS, all I hear from everybody is we got X number of days to get this done. 00:07:53
Well, what we're looking at doing are what the commissioners I know are looking at doing is ambulance service for the whole 00:08:00
county. 00:08:03
And that $800,000, if that gets passed off to the Highlander Fire District, does nothing for the full county. In fact, it it 00:08:07
excludes. 00:08:12
A majority of the county. 00:08:17
So you know you've got a difficult. 00:08:19
Decision to make with regards to. 00:08:25
What you're going to do, are you going to follow the law, which is a state law? 00:08:28
The local ordinance, which is the law? 00:08:32
Or are you going to? 00:08:37
Appropriate, which is what your job is under the statute. 00:08:41
That's all I wanted to say. 00:08:45
OK. Thank you. Mr. Lang, did you, did you have anything that you wanted to add to that? Yep, sure. 00:08:47
I get paid by the hour, right? 00:08:54
$10 00:08:59
I know this stuff is serious. I in. 00:09:00
I don't completely disagree with what Mr. Fox is saying. I. 00:09:04
He grabbed my glasses so I could read a little bit of the statute. 00:09:08
The statute does it most certainly that the county can establish the EMS, but. 00:09:11
So can a city a town, a Township? 00:09:18
Or any combination. 00:09:20
So it's not just the county that can establish the. 00:09:22
An EMS entity. There are a number of. 00:09:25
Local governmental entities that can do this. 00:09:30
So if we had any disagreement, it might be a little bit there. 00:09:33
You've got a political issue here. You got a legal issue. 00:09:37
I think if Lafayette or Greenville or Georgetown or any of those wanted to establish EMS, they could do it legally. 00:09:40
If they. 00:09:48
Could they get everything up and running by June 1st? 00:09:50
Probably not. 00:09:53
So I think really it's more of. 00:09:54
You've got more of a. 00:09:57
Political decision to make here that you do. Anything else? 00:10:00
You have any questions on that? Yeah, when you said? 00:10:03
Greenville could establish their own EMS who can establish it. Not Township. The Township, yeah. 00:10:07
Does the. 00:10:14
Does that statute discuss who would fund? 00:10:15
Such a service. Well, yeah, I mean, obviously the County Council is what's going to fund. But I mean, even if even if a Township 00:10:18
declared their own service, right? Yeah. Mr. Langdon. 00:10:24
Does the statute say in order? 00:10:32
Of what is supposed to be done, whether the appropriation comes first or the contract. 00:10:35
Not that I'm aware of. I thought the question you were going to ask was, is there an order of priority that's right of who can 00:10:42
establish? 00:10:45
It I don't, it doesn't appear to be an order of priority. 00:10:49
What the statute says is the governing body of a city, town, Township or county. 00:10:52
By the governing body's action or in any combination. 00:10:59
May do the following. 00:11:02
Establish, operate, and maintain an Emergency Medical Services Levy taxes they're under. 00:11:04
Authorized franchise or contract for emergency medical services. 00:11:10
So look, I'm not telling you I'm just the dumb attorney. 00:11:14
You guys are elected. 00:11:20
I'm just here saying that there are a number of different things in different ways, different entities that can create it. 00:11:21
But by June 1st? That's tough, but we can't create it for them. 00:11:27
No, they can create. 00:11:32
Thank you and if and if created, they cannot. 00:11:34
Without. 00:11:38
Without approval. 00:11:42
Provide service for another Township. 00:11:44
Or town, That's absolutely correct. 00:11:47
Yes. So in other words, again, let's say Lafayette created an EMS. 00:11:50
Entity Umm. 00:11:54
They can't force their services on Georgetown. 00:11:55
Or New Albany Township. 00:11:58
And again, it doesn't say in which order the appropriation of the contract comes. 00:12:01
But I'll speak to that a little bit because I did talk with David Bertoff and he said that the commissioners should not be signing 00:12:06
contracts. 00:12:11
Without an appropriation, so. 00:12:16
From the legal standpoint? 00:12:20
I don't know either. 00:12:23
And I and can I just say I take a little bit of offense to this because I really think that we need to be working together. Our 00:12:25
job as a council is also. 00:12:30
To come up with the best viable solution. 00:12:35
That is. 00:12:40
That that gives our constituents the safety they need, but also. 00:12:43
Burden them overly, overly burden them. And so we have been trying to do our job in that regard. So I I understand that we need to 00:12:48
work together and I think we're trying to work together to come up with. 00:12:55
With a good solution, I really do. 00:13:02
And and honestly, I take a little bit of offense, offense to the way we're approaching this. We need to come up with a solution 00:13:05
together that works and we don't need right now. 00:13:11
A bunch of legal stuff telling us which way we need to go. I politely disagree because I think if we come up with a solution, 00:13:17
that. 00:13:21
Goes beyond the legal guardrails then we would have to start all those I I agree with that have our discussion frames. I agree 00:13:25
with that with those parameters and that's all that I was wanting to do tonight with having. So if I could just add one more thing 00:13:30
afternoon. 00:13:35
I just add one more thing. 00:13:40
When we're talking about the Highlander Fire District in it Ronnie, and that's gonna not running this, I probably would disagree 00:13:41
to some extent that. 00:13:45
The Highlander ordinance would need to be changed for what they are currently doing. 00:13:50
I think. 00:13:56
The services they're providing now and for what Lafayette has done, I guess for probably 20 years now. 00:13:58
It corresponds with. It runs parallel with. 00:14:04
Their current duties? 00:14:08
Extinguished fires, Emergency medical, emergency services. OK, so I don't think the current. 00:14:11
Ordinance needs to be changed. 00:14:16
However. 00:14:18
If what you're looking for is Highlander, to. 00:14:20
Run its own EMS entity. I think there's a statute for that. 00:14:23
I don't think. I don't think Highlander can create it. I think the county could create it. 00:14:28
I think Lafayette and Greenville townships to band together and create it. 00:14:33
But I don't think for what Highlander is currently doing. 00:14:38
I don't think there needs to be any revisions to that ordinance. 00:14:42
If, however, you want them to do more, I think there would have to be a separate ordinance, you know. 00:14:45
And my first non legal professional instincts would be to agree with that. 00:14:50
I'm sorry I said my I'm not a lawyer. So I said. But my first instincts would be to agree with that last statement, To agree with 00:14:56
that. Yes. Yeah. 00:15:00
All right with that. 00:15:06
I'd like to point out one thing, and yes, Mr. Langdon read through the Statute with regards to who can provide the fire services. 00:15:08
I want to bring your attention to the fact that it doesn't say fire districts. 00:15:20
That's not in the statues. 00:15:25
And I've done very little research on this, but my understanding is, and from what I've looked at, there are a number of fire 00:15:31
districts who do run EMS throughout Indiana. 00:15:35
I have not researched how they got there. 00:15:40
I don't know. 00:15:42
I could, but I've not gotten there. I've not been asked to. 00:15:43
But it is my understanding that there are a number of five districts that do run EMS. Now whether or not you could do that by June 00:15:46
1st, that's a political question that it's above my pay grade. 00:15:51
OK. Thank you Well for you. 00:15:57
You'll both be there if we need questions answered, right? 00:15:59
All right. I want to cover two more things before I. 00:16:03
Kind of go over to Denise because I think she was working on a spreadsheet on a couple of things, but as far as information real 00:16:07
and information perhaps not real. Did everybody receive the letter from the health department? 00:16:13
Yes, I think it was sent out I think by electronically and also snail mail. And I'm not going to read this into the record, I 00:16:20
would just. 00:16:23
Reference two points that might be germane to our conversation later, which is. 00:16:27
At present, they do not feel that the Wrights building would. 00:16:32
Fit their future needs, and it's their contention that they hope that whatever money was earmarked for the future home of the 00:16:36
health department. 00:16:40
Is in some way, if not truly kept as an earmark, some way allocated for how we're going to return that to them in the future? 00:16:44
And then I was addressed by two or three people today about, you know, just putting all options on the table, so to speak. 00:16:51
And the question about, well, what about going to New Chapel to ask them for a one year continuance on the contract, In my opinion 00:17:00
the only way that that would. 00:17:04
Even be something we could discuss would be if they received. 00:17:09
Clearance from the SBOA on the audit that I believe they have undergoing and. 00:17:13
Also. 00:17:18
If the issue that was just in today's paper was was. 00:17:20
Cleared, which is that their former director Jamie Knoll seems to still have access to their. 00:17:24
Credit cards. So until both of those were resolved, I don't think that that's a viable option. 00:17:29
If both of those are resolved, then I think it makes sense to go back and make the ask. 00:17:35
Of what that would be just so that we would have all those options on the table but. 00:17:39
Again, I'm only one of 10 here, but. 00:17:43
In order to to do that, I just don't see where that's anything I want to put the county. 00:17:47
In jeopardy of if someone still has. 00:17:52
Possible access to that credit. 00:17:55
Report and so I'm not seeing any dissenting that I had knots or shakes so. 00:17:58
So yes, that's a possibility. 00:18:03
In the theoretical, theoretical world. But in the practical world, as we discussed that right now, I don't see that as anything 00:18:06
that would move forward. 00:18:10
So with that is kind of a backdrop. 00:18:14
Denise, you and I had a conversation. I didn't have numbers, so I couldn't put a spreadsheet together without knowing what the 00:18:18
options were as far as how much revenues we really needed to produce and just. 00:18:23
So that may or may not seem like it was gamesmanship, but Mr. Rose is here, He'll tell you that I contacted him last night asking 00:18:29
for numbers, and this morning and asking for numbers, and I got the numbers when I got the numbers and you got him 10 minutes 00:18:33
later. 00:18:36
That's the way. That's the way it happened. And I know I got accused of things like that when I was president as well. And 00:18:42
sometimes that's just the way things happen. I understand. 00:18:46
And I get it that you weren't necessarily prepared, but do we have any movement or further thought on anything that we had on the 00:18:51
the chalkboard? 00:18:55
Dry erase board, I believe. I believe Steve did. Dale, you want to pull that out maybe for everybody please. 00:19:00
It's mostly still intact. 00:19:11
Do we know how much we need? 00:19:14
I mean, what are we, What are we looking for here? I mean, so without knowing how much we need. 00:19:16
I mean for the e-mail, yeah, the emails that you have should be accessible to you. If you want to go through it in real time, I 00:19:24
will tell you that. 00:19:28
The one that had the most movement in my mind. And again. 00:19:33
I'm one of ten. There was an option we proposed that was. 00:19:36
The entire county with two ambulances and a chase vehicle, all three ALS certified. 00:19:40
At just over 78,000 a month and that would be. 00:19:45
The quick math that I did $937,200 per year. 00:19:51
Which is less than. 00:19:56
The oh, great, Please. Yeah. And I'm going to kind of highlight those because the one thing that may seem counterintuitive to the 00:19:59
folks is that when they broke it down to the entire county exclusive of. 00:20:05
The High Winder Fire District. 00:20:12
Bandor, Georgetown. The amount of the subsidy went up because they didn't have as many billable runs. 00:20:14
And so the subsidy went up. So. 00:20:21
Connie while she's working on those. 00:20:27
But the, the number from before, if we left the coverage, the same would be unchanged. If we went down by one ambulance then 00:20:32
you're looking at 930-7200. So one thing that I did I want to talk about before we go there is one of the options that's on the 00:20:39
two of the options that's on the table is legacy foundation and one of them is the legacy foundation spend rate. 00:20:46
The difference between what is being granted this year and what. 00:20:54
And what? 00:21:01
And what the spend rate could produce, So $17 million at a 5% spend rate is $850,000. 00:21:05
So I I. 00:21:13
Thought Stephen had put together some. 00:21:16
Umm some some resolution? 00:21:19
Sure. 00:21:26
To ask the. 00:21:31
Legacy foundation for the entire spend rate to go towards that. So the the, the spin rate would be if at 5% would be 850,000. 00:21:34
I don't. They've already got the grants out, I believe, right. And I don't know, have they been vetted? They are being vetted. 00:21:45
The cutoff date for that is the end of next week. My suggestion was to ask. Just ask the legacy board. 00:21:54
To maybe take 350 of that and grant it out and give us the other half million to put against the first year of this. 00:22:04
Ambulance service, so we'd have a half a million to start with. 00:22:17
But I think we need to a resolution to go directly to them. 00:22:21
To ask for that, I don't this seems to be in writing and have you looked at the timing on that? It would have to be a vote. 00:22:25
Now and another vote at the beginning of the year or what is I did after they look at it, there are two sections of that statute. 00:22:31
I think if you go over the. 00:22:40
Now of course I brought that up. I don't have that here in front of me. If you go over the $2,000,000 mark, my memory is you do 00:22:42
have to have it in two different. 00:22:46
We're not. I'm not talking about principle. 00:22:50
Well, that's what the statute talks about. So whether you're talking about the interest generated or the interest generated, it's 00:22:53
not spent because. 00:22:57
So we are talking about principle. I'm just talking about this year's spend rate. OK, let me just what the statute says is at a 00:23:02
joint meeting. 00:23:07
Of commissioners and council members. 00:23:12
Commissioner's vote. 00:23:14
A majority council 5 out of the seven vote for it. You can then access. 00:23:16
The lesser of 10% of the three-year average balance or $2,000,000. 00:23:22
From the principal amount of the donation. There's a statute on that. 00:23:28
Well, everybody's thinking about that, Connie. Can you read those off because I saw some people kind of straining to to see that 00:23:34
because it's down a little bit low, so. 00:23:39
They have four options, Option one. 00:23:43
And option two are the entire county. 00:23:46
Option three and option four are Georgetown and New Albany Township, Sun Link. 00:23:49
Option one is 3 ALS and one quick response vehicle. 00:23:55
1.535 million. 00:23:59
Option two is the entire county to ALS and one quick response. 00:24:03
936,996. 00:24:10
Option 3, which is new, I mean Georgetown, 2 ambulances and one quick response. 00:24:14
That's 1.343. 00:24:22
And then? 00:24:25
Option 4, which is also just new Omni and Georgetown 2 ambulances. 00:24:27
987,000. 00:24:32
So of course I had some questions on those because it says ambulance, it doesn't say ALS, so I'm guessing maybe that means BLS? 00:24:37
It is also ALS. 00:24:46
So all the. 00:24:49
Would you mind coming up just for a second? 00:24:51
And I appreciate you being here. 00:24:56
And I know, I know the numbers that you. 00:24:59
Forwarded over. We're kind of you sent them as soon as you got them from your executive team as well. 00:25:02
So everything that proposal was all ALS certified vehicles regardless. OK, That's correct. OK. 00:25:08
The other question that I had was on the Georgetown. 00:25:16
New Albany, Does that also include Upper Lower Franklin? 00:25:20
Yes, yes, OK. 00:25:25
And then the one question I had just because I don't have all the the. 00:25:27
Numbers from the previous RFP in funding, but was option one the same price as what was listed in the RFP that we received? 00:25:30
The 1.5. 00:25:38
I think it wasn't the original one like 1.6. Yeah, the RFP that we received is, is option one, the same price that we had listed 00:25:41
in the original RFP because I think it was the same level of service. I mean, from a, from a financial standpoint, we're on option 00:25:47
26, I believe on our end, yeah. 00:25:52
I would have to reference the documents to be. I think it's very close. 00:25:59
Totally understood. 00:26:04
OK, well stay nearby to the mic if you will, yeah? 00:26:05
All right. Thank you. Thank you. 00:26:10
So did the resolutions that you have. 00:26:16
I don't know. Do we have resolution? 00:26:21
I mean. 00:26:24
I've not seen them. I I don't know. Do you? 00:26:27
Pretty sure I sent it to Mr. Short. 00:26:31
It's a draft. Obviously. Mr. Fox would want to take a look at it. And and. 00:26:35
You know, make any changes that you guys thought were necessary, but then the statute says. 00:26:39
At a joint meeting. 00:26:44
Commissioners majority vote Council 5 out of seven Social supermajority for the Council. 00:26:45
If you vote together, you can take the lesser of 10% of the three-year average. 00:26:51
Or $2,000,000. 00:26:56
And I think that's different than what I'm asking, although I didn't see the resolution to any. I don't know, did that just not go 00:26:58
out to everybody? 00:27:01
It just came to me for proof. 00:27:06
Proofreading. 00:27:08
And umm. 00:27:09
Didn't disseminate it because. 00:27:11
That wasn't the. 00:27:14
That wasn't a motion that we had on this. 00:27:16
Table and we were still. 00:27:18
Still working with it, so I think it's it's a real reasonable option to consider. Of course, the Council's representation on the 00:27:20
board and the commissioners are only two. 00:27:26
Loads and I think the nieces question is. 00:27:32
Different than just talking about the interest earned this year that would rollback the principle right? And I didn't set up all I 00:27:36
just looked at how do you access I'm sorry but this but what I really want a resolution for I I don't know that I'm. 00:27:44
Wanting to get into the principle, I I think we should talk about that. I think it is a viable option. 00:27:52
And maybe we should take a vote about whether we want to do that or not. But what I'm asking for first of all is just. 00:27:58
There is a 5% spend rate that is available to be used and granted out this year. 00:28:06
By the Legacy Foundation. 00:28:14
If we ask the legacy which produces? 00:28:17
A $850,000. 00:28:21
To be possibly granted out now, we've never granted out the whole 5%. 00:28:24
But could we? 00:28:29
The board of the Legacy foundation. 00:28:31
Only to grant out 350,000 and give us the other 500,000 to support the first year. 00:28:35
At the cost of some of the first year, cost of the ambulance, the new ambulance service, I just brought Mr. Box up to make sure I 00:28:46
wasn't dreaming. But that's something I think we do every year. I think we do it toward the end of the year. I could be wrong, 00:28:52
yeah, but that is. 00:28:57
We do that every year and again it's cooperation between the it's already done for 2024, it's already done and it was 5% that we 00:29:03
signed off on. 00:29:08
So it's available to us. 00:29:13
So that's what I'm asking for. 00:29:17
I mean, I'd like to have. 00:29:20
I mean, my thought is that I am I, I I I hate to go that route, but I think everybody's going to have to give some on this 00:29:22
discussion and I'm willing. 00:29:26
To go that route, provided that we get coverage for the entire. 00:29:31
County. 00:29:35
Again, I think we're getting a cart for the part because I'm not going to go down that road if we're not going to get coverage for 00:29:38
the whole county. 00:29:42
Because. 00:29:46
I mean, one of the things that I'm close minded about is, is. 00:29:48
We have to have coverage for the entire county. 00:29:51
And if we can get that, then I think the other part that I really, really insisted upon is that. 00:29:55
We don't quote, UN quote, kick the can down the road like everybody's been saying we we put together. 00:30:02
A plan to go forward trying to really explore fire based EMS for the whole county, EMS standalone for the whole county, 00:30:08
privatization for the whole campus something that. 00:30:12
Is a Nexus for the whole county. 00:30:16
So I'm willing to. 00:30:18
To go down that road. 00:30:21
And draw some of those funds from there if we can secure. 00:30:24
Coverage for the entire county. 00:30:31
I don't know what other people thought. They all you sit on that board with me, so. 00:30:33
You know that in the past we've always said, well, we don't want to cover normal budget items, which this, well typically it's 00:30:38
been my, you know, y'all pardon me for. 00:30:42
I said at the last meeting that one reason why that statute is so difficult to get the principal out. 00:30:47
And so politicians don't get their filthy, grubby hands on it. 00:30:53
Because once that money. 00:30:56
It's gone pretty much unless we're real discipline like Dave Ramsey wants us to be and I don't think we're that disciplined. 00:30:59
So generally I don't like the idea of. 00:31:05
Tapping into those funds because that was specifically set up for a specific reason, not for general operation. Interesting. 00:31:08
This is not principle we're talking about, just the extra interest that we don't grant. 00:31:16
But still. 00:31:21
Fine line. 00:31:23
I would just like to make the point that. 00:31:29
We already do this. 00:31:31
The commissioners get. 00:31:32
$400,000 a year. 00:31:34
The state doesn't recognize two different silos. 00:31:37
We recognize two different silos. 00:31:39
That's a tournament we made-up. 00:31:42
So we already do this. The commissioners draw $400,000. 00:31:45
Approximately per year to. 00:31:49
Paved roads or fix a bridge or whatever it is that you all. 00:31:51
Do with that. 00:31:56
So. 00:31:58
I would take it a step further. 00:32:00
And for me, I would ask for it every year. 00:32:03
Now that might be extreme to some people, but to me that's a that's a funding source. 00:32:08
So, well, at the moment the Commissioner silos are. 00:32:13
Are obligated to. 00:32:17
Support of various bonds, Absolutely. And I'm not talking about touching your Alls. I'm talking about this. 00:32:19
Extra that is on the granting side. 00:32:24
John. 00:32:30
I'm, I'm taking it all in tonight, guys. I'm sorry. 00:32:32
A lot of discussion here. 00:32:35
Bran. 00:32:36
Tony, Brad. 00:32:39
What? Which thoughts on? Any thoughts on what Denise is proposing with regards to? 00:32:42
Possibly getting after some of the interest money from the legacy. 00:32:47
Because I don't have a lot of data to know. 00:32:56
What's being asked what? 00:32:59
Who is who has applied for grants? I. 00:33:03
Just for me personally, I think I would. 00:33:08
Need to have the. 00:33:11
Legacy board. 00:33:13
Check the the temperature from them. 00:33:16
On what they would recommend based on. 00:33:19
What our request is, I don't know that I have an opinion other than. 00:33:23
I need more data to know. 00:33:28
How I feel about that, I don't have enough. 00:33:30
To go on. 00:33:32
Fair enough. I think more data is. 00:33:33
Better than not enough in the moment. 00:33:36
Jim Yeah, I mean, I'm, I support what Danny says. I think I'd like to see us get part of that money for a long term. And we're 00:33:39
talking about the interests, not talking about digging into the principal. 00:33:45
I think there's quite a bit of money there that we can use as a as a. 00:33:52
Annual source of funding. 00:33:55
So I definitely support that. I will say state also though that. 00:33:58
I don't know the specifics, but I'm aware that the commissioner side. 00:34:02
Took the full 5% for several in a row. 00:34:06
And actually dipped off into principles that this, so that amount is actually less than what we deposited in that account. Is that 00:34:09
what we want to get into and use the whole 5% each year and that that original principle just keeps going down and down and down, 00:34:14
Is that what we're going to get into? 00:34:19
We stopped that as soon as I'm aware of that. So you know, but there was a problem with that. It was, but it it. 00:34:25
It is has not been one in the recent past, but it was just stated that we could use that full 5% each year. That was what I heard. 00:34:32
I don't think I would. 00:34:36
Be hard pressed ever for me to want to dive into principle on that. That's just. 00:34:41
At that point, you're cutting your own risk, but that's not what we're discussing. Needs to be cited at budget time every year 00:34:46
based on projections. I don't. I'm not in favor of. 00:34:50
Dipping into the principal either so. 00:34:54
Right. That's something that we would need to take up every year. There was a probably a timing issue too, because generally 00:34:56
you're going to make more than 5% on an average over long term I. 00:35:01
So I don't see you 5%. 00:35:06
Traditionally going to dip into it over an average it may. 00:35:08
Periodically, but as an average no. And as Danny said, you're going to vote that in each year anyhow. 00:35:13
If you see that it's dropped one year and you're dropping below the three-year average, then yeah, you can change that. 00:35:19
Well, I I would like to see. 00:35:28
I I'd like to see a resolution asking the. 00:35:32
The legacy board to take up that issue to see what their. 00:35:36
What they're willing to to do. 00:35:40
For us, just for one year. 00:35:44
And then we can every year do the same thing, but for this year I think it needs we need to absolutely ask them. 00:35:46
To take a look at. 00:35:53
Putting a. 00:35:55
Upper ceiling on the amount of money that they're going to grant out and then if we can at least for this year, get. 00:35:57
The, the, the difference between what they grant out and the full spend rate, I think that would be a real help for us in this 00:36:08
situation, at least for the first year, but. 00:36:13
The honest to God, I mean we. 00:36:19
We've got to have a sustainable. 00:36:22
Revenue source here. 00:36:26
And. 00:36:29
The only way to do that, especially if we're going to go with a mayor pro full? 00:36:32
County is to put a EMS tax in place. 00:36:40
It I don't I don't see any other way to sustain this over 2 even a two year period. 00:36:45
We're talking $3,000,000. 00:36:54
So without without that I. 00:36:57
I don't see how this works. 00:37:01
And you and I have talked about that and I've talked with several people at the the podium and also in the. 00:37:06
Out, out in our row. 00:37:13
Room tonight. 00:37:17
And I think if you're going to, if we're going to have that level of commitment, we have to have a solid plan in place where we 00:37:19
show people where their money is going to be going. 00:37:23
And again, that, that. 00:37:29
Takes time to do that. It's a hard sell and it's one of those things that I feel like it's the right thing to do. Then I'm willing 00:37:31
to. 00:37:34
But how do we come up with, I'm not saying not to do it, I'm just saying that it needs to be done in a very, very. 00:37:39
Concrete, organized way where we can show people where that money is going to be going and completely agree with you when we've 00:37:47
got till. 00:37:51
October to get there, is that right? 00:37:55
And that's one of those things that if I feel it's the right thing to do and I feel like we can show people the service that 00:37:59
they're getting for it, then I'm willing to. 00:38:03
Put myself up for a personal referendum, you know, come election time, OK? 00:38:07
I think you've said the same. I said the same thing, so. 00:38:11
But again, if you do that and you're and let's say conservatively you're bringing in 2 1/2 to $3,000,000 a year. 00:38:17
Then it becomes. What type of? 00:38:23
Of system are you going to have, is it going to be fire based, is it going to be county based EMS, is it going to be continued to 00:38:25
be privatized? And that's where I agree with Mr. Strie well that we have to have the data to do that because I know John and I or 00:38:30
Jason and I have butted heads on that a little bit because. 00:38:35
He seems to think that. 00:38:41
The county way to go is the way to go with it and I I still intuitively think that privatization. 00:38:42
Might be the way that that would play out, but either way, you have to have the funding, you have to have a funding source, it 00:38:47
doesn't matter, or else we come back to this discussion. 00:38:51
Every year. How are we going to pay Peter, Rob, Peter to pay Paul? 00:38:56
And I don't know, Baker Tilly is going to be down here next week, is that right? 00:39:00
And I mean, I I really want to ask them what their uh. 00:39:07
What their suggestions are for? 00:39:12
For funding something like this, is it appropriate to? 00:39:18
To really take down your cash reserve to nearly nothing over the next two years. 00:39:22
And I think the other side of that coin is we have asked them to look at what a. 00:39:30
An EMS. 00:39:35
Local income tax will bring in, right so. 00:39:36
And and so yes, I'm looking forward to having them here as well so we can get more information. 00:39:40
And again, I compliment Brad. I'm putting this meeting together because it was a nice bridge to the next meeting that we're going 00:39:47
to have and getting some of these questions and other things out of the way. 00:39:51
Or on the table, so to speak. 00:39:55