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Thank you everyone for taking this. 00:00:04
Thank you everyone for your patience. My name is Keith Podium. I'm the attorney for the. 00:00:11
Board of Fire Trustees for Georgetown Township. 00:00:16
Fire Protection District. 00:00:19
I will now open the public hearing and I will turn it over to the Chairman, Mr. Moody, to call Roll. 00:00:21
Thank you, Keith, for the Georgetown Board. Michael Moody, that's me. I'm here. 00:00:31
Mark Ringenberg. 00:00:35
Is attempting to dial in electronically. 00:00:36
We're having a little difficulty with the IT apologize. 00:00:39
David Fear. 00:00:42
Gary Clayman. 00:00:43
Ed Thomas. 00:00:46
Jeff McNulty. 00:00:48
Travis Sharp. 00:00:49
OK. Thank you. 00:00:51
Turn it over to April. 00:00:52
Thank you. 00:00:54
My name is April Geltmaker and I am general counsel for New Albany Township. 00:00:56
Fire and Rescue Board. 00:01:01
And I will call. 00:01:02
Roll call for this public hearing. Kyle Lanoue. 00:01:04
Danny Jacobs. 00:01:09
Mr. Gilbert Kinney. 00:01:12
Scott Sears here. 00:01:14
Ben Guy. 00:01:16
Jennifer McFarlane Kern. 00:01:18
OK. Thank you. 00:01:20
OK. Thank you very much. 00:01:23
We're going to. 00:01:25
Have a couple different presentations to help educate the public on what we're working on and what our vision is for the future. 00:01:27
We'll start with a background and a little bit information about what fire territories are. 00:01:34
And then we will. 00:01:39
Get to what a lot of you are probably interested in is what the impact to the community is. 00:01:41
And then we'll wrap up our presentation mode. 00:01:45
With a little bit more information about the vision of what a fire territory is going to look like in practice. 00:01:48
At the end of our meeting. 00:01:53
We welcome public comments or questions. 00:01:55
We'll ask you to step up to the podium. Introduce yourself. Sign in on the sign in sheet. 00:01:57
And then so we have an opportunity for everybody to have a chance to speak. We'll limit comments tonight to three minutes. 00:02:02
It will take comments or questions in and hopefully be able to get some answers so that we can present them at the next meeting. 00:02:08
So that's our process tonight. We thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here. 00:02:15
And we'll go ahead and get started. 00:02:19
So. 00:02:21
In our community, we've had a rich tradition. Fire service protecting our community started out with Volunteer Fire departments. 00:02:23
The problem is that the volunteer model just doesn't really work very well in today's world. 00:02:31
People don't live and work in the same community. 00:02:36
So it's hard to respond to a fire or emergency if you're across the river in Louisville when you're working. 00:02:39
We're also a lot busier as a society. It's harder for people to volunteer. 00:02:46
And quite honestly, the demands of the firefighter are a lot different than they used to be 20-30 or forty years ago. 00:02:51
A lot more complex. 00:02:56
Requires more training and equipment. 00:02:58
So the legislature created a new entity called a. 00:03:00
Fire District. 00:03:04
In order to provide a revenue stream so that you could hire employees and provide a professional fire service. 00:03:07
The problem with the district model is that it has not. 00:03:13
Kept up with society as we've changed. 00:03:16
So the revenue actually is going to be kind of frozen. 00:03:19
And it has not allowed for the growth of the community the way our communities are growing. 00:03:21
And it has not kept up with the technology requirements of a modern fire department. 00:03:26
So next slide please. 00:03:31
So the legislature created and has updated. 00:03:34
Quite recently a new entity called a Fire territory. 00:03:37
Fire territories where two or more taxing units, which could be either a Township, municipality or a fire district. 00:03:41
And they have to share a physical border. 00:03:47
Joined together to form a fire territory. 00:03:50
One of the value and benefits of the fire territories that you help consolidate fire services. 00:03:53
Next slide. 00:03:58
That allows us to better align Fire Protection with community needs. 00:03:59
It will allow us specifically to provide professional fire service in the southern end of New Albany Township. 00:04:03
Which right now is not receiving the Fire Protection service that the rest of the Township. 00:04:09
In Georgetown are used. 00:04:13
It will also increase Fire Protection. 00:04:15
And prevention. 00:04:18
For both Georgetown and in all, New Albany Township. 00:04:19
And it will address the revenue imbalance for the districts. 00:04:22
Next slide. 00:04:27
Some of the value and benefits to the community is that you end up with one command structure. 00:04:31
And you increase efficiencies? 00:04:35
Which will increase training efficiencies, equipment. 00:04:37
Standard operating procedures. 00:04:41
Human resources and accounting. 00:04:43
The last two kind of sound kind of funny talking about the fire service, but today's fire service you need to have human resources 00:04:45
and accounting, otherwise you end up wasting money and time and effort. 00:04:50
And as I have already said, a fire territory provides an appropriate revenue stream to sustain professional fire service for the 00:04:57
community. 00:05:00
Because the current district model is not sustainable. 00:05:04
So some background. 00:05:09
In the first quarter last year. 00:05:11
Georgetown Fire was approached by Franklin Township about forming a fire territory. 00:05:13
In May of 2024, New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:05:18
Inquired about joining the discussion. 00:05:22
Georgetown Fire contracted with Baker Tilly. 00:05:25
To calculate the impact to community and receive the first draft report in late October. 00:05:29
And data was first presented to the public in November 21st and again January 2nd of this year. 00:05:34
Earlier this month, Franklin Township decided that it was not the right time for them to continue with the project. 00:05:43
And we wish them well. 00:05:49
Our door is always open if they want to come back and talk to us about. 00:05:51
Joining fire territory. 00:05:55
Georgetown and New Albany Township have decided to continue. We requested new data from Baker Tilly. 00:05:57
For the formation of the Floyd County Fire territory. 00:06:03
Because it was kind of late when all that was happening, we've just been getting some of that data this week. We really appreciate 00:06:07
the work Baker Tilly has done. 00:06:10
And pivoting to get us the data, which you're going to see here in just a few minutes. 00:06:13
So the proposal is that the two districts have worked together and created a master plan for the new territory. 00:06:19
Georgetown Fire will be the providing agency. 00:06:25
Plan is that Chief Ned Wiseman will be the chief of the territory. 00:06:29
Chief Tim Franklin will be the deputy chief of the territory. 00:06:33
All of the current firefighters in both Georgetown Fire and New Albany Township Fire will be employed by the department. 00:06:37
In the existing 2023 agreement between Georgetown. 00:06:44
And the International Association of Firefighters, AFLCIO. 00:06:48
Georgetown Professional Firefighters 5393 will be the contract that is in force. 00:06:52
So between January 1st and March 31st, each entity must hold three public hearings. 00:07:02
And that's what this one is here tonight. 00:07:08
All three of them will be here at the Pineview Government Center. We appreciate county. 00:07:10
Leadership allowing us to use this facility. 00:07:15
Neither department really has a room. 00:07:18
Structured to be able to accommodate the public. So we appreciate being able to use this facility and the technology in the room. 00:07:20
Each of the three meetings is going to be at 6:00 PM. 00:07:27
Tonight the 30th, then February 13th and February 27th. 00:07:31
1/4 adoption meeting. 00:07:35
Will be held to vote on a resolution to create the territory and that is scheduled for 6:00 PM. 00:07:37
Here at Pine View, March 13th. 00:07:42
Then on January 1st, 2026, the new territory will take effect. 00:07:45
And just a side note, the two entities do remain in existence, but really we don't need to spend a lot of time on that. They just 00:07:50
kind of remain in existence. 00:07:53
So I want to give you a little background on how we ended up where we are today looking at Georgetown Fire. 00:07:59
Next slide. 00:08:05
This is a look at the tax rate for Georgetown Fire since the district was created back in 2007. 00:08:06
If we go to the next slide. 00:08:13
This is a snapshot over the past 10 years. 00:08:16
The tax rate started 10 years ago in 2014 at about $0.35 per $100.00 of net assessed value. 00:08:19
And over the past 10 years, it's seen a 37% reduction. 00:08:27
So while the tax rate has gone down by over 1/3. 00:08:32
Next slide, please. 00:08:35
The involvement in providing Fire Protection for the community has increased over 80%. 00:08:39
We've gone from 639 runs. 00:08:43
In 2014. 00:08:46
To over 1150 runs for the calendar year that we just finished. 00:08:48
If you could click one more please. 00:08:54
In October 2022. 00:08:56
We moved to Staff station 124 Seven. 00:08:59
We had historically staffed Station 2 which is on Cordon Ridge Rd. 00:09:02
24/7. 00:09:07
But we recognize that we were seeing an imbalance in calls in the evening hours from the West End of the district. 00:09:08
So Georgetown District went ahead and said we're going to step into this by providing the service to the community without any 00:09:16
increase in revenue. 00:09:20
So if you'll keep that in mind as we go through the rest of our presentation tonight. 00:09:24
Next slide, please. 00:09:29
So what is currently provided to the community by the two districts? 00:09:30
Georgetown Fire As I said, we have Station 1, which is. 00:09:35
I always giggle a little bit. 00:09:38
Downtown Georgetown. 00:09:40
As three firefighters on call 24/7. 00:09:43
Station 2, which is our main training and command station for the district on Corridor Ridge Rd. 00:09:46
Has four firefighters, 24/7. 00:09:52
Battalion Chief, 24/7. 00:09:54
And a chief and deputy chief. 00:09:57
That work 40 hours a week and they're all call 24/7. 00:09:59
New Albany Township at their Charlestown Rd. station have 3 firefighters 24/7. 00:10:03
And a chief and a deputy chief on call, 40 hour, I'm sorry, on 40 hours a week. 00:10:08
Then on call 24/7. 00:10:13
The proposal for the Floyd County Fire territory is to increase from three stations for the area to four stations. 00:10:18
We will fully staff Bud Rd. station 24/7. 00:10:25
The longer range vision and we're thinking somewhere in the three to five years. 00:10:29
Is to evaluate is that the best location for that 4th station? 00:10:34
And if it's decided that it's not and trying to shoehorn it in just because it's there? 00:10:38
The territory would begin to look at. 00:10:43
A better placement geographically. 00:10:46
Which would entail purchasing land and building a station. 00:10:49
Part of that is an estimation and evaluation of what is the future growth in the areas. 00:10:52
There are NFPA standards on how far a fire station should be from the community that it serves. 00:10:57
There's a lot of history and technology built into those metrics. 00:11:02
We would take that incorporated into that decision making process. 00:11:06
In the short term, we would increase staffing at Charlestown Rd. station. 00:11:10
Our staffing Ladder 49. 00:11:14
With four firefighters, 24/7. 00:11:16
And adding a Battalion Chief 24/7. 00:11:18
A component of the territory by statute is that you have to do fire prevention. 00:11:22
So we are proposing to staff a full time fire Marshall. 00:11:27
This individual would work full time to help prevent fires, would help educate the community on fire prevention, and also work on 00:11:33
code compliance. 00:11:36
This is what we envisioned the fire. 00:11:42
Territory would look like and I know this is. 00:11:45
A colorful eye chart. So I'm going to try and break it down a little bit. 00:11:47
The two top yellow boxes say chief and deputy chief. 00:11:51
That's your command structure. 00:11:54
And then if you go down below that, you'll see it's broken into two districts, District 1. 00:11:57
In District 2. 00:12:02
And just for simplification for right now. 00:12:03
District 1 is legacy Georgetown. 00:12:06
District 2 is legacy. 00:12:09
New Albany Township. 00:12:11
The way that we run the fire department, it's a little bit weird if you're a normal person. 00:12:13
Most of the firefighters work what's called a 24/7 shift. 00:12:19
They come on duty and they work 24 hours and then they're all 48 hours. 00:12:23
So in order to staff the department you have 3 shifts. 00:12:27
We call them A shift, B shift, and C shift. 00:12:31
So a shift would come on Monday at 6:00 AM, work till Tuesday morning 6:00 AM. 00:12:34
Then B shift comes on, works the next 24 hours. 00:12:39
Then C shift and then a shift comes back on. 00:12:42
So you're not working every Monday or every Thursday. It's a rolling 24 every 48 hours. 00:12:45
So if you look over on the left hand side, Battalion Chief A. 00:12:51
Under District 1. 00:12:55
It then breaks up into two. 00:12:57
Flows Engine 2 and Ladder 2. 00:13:00
Ladder 2 is currently staffed at Georgetown Station 2. 00:13:03
Engine 2 is Georgetown Station 1. 00:13:07
On shift for Engine 2 is a captain, a Sergeant and a firefighter. That's three firefighters on call 24/7. 00:13:10
Ladder 2 is a captain, Sergeant and two firefighters. 00:13:18
That repeats ABC. 00:13:22
Now if you slide your vision over to the right side under District 2. 00:13:24
You see, it repeats itself. 00:13:29
Battalion Chief A. 00:13:30
B&C. 00:13:32
Under Battalion Chief A, you see Engine 41 and Ladder 49. 00:13:34
Engine 41 would be an engine staffed at. What we're proposing to start with is Bud Rd. 00:13:40
Engine 49 would be at Charlestown Rd. 00:13:45
Engine 41 has three firefighters, a captain, Sergeant and firefighter. 00:13:48
And Ladder 49 has a captain, Sergeant and two firefighters. 00:13:53
Plus that Battalion Chief up above. 00:13:56
If you look over to the far left. 00:14:01
The yellow box marked Fire Marshall. 00:14:04
I already mentioned a little bit about what that individual will do. 00:14:07
The Fire Marshall will also maintain. 00:14:10
The command authority of a Battalion Chief. 00:14:12
If necessary, maybe they can fill in for a Battalion Chief that's not able to work one day that helps in overtime cost. 00:14:15
If you look down below there in the blue box on the far left. 00:14:21
There is a position for a training officer. 00:14:25
Having somebody who is able to full-time schedule, monitor and teach at times training. 00:14:27
Is really important when you get to a department of this size. 00:14:32
That individual would maintain the rank and effective leadership of a captain. 00:14:36
We also approved. 00:14:40
Proposing to administrative staff. 00:14:42
Which are the top 2 blue boxes? 00:14:44
An administrative assistant which would have a heavy background in HR. 00:14:47
And the financial officer, which is required by the state. 00:14:52
So this is what we are proposing the new territory would look like. 00:14:55
From conceptual and actual people. 00:14:59
View if we go to the next slide. 00:15:02
This is what we are proposing the budget for that staffing would cost. 00:15:05
So we use these numbers. 00:15:10
And sent them to Baker Tilly. 00:15:13
If we could go to the next slide. 00:15:17
Nope, I'm sorry. Let's back up. 00:15:20
Yep, we'll stop there for a second. 00:15:23
Using the numbers that were prepared by command staff and we gave them to Baker Tilly and Jason, if you want to go ahead and start 00:15:25
pulling up the Baker Tilly presentation. 00:15:29
OK, I'm going to now turn it over. 00:15:46
To Susan Cowan, who's the CPA and senior manager for Baker Tilly. 00:15:52
Which is a top 10 worldwide CPA firm and. 00:15:57
Preeminent advisory tax and assurance firm in Indianapolis. 00:16:00
That she's driven all the way down here in the rain tonight. 00:16:05
To help us understand the numbers that they've calculated. 00:16:07
So, Susan, I'll turn it over to you. 00:16:11
Do we have a handheld mic or I can speak pretty loudly well? 00:16:13
Has a problem or doesn't hear something I say? 00:16:17
Please raise your hand. 00:16:20
But I prefer not to. 00:16:21
Have to hold a mic if I don't have to. 00:16:23
Yeah, there's some people that are going off. 00:16:25
OK. 00:16:28
OK, maybe that will help a little bit. 00:16:31
Yes, Thank you, Michael. It's a pleasure to be here this evening. 00:16:35
As he is indicated. 00:16:38
The first step in this process after they've decided they wanted to move ahead with a fire territory. 00:16:41
Was to provide a budget. 00:16:46
We often get a lot of questions about. 00:16:48
Why does this have to be based in property tax? Why can't it be based on population? Why can't it be based on runs? 00:16:51
This is a very strictly regulated process. 00:16:59
That's currently in the Indiana code. 00:17:03
Legislation was put in place in 94 for the fire territories. 00:17:05
Certain things have to happen. 00:17:10
The fire department has to give a presentation on their plans for the department. Why are they moving ahead with the territory? 00:17:12
What are staffing plans? What are capital plans? 00:17:17
There are very specific pieces of financial information that have to be provided. 00:17:22
As taxpayers. 00:17:26
That you have to find out what will the impact on my potential future taxes be. 00:17:28
There's also information here on how this may impact other units within Floyd County. 00:17:34
Because what happens to one taxing unit? 00:17:40
Will affect other taxing units. 00:17:43
So a note, property taxes are kind of a dry topic. 00:17:46
I'm going to try not to get too far into the weeds, but I'm happy to answer any questions. 00:17:49
I would kind of like to get through the presentation. 00:17:56
And then if you have questions before we go into the open question part, I will. We can address those. 00:17:58
So. 00:18:04
The first page just sort of covers some details that Michael already talked about. 00:18:05
What is it? 00:18:09
There's very few ways currently that any units throughout the state could ever hope to increase their annual property taxes. 00:18:11
In excess of the standard levy growth that occurs every year. 00:18:20
Fire Protection and EMS service is one of the only ways, one of the only services. 00:18:25
That the state legislature has addressed. 00:18:31
To because of reasons that Michael mentioned the volunteer. 00:18:34
Structure is really no longer feasible in a lot of places, and it's not just in Indiana and it's not just southern Indiana. It's 00:18:38
all over the state. It's all over the country. 00:18:42
From the Midwest out to California. 00:18:46
We have heard from a number of different units across the country that they all face these struggles. Volunteerism isn't. 00:18:48
Working in all places. 00:18:55
And that solution is for. 00:18:56
To put people in place, to put full time people in place. 00:18:59
And a lot of units don't have existing tax revenues to support. 00:19:02
Those people to be put in place. 00:19:07
So these steps are how units like New Albany and Georgetown. 00:19:09
Fire Protection districts can work together and come together. 00:19:14
To find a better way. 00:19:17
To provide service. 00:19:19
And get the necessary funding through the territory. 00:19:21
So there's an operating portion. 00:19:26
Of what we're talking about. 00:19:28
The increase, any increases to tax levy are based upon operating what it's going to take to hire people, what it's going to take 00:19:31
to buy. 00:19:34
Those turn out here and air packs and provide insurance. 00:19:38
There's a separate piece. 00:19:41
Called an equipment replacement fund for capital purchases. 00:19:43
That is. 00:19:47
Set at a set rate. 00:19:48
It is 0.0333 cents. 00:19:50
Per $100.00 of net assessed valuation. 00:19:53
So as we get through this presentation and I mentioned the differences between operating and capital. 00:19:55
That's where those differences come from. 00:20:00
The capital portion is adopted technically separately. 00:20:02
From the operating portion. 00:20:06
So within the structure of the resulting fire territory. 00:20:10
One of the units I'm on page 4 now has to act as what's called a provider unit. Both units would be considered participating 00:20:15
units. 00:20:19
One has to be the provider unit. 00:20:23
So in a territory, one of those units acts as basically the administrative unit. 00:20:26
So Georgetown in this case is planning to be the provider unit to start with. They would receive the property taxes that come in 00:20:31
for the territory. 00:20:36
They would pay the bills, They would handle the administrative functions necessary for the territory. 00:20:40
There will also be another layer of board formed for the territory, with members from the Georgetown district and members from the 00:20:46
New Albany district. 00:20:50
So that board will work together to craft budgets. 00:20:55
To make recommendations. 00:20:58
Go through hiring processes. 00:21:01
To then. 00:21:03
Have it ultimately approved currently through the Georgetown district because they would be the provider unit. 00:21:04
That is not set in stone. That is not permanent. 00:21:09
If two years down the road the units want to switch and New Albany wants to take over the provider unit role, they can do that. 00:21:11
But to start off, Georgetown is going to take that over. 00:21:18
So it would be Georgetown's responsibility to prepare and enter the annual budget like every other unit does in the state over the 00:21:22
summer and early fall. 00:21:26
And handle that administrative function for the district. 00:21:30
So if we go on to page. 00:21:35
Sex. 00:21:38
After we get the budget, the first step is we have to determine. 00:21:40
What is currently being spent on fire and what is the tax rate associated with those those dollars? 00:21:43
So currently there the two blocks on the right, the the teal and the red are on the left. I'm sorry. 00:21:52
Is the Georgetown district. This is their 25 approved budget through the DLGF. 00:21:57
So they are set to bring in a little over 2.2 million. 00:22:03
Planning to spend over 3.2. 00:22:07
Now the budgets approved because they have some cash reserves to make up that gap between those two amounts. 00:22:10
It's not that the budget is not fundable, but they're having to spend reserves. Once you spend reserves, they go away. You don't 00:22:15
have recurring. 00:22:19
Receipts coming in to the level that you need to spend in the case of the Georgetown district. 00:22:23
So New Albany is. 00:22:29
Closer. Their teal and red boxes are pretty much the same height. They're only about $1200 right now. Deficit. 00:22:30
But. 00:22:37
If we know that generally those increase the expenses increase faster than revenues. 00:22:38
So how much longer is that going to be the case for New Albany? 00:22:44
How much longer could they support this and what are they? What do they need to provide that they can't afford? 00:22:47
So once we determine that. 00:22:52
The next page shows some sort of lump sum detail of the combined budgets. 00:22:55
The the red part. 00:23:00
It each going across there's a red and a teal. 00:23:03
The red is the proposed fire territory. 00:23:07
The blue is what's currently being spent combined. 00:23:10
So when we get down to the bottom to personal services, you see a rather a pretty big increase with that red bar gets longer. 00:23:13
Because that represents. 00:23:20
Them expanding stations that represents adding people personal services. 00:23:22
Are the most. 00:23:27
Or the highest level of cost of any unit throughout the state. Providing your people, having your people ready and available, 00:23:29
providing them insurance, having equipment for them. 00:23:33
Personal services, since that's what government does, is provide services. So you would expect to see. 00:23:38
If you're going to expand services, those amounts would go up, which they have. 00:23:44
So on the next page, page 8. 00:23:51
This is where we've determined. 00:23:55
How much is going to be necessary to fund the new budget? 00:23:57
So the first column to the left for 2026. 00:24:02
We have the operating budget. 00:24:06
Which Michael just showed on screen a few moments ago. That total amount of a little over 6.3 million. 00:24:09
Then we have the capital budget that I mentioned a moment ago. 00:24:15
The equipment replacement fund that does not have to be spent every year. It can be spent for outright purchases of vehicles and 00:24:18
structures. It can be used for loan payments, lease payments. 00:24:23
Overtime purchases. 00:24:28
But you can't accrue that overtime for large purchases of need be as well. 00:24:30
Part of the territory statute allows in the first year. 00:24:34
Levy for additional operating reserve. 00:24:39
They understand that if you're creating the first year. 00:24:42
Tax levy based upon the budget. 00:24:45
You would likely spend everything that comes in on that first year budget. 00:24:47
So for the first year only you can levy up to 20%. 00:24:52
For an additional cash operating reserve. 00:24:57
That's what this amount is. That's currently. 00:25:00
Estimated the 1.267 million is a 20%. 00:25:03
Reserve of the operating budget. 00:25:07
So that first year there would be extra levy that would drop off the second third in any subsequent year. 00:25:10
So the total funding requirement would be 8.2 million between capital operating and reserves. 00:25:17
Any unit in the state that receives property taxes also receives a portion of the vehicle excise taxes collected and for the 00:25:24
county. 00:25:28
So whereas as currently. 00:25:33
Each of the districts are receiving. 00:25:35
These vehicle excise taxes. 00:25:39
They will essentially lose their current. 00:25:41
Operating in capital levies. 00:25:43
So therefore they would lose their vehicle excise. 00:25:45
Now their vehicle excise is going to shift. 00:25:48
To the new territory. 00:25:50
So this roughly $391,000 is what we would expect the district would bring in their first year. So that sort of. 00:25:53
That takes that chunk off of the required $8.2 million total. 00:26:00
So that results where it says balance to be funded from property tax. 00:26:06
Would be 7 million eight 3607 seven the first year. 00:26:10
We divide that by. 00:26:15
Estimated net assessed values. 00:26:17
Unfortunately, there are a lot of things here. There are estimates because we don't have crystal balls, we don't know exactly how 00:26:19
things are going to increase in the future. How much. 00:26:23
Is the net assessed value. 00:26:28
This year, how much is it going to be next year, The following year? The year after? 00:26:29
We do work with a company called Policy Analytics that does. 00:26:33
They have lots of trending and. 00:26:38
Algorithms set up to determine. 00:26:40
Estimates going forward for net assessed value growth. 00:26:43
And we have used those in this report. 00:26:46
To estimate what growth of net assessed value will look like next year in 2027 and 2028. 00:26:48
So when we divide. 00:26:56
By that net assessed value. 00:26:58
And then we multiply it back by 100 because in Indiana. 00:27:00
Your property is taxed based upon per $100.00 of net assessed value. 00:27:04
So it will take a rate. 00:27:10
Of .4407. 00:27:12
The first year. 00:27:15
To cover the budget for this tax proposed fire territory. 00:27:16
The second year. 00:27:21
It's the same calculation but you can see there was cash reserve drops off. 00:27:22
The second year. 00:27:27
The amount would be .3748. 00:27:28
To fund the. 00:27:31
Estimated Budget. 00:27:32
And the third year .3737. 00:27:34
Going forward after the first year. 00:27:37
The territory would be held to whatever they can fund based upon statewide growth in levy. 00:27:39
There's no special consideration second and third year. 00:27:46
In this case, so they would be held essentially to whatever they could fund with what the state is going to allow them to grow 00:27:49
their levy by in future years. 00:27:53
Coming up on a future page I will show you. 00:27:59
This doesn't just go wholesale into the current tax rate, there's a net effect. 00:28:02
This the statute requires that current. 00:28:06
Levy amounts be removed from the tax rate. 00:28:10
And then replaced with the new amount. 00:28:13
So there is a net effect. 00:28:15
Of what the current rate is opposed to the what the new rate will be. 00:28:17
The next two pages show estimated. 00:28:23
Cash flows. 00:28:26
What we think they might lose from for circuit breaker loss. 00:28:27
Just showing basically that $1.2 million cash reserve they might have available going forward for the operating fund. 00:28:32
And then in the equipment replacement fund, the capital fund, we're assuming that would be spent every year. But like I said, it 00:28:38
does not have to be and there's no requirement that it be spent every year. 00:28:43
So next we move on to the. 00:28:49
Estimated impact on property tax liability section. 00:28:52
We're on page 12 where there's a number of red and blue bars. 00:28:56
So the. 00:29:01
Current The first box is here. 00:29:03
For Georgetown Township in Georgetown Town. 00:29:06
Indicate those are the two taxing units that are currently covered. 00:29:08
In by the Georgetown Fire Protection District. 00:29:14
So the district tax rate is is in these two units tax tax rates currently. 00:29:17
So the blue bar. 00:29:24
Indicates what the 2025 rate is. We know that that is certified by the DLGF. 00:29:26
So in 2025, the total tax rate. 00:29:31
For, say, Georgetown Township. 00:29:34
Which is going to include the rates of Fulton County or Floyd County. 00:29:37
The Fire Protection District. 00:29:42
The other services that are provided by Georgetown Township, such as poor relief. 00:29:44
Cemetery service, any of those other. 00:29:49
Functions that are covered specifically by the Township. 00:29:52
The school is also part of this rate. The library is part of this rate. 00:29:54
So this total. 00:29:59
Current rate of one point. 00:30:01
6140. 00:30:03
Part of that goes to every. 00:30:05
To these other units within the county. 00:30:07
The current Georgetown rate. 00:30:11
Is .2111. 00:30:13
And if we replace it with what I showed you on the previous page of .4407. 00:30:17
We would expect the first year. 00:30:23
That resulting rate would be 1.8436. 00:30:25
That's roughly a 14.2% increase in the overall tax rate. 00:30:29
And then we've just we've continued to leave the blue bar in there as the 2025 rate is a guideline to show you where. 00:30:35
The rates for the district would go in future years. You as I said, it drops a little bit the second year. 00:30:42
To 1.777 within the Township. 00:30:47
Then the 1.7766, the third year within the Township. 00:30:50
Now the town portion. The Georgetown town portion. 00:30:56
Starts out with a higher. 00:31:00
Tax rate in 25. 00:31:02
There's in 25 is 1.8886. 00:31:04
But they are also currently paying that Georgetown Fire District rate of. 00:31:09
.2111 that's included in there, it's going to be replaced with the same. 00:31:13
.4407. 00:31:17
That is a net increase of 0.2296. 00:31:19
So. 00:31:23
After the territory. 00:31:25
Be in place in 26. Their resulting rate would be 2.1182. 00:31:27
Per $100.00 of net assessed value. 00:31:31
Then the second year would drop to roughly 2.053. 00:31:34
The third year, 2.0512. 00:31:38
So the next page is the New Albany District. 00:31:42
The New Albany district currently has a rate of .1984. 00:31:47
And a portion of that 083. 00:31:53
Is covering a current debt for the New Albany District. 00:31:56
That debt stays only with the New Albany District net assessed value. It does not get rolled into the fire territory. 00:32:01
So the fire district. 00:32:09
Currently has rates outside of that of .1901. 00:32:11
So. 00:32:16
From the current. 00:32:18
New Albany Township rate they were only they only are in one. 00:32:19
Taxing district The New Albany Township District. 00:32:23
So the current rate for them is .11 point 6058. 00:32:27
If we pull out. 00:32:31
The .1901, which is their current fire operating, their current fire capital. 00:32:32
And replace it with the .4407. 00:32:39
That's a net effect for them. 00:32:42
Increase of .2506. 00:32:44
It's about a 15.6% increase. 00:32:46
So in 26 we would expect. 00:32:49
Property tax rates to go up to. 00:32:52
1.8564. 00:32:54
For the New Albany Township. 00:32:56
Then 1.7905 the second year. 00:32:58
1.7894 the third year. 00:33:01
And in future, as net assessed value grows, the tax rate also drops. There's an inverse relationship. 00:33:05
So if. 00:33:12
Businesses are coming. If property values are expanding, that tax rate drops overtime. 00:33:14
I also want to stress that these impacts that we're talking about. 00:33:20
Are only the impacts cause of the fire territory? 00:33:24
Could something happen because another unit could do something? Yes, it definitely could. 00:33:28
We don't know what that is. The other units aren't going to give us their five year plans. 00:33:33
To figure out what that might be. 00:33:37
So anything that's showing here is specifically for the fire territory estimates only related. 00:33:39
To adopting and passing that fire territory. 00:33:45
If you can, go on to the next page. 00:33:48
So now we're getting into some pie charts. These get a little bit repetitive, so I'll start explaining the first one. 00:33:50
A lot of times we get a question. 00:33:57
So of my tax bill, how much of it's going to fire service? 00:33:58
So we've started here with the with Georgetown Township. 00:34:04
If we look at a home. 00:34:08
That is $100,000 in net assessed value. 00:34:10
In 25 since we don't have tax bills calculated yet for 25. 00:34:14
We are estimating though that that tax bill would be $470 for a $100,000 net assessed home. 00:34:19
Of that $470, you can see that largest orange portion. 00:34:26
That goes to the New Albany Floyd County Consolidated School District. 00:34:30
So 308 dollars of the 470. 00:34:34
Is going to the school. 00:34:37
There's then a chunk there of $18.00 that goes to the New Albany Floyd County Public Library. 00:34:40
$80.00 roughly goes to Floyd County itself, the Floyd County Governmental Unit. 00:34:46
Georgetown Township gets $2.00 of that. 00:34:51
And $62.00 of that bill comes back to the Georgetown district. 00:34:55
So what happens in 2026? 00:35:00
In 2026, the bill will increase overall. 00:35:05
About 14.2%. 00:35:09
Up to $537. 00:35:11
So again, since we're focusing specifically on what's going on with the territory. 00:35:15
This calculation shows the schools with the same amount, 308 dollars. 00:35:20
New Albany Library, 18 dollars. 00:35:25
Floyd County specifically $80.00. Georgetown Township $2.00. 00:35:27
So now the new territory. 00:35:32
Would be getting $129. 00:35:34
Of this. 00:35:37
Estimated tax bill for fire service. 00:35:38
Whereas previously just the Georgetown district was getting $62.00, now the combination. 00:35:41
Would be $129. 00:35:47
The next page shows a Georgetown. 00:35:51
Township home estimated at $200,000. 00:35:54
The bill for a home there is estimated to be $1375. 00:35:58
For 25. 00:36:03
So again, that large orange portion, in this case it's equivalent to $900, goes to the school. 00:36:05
About $53 is going to the library, 235 to the county. 00:36:11
$7.00 to the Township and 180 to fire. 00:36:17
After. 00:36:22
The fire territory starts. 00:36:23
In 26. 00:36:25
The amount going to fire would then be $375 roughly. 00:36:27
The next. 00:36:34
Force pages are. 00:36:35
Similar the. 00:36:37
1st, we have a $100,000. 00:36:38
Home Comparison. 00:36:41
If you're in the town of Georgetown, specifically, if you lie within those boundaries. 00:36:42
For $100,000 home then we have a $200,000 home if you lie within. 00:36:47
The Georgetown town boundaries. 00:36:53
New Albany. 00:36:56
Township that are the next two pages that that one is slightly different because they do have a slightly different rate. 00:36:58
But it's it's still very similar. The rate, their current rate is similar to the rate for. 00:37:04
The Georgetown district. 00:37:08
So there you would estimate $100,000 home would have a bill of roughly 468 dollars. 00:37:10
That about $308 chunk goes to the school, 18 to the library, 80 to the county, $4.00 to the Township. 00:37:17
55 is currently going to the New Albany District. 00:37:23
And then two to that debt portion of the New Albany district. 00:37:26
After. 00:37:30
The fire territory is put in place on a $100,000 home. 00:37:31
That bill would go up to about $541. 00:37:35
That's still the $309 to the school on around and the fire portion would then be about $128.00. 00:37:40
We can move ahead to page 20. 00:37:49
So page 20 and. 00:37:54
The next 3 pages actually. 00:37:56
Show some examples based upon. 00:37:58
Assessed values of homes. 00:38:01
In different circuit breaker classes. 00:38:03
In Indiana. 00:38:06
Written into our Constitution is something called circuit breaker tax caps to limit. 00:38:07
Growth on tax bills. 00:38:13
So if for example if you are in a your primary home. 00:38:15
And up to standard definition is about one acre of property. There are some variances of that. 00:38:19
That's called a 1% property. 00:38:25
Meaning the tax bill. 00:38:27
On that home could not be more than 1% of its gross assessed value. That's meaning before your homestead deduction. 00:38:29
Before your supplemental homestead deduction. 00:38:37
Before any of those deductions, so if you have a $100,000 home. 00:38:39
After those deductions, you're billed on about $35,000 of it. 00:38:44
But your bill could not be more than $1000 or 1%. 00:38:48
Of a $100,000 home. 00:38:53
So we've tried to show examples here of what the bills would be estimated for in 25 and what the changes would look like. 00:38:56
Going forward for the the next first three years of the territory. 00:39:03
So we have that $100,000 home there again at the top line. 00:39:09
We just looked at the colored graphs for previously. 00:39:12
That bill was about $470.25. 00:39:15
The 2026 bill would be 537. 00:39:18
The difference there is. 00:39:21
Ends up being. 00:39:23
Not quite $6 a month. We show it in a month in like the total annual chart change and a monthly change because those of you that 00:39:25
would be paying on a mortgage monthly, that would give you an idea of what the impact would be to your monthly mortgage statement. 00:39:32
You also would want to pay attention to the where anything where it says percent, change that column that says percent change. 00:39:39
Because if you have a property. 00:39:45
That doesn't fall into one of these nice round categories of 100,152 hundred 250 or 300,000. 00:39:47
You could take your tax bill in 2025. 00:39:55
Multiply it times 1.142. 00:39:59
For an increase of 14.2%. 00:40:02
And that would give you a rough idea of what your 2026 bill would be. 00:40:06
Based upon the fire territory. 00:40:10
Going in. 00:40:13
In service. 00:40:14
And having those levees changed. 00:40:15
We show examples too for farmland and other residential. 00:40:19
Other residential would be things like second homes or rental homes. 00:40:23
Assisted living facilities fall into this classification group homes. 00:40:27
Or just flat agricultural land? 00:40:32
Rather than showing it on an acreage basis, we're showing it on a dollar basis. So it applies to either. 00:40:34
Acreage or a second home of some sort? 00:40:40
Now the 2% properties. 00:40:44
Do not include. 00:40:46
Anything like a homestead credit, they're billed at full value. Their tax bills are calculated at full value. 00:40:47
So if you had a $50,000. 00:40:55
Piece of agricultural land or land of some sort that qualifies as agriculture. 00:40:59
That bill would be about $807.00 in 2020. 00:41:03
Five and then. 00:41:07
Excuse me, roughly $922 in 26. Again, that's a 14.2% increase. So if you have egg property. 00:41:09
Anything that falls into this residential other residential classification. 00:41:17
If you take that amount, multiply it times the 1.142. 00:41:21
That would give you an idea of what your 2026 tax bill would look like. 00:41:26
And then commercial properties, those are at 3% caps. Those are all other sort of businesses. 00:41:31
Access residential business, personal property. 00:41:36
Those items are billed at the 3% cap, meaning a. 00:41:39
Bill could be no more than 3% of the gross assessed value. So if you have a $100,000. 00:41:42
Business. Umm. 00:41:48
Your tax bill would not be under the cap structure more than $3000 or 3% of the 100,000. 00:41:49
So there if. 00:41:58
A $250,000 piece of commercial property. 00:41:59
The bill would be roughly $4035.25. 00:42:02
Then roughly $4609 in 26. Again, it's a 14.2% change. 00:42:07
And you can see when you look at the next change columns it decreases by. 00:42:14
3.6. 00:42:18
Then it changes again by a 10th of a percent the third year. 00:42:20
That change happens in the first year that the bulk of the change happens the first year the territory goes into place. 00:42:23
After that, changes going forward would be small to changes in rates due to the territory being in place. 00:42:29
On the next page is Georgetown Town. 00:42:38
In their case, because they have a larger tax rate to start with. 00:42:41
Their change is 12.2%. 00:42:46
That follows the same rules, the 1% properties, 2% properties, 3% properties. 00:42:49
If you multiply current bills 2425 * 12.2%. 00:42:53
That would give you an idea of what the your bill would be after. 00:42:58
Beginning the fire territory. 00:43:02
And then for New Albany. 00:43:05
Again, it's the same structure. 00:43:06
They have a 15.6% increase because potentially of the district. 00:43:09
Or the territory, I'm sorry, going into place in place of the district. 00:43:15
So the last piece I have. 00:43:19
Talks about potential effects on other units within Floyd County. 00:43:21
Page 24 explains those circuit breaker caps that I just talked about. 00:43:26
Because in general, when you add. 00:43:30
Levy. 00:43:33
At any point in the county. 00:43:34
It increases circuit breaker loss for other units in the county. 00:43:36
So in this case you have some units that have no. 00:43:41
Tax cap based circuit breaker loss. 00:43:45
Some of them only have loss. 00:43:48
That would be associated with those individuals 65 and over. 00:43:50
Who have filed with the county and are receiving a discount on their rates. 00:43:54
Because of their age, there's also individuals that are blind veterans have a. 00:43:58
Potential deduction. 00:44:02
Those we don't have estimated here. What we're showing here is completely. 00:44:04
Cap loss. 00:44:08
Based upon that, those 1-2 and 3% caps. 00:44:10
So, for example, Floyd County is at the top of the list. 00:44:13
As I mentioned, they are an overlapping unit because anybody that lives in the current. 00:44:17
Net assessed value area for these two fire districts. 00:44:22
Floyd County Part of their tax bill goes back to Floyd County. 00:44:25
Oh, I'm sorry. 00:44:30
Sorry. 00:44:31
So right, I'm sorry about that. 00:44:33
So the top line. 00:44:36
Shows. 00:44:37
From our third party processor that we use said that they would estimate in 2026 without the territory. 00:44:39
Floyd County's loss would be about $516,000 in circuit breaker. 00:44:46
However, with the territory. 00:44:50
It'd be about $527,000 in loss. 00:44:52
And that loss just means property tax that's not collected because certain properties are hitting the caps and anything over their 00:44:55
cap. 00:44:59
Is not paid, is not collected by the county. 00:45:02
So. 00:45:05
About $11,000 impact that first year to the county. 00:45:07
Then of course it increases going forward too, but. 00:45:12
That can be some of that can be for property tax annual levy growth as well. 00:45:15
There will. 00:45:23
We don't show any. 00:45:24
Loss for the two districts because if you remember, the actual districts are losing their current levies. 00:45:26
So whatever they're, you know, collecting any loss they have originally now is going to be transferred. 00:45:32
Back to. 00:45:37
The new territory. 00:45:38
And there's not a lot of loss relative to the new territory potentially. 00:45:40
But it will affect the school. 00:45:44
If you look at the line for the consolidated school, that goes. 00:45:47
Because they have the largest leverage, you remember they have the big orange chunk and all of those pie charts. So they're 00:45:50
receiving. 00:45:53
Of all the units pretty much here other than potentially the city of New Albany. 00:45:56
They're receiving a fairly large amount of levy and then they so they're losing about 1.7 million in circuit breaker. 00:46:00
With the first year of the territory, their loss would be around 1.768, so about $37,000 that first year. 00:46:07
Because of the territory. 00:46:15
And then going forward, they would again have. 00:46:17
Increase some potentially increased loss as well. 00:46:19
Floyd County also has local income tax. 00:46:26
Abbreviated shorthand as. 00:46:29
That is tax that is applied to individuals. 00:46:32
Salaries and wages. 00:46:35
It comes back home with you to Floyd County. So if you work over in Clark County. 00:46:37
Or you work in another county. 00:46:42
Your payroll processor there is taking into account your Floyd County rate. 00:46:44
Withholding that money, it's going back to the state and then it comes back to the county and the auditor here distributes it 00:46:48
amongst the units. 00:46:52
So Floyd County currently has. 00:46:56
Multiple kinds of lit. They're listed here in the sort of in the middle of the page. 00:46:59
Certified Shares. Public Safety. 00:47:03
Economic development. 00:47:06
Correctional facilities. They're using something called PTRC. 00:47:07
To try to help. 00:47:11
Eliminate some of the circuit breaker loss. 00:47:13
And then they have judicial system. 00:47:16
So the judicial system, the Correctional Facility. 00:47:18
Those go specifically to only the county unit. 00:47:22
Property tax relief is shared amongst all. 00:47:26
Units in the county and shows up as property tax. It doesn't show up specifically to those units as. 00:47:29
As lit, however, certified shares. 00:47:35
Is. 00:47:38
Divided up between. 00:47:40
All units in the county. 00:47:41
So the district, the beach district currently gets local income tax, as does the county. 00:47:43
Has does townships, as do cities and towns as do. 00:47:49
So the schools get a portion of that as well. 00:47:54
Public safety only is currently going to. 00:47:57
The county unit and the municipal unit. 00:48:01
So Georgetown, New Albany, Greenville. 00:48:04
Can't remember what the other town is here. 00:48:06
So public safety, which you would think maybe would go to the units that are providing fire service, does not. It's up to the 00:48:08
county to decide if they want to. 00:48:12
Directly give any of it to these units. 00:48:16
That currently direct distribution is only to the county and municipal units. 00:48:19
And that's the same thing with economic development, local income tax. 00:48:23
It goes only to the county unit and the municipal units. 00:48:27
So we have some charts to show. 00:48:32
Potential changes. 00:48:34
Again, due to the fire territory, if you want to go to the next slide. 00:48:36
The first thing we look at is certified shares. 00:48:40
So because. 00:48:43
The increase in levy it's it's distributed based upon a units relative share. 00:48:45
Of all levies in the county. 00:48:52
So. 00:48:54
For example. 00:48:55
If a units levy was equivalent to 10% of all of the levies in the county. 00:48:57
They. 00:49:02
Pretty close to 10% of the local income tax collected by Floyd County for the certified shares. 00:49:03
So when you calculate all these different units that are receiving. 00:49:11
Local income tax. 00:49:14
The portion of levy is increasing for the territory. 00:49:18
So like I said, they're currently receiving certified chairs. We anticipate they will continue receiving certified chairs, 00:49:21
although. 00:49:24
The amount can change overtime, it's not a permanent set amount. 00:49:28
So they would. 00:49:33
Some additional would come there, but it would come then off of other units. So again, if we look at the county and it's also, I'm 00:49:35
sorry, a year in arrears. 00:49:38
So any changes in 2016 or 2026 based upon the fire territory? 00:49:41
Would not show up in local income tax until 2027. 00:49:46
So that's why when you look at. 00:49:50
2026 Baseline. 00:49:52
Without the fire territory, it would be the same as 2026 with the fire territory because it's technically based upon what's going 00:49:54
on right now. 00:49:58
That, however, in 2027. 00:50:02
If you just follow the line for Floyd County, it would drop from an estimated amount of 5.013 million. 00:50:04
To about 4.696 million. 00:50:10
Now the calculation for the part that. 00:50:14
Is distributed to schools. 00:50:16
Is not. 00:50:18
Included here because that's a different calculation. It's handled differently. 00:50:19
So the I do show currently right here that the school is blank because there's two parts to this Certified shares lit. 00:50:23
And this is only the part that would be affected because of the territory. The other part is not affected because of the 00:50:30
territory. 00:50:33
So we're assuming a flat amount here over the next. 00:50:38
Three years, even though that is likely to grow, but again, that change would be would come in to the county for New Albany, for 00:50:40
Georgetown in. 00:50:45
Potentially 2027, not immediately next year, within 2026. 00:50:49
The next two schedules are for the public safety and the economic development and because, as I mentioned. 00:50:55
The districts don't receive it. The territory won't receive it. 00:51:01
We would expect no changes in those two because of the territory. Again, there could be changes because of other reasons, but no 00:51:04
changes specifically because of the territory. 00:51:08
The last type of tax that would potentially be affected because of the formation of the territory. 00:51:15
Is the vehicle excise tax that I mentioned previously. 00:51:20
Now, forming the territory doesn't increase the rates for your plates or for your. 00:51:23
You know, car registrations or anything like that. 00:51:28
It just changes how it's allocated throughout the units in the county. 00:51:31
Because similarly to lit. 00:51:35
It is allocated based upon total. 00:51:38
That unit's portion of levy compared to all the other levies in the county. So again. 00:51:40
If account if a unit has about. 00:51:44
10% of all the levy in the county. 00:51:46
They would get roughly 10% of the CVET excise and for the auto excise taxes. 00:51:49
So if you want to look at Floyd County again potentially. 00:51:55
We're adding some levy because of the territory. 00:51:59
Those two district levies are going away, with you replacing it with the new territory levy. 00:52:04
Floyd County would expect potentially their share of excise could drop beginning with the first year of the territory. 00:52:09
From about 1,024,000. 00:52:16
To roughly 1,013,000. 00:52:19
And then the other changes you can see fairly we have the change amount there. You can kind of see where those go overtime as levy 00:52:21
shift is the. 00:52:25
Cash reserve portion drops out the second year. 00:52:28
And goes forward from there. 00:52:31
So that does conclude the financial portion of this evening's presentation. 00:52:33
And I know there's a lot. 00:52:39
When it comes to talking about property tax and calculation and what changes and what doesn't change and how the changes affect 00:52:41
individual homeowners. 00:52:44
So if you have questions that you think of later. 00:52:48
My information as well as Paige Sansone's information, she is the principal at Baker Tilly in charge of this service line doing 00:52:51
the fire territory analysis. 00:52:55
If you come up with a question after the fact. 00:52:59
Feel free to e-mail or contact us and we will try to provide as much information as we can and hopefully clarify things for you. 00:53:01
Does anybody have more questions and questions about this finances specifically before I open we open the Florida public comment? 00:53:09
Yes, I would like to know is there a? 00:53:16
To create the territory. 00:53:20
As far as? 00:53:23
Can Georgetown raise their rates? 00:53:26
Enough to take care of George Town? No. Or you have to create a new entity. You have to create the new. Yep, you have to create 00:53:29
the entity. 00:53:32
To get have the benefit of the increase. So if in two years Franklin Township comes back and says hey guys, I want to join, I want 00:53:36
to be part of the territory. 00:53:41
This one kind of gets disbanded and simultaneously a new one would be put in place. They'd have to go through the same 3 meetings 00:53:46
again. They would have to go through. 00:53:50
All of that again. 00:53:54
So yes, that the benefit is. 00:53:55
By the two districts coming to the territory, they can. 00:53:58
Ask for the increase in levy to support the new plans for fire service. 00:54:02
Certainly. 00:54:09
Thank you, Susan. Quick question. 00:54:11
The last couple of slides that you had about local income tax and the calculations. 00:54:13
Where you show in the future local income tax for the territory. 00:54:19
Is that factored into the tax rate? 00:54:23
For the property tax. 00:54:27
It is not only because. 00:54:29
This is a bit of a new. 00:54:32
Animal This is the first time we have had of all the fire territories that we have worked on. 00:54:34
This is the first time we have had two districts combined to form a territory. 00:54:40
We have read the legislation as we understand it. We have asked for guidance from the Department of Local Government Finance. 00:54:45
They have not provided us guidance on whether or not our assumptions are correct. 00:54:52
So we are showing it as potential revenue. 00:54:58
But we are not showing it in the calculation of what it will take to support the district. Now, if we find out through all of this 00:55:02
that the. 00:55:06
The new territory because of these two districts. 00:55:10
Will continue to receive local income tax. 00:55:13
The district, The territory. 00:55:17
Boards can choose to request less property tax. 00:55:19
Even if the DLGF approves them at this rate based upon everything here. 00:55:23
That doesn't say it has to be taken. 00:55:28
If they're going to receive the local income tax, that can be used to replace some of this. 00:55:30
So. 00:55:36
If we had asked though for the rate, definitely including it and then they said no, we're not going to do it that way. This is 00:55:38
going to be an exception. 00:55:41
Only because they are not giving us a definitive answer. 00:55:45
It is not included as part of the supporting revenue and. 00:55:49
Thereby creating the reduction. 00:55:53
Of the in tax rate that we're asking for. 00:55:55
Thank you. I just want to make that clarification for the public. The calculations that Baker Tilly has presented and provided to 00:55:57
us are. 00:56:01
What I call worst case scenario? 00:56:04
When they look at what the tax rate will be for 27 and 28. 00:56:07
They are not forecasting any increase in the net assessed value. 00:56:12
Which is the denominator of the equation. 00:56:16
So they are assuming there's not going to be an increase in property value, there's not going to be any growth, new businesses, 00:56:19
new homes. 00:56:22
Reality, if you look at the statistics for our area, property values tend to increase overtime. 00:56:26
It's more expensive now than it was 1020 years ago. 00:56:32
That then means that the rate would be lower. 00:56:35
In addition. 00:56:39
Both districts combined currently get about 24% of their revenue via. 00:56:41
Local income tax. 00:56:45
We are calculating. 00:56:48
The property tax. 00:56:50
Revenue. 00:56:53
For the territory to not include any of that. 00:56:54
So as Susan just said. 00:56:58
If we then are eligible and able to get local income tax, we would reduce. 00:57:00
Property tax that the territory. 00:57:06
Gets from the community. 00:57:09
And I've also been asked the question that there's a new local income tax that's been enacted here in Floyd County, the public 00:57:11
safety local income tax. 00:57:14
We do not know if the territory will get any of that local income tax. 00:57:18
It hasn't been decided yet. 00:57:22
But if it is decided by county leadership that the territory would get some of that new local income tax. 00:57:24
We would reduce the property tax that we collect. 00:57:30
So the numbers that you're seeing have been published? 00:57:34
Those are worst case scenario. 00:57:37
It's my hope. 00:57:39
That number is actually going to be less, as much as at least 24%, maybe even more than that, but we can't guarantee that. So 00:57:40
that's why we're only putting down on paper. 00:57:45
What Susan has presented that you've seen here tonight. 00:57:49
But it is the worst case scenario. 00:57:52
In addition. 00:57:55
Just a couple quick comments. I'm sorry if anybody else on the board. 00:57:56
Has some questions and I'll shut up. 00:57:59
We are proposing taking the two districts and forming a territory. 00:58:02
We are asking for some additional revenue from the community in order to do that. Roughly it's $1,000,000. 00:58:06
It's 18.9% more revenue than what we currently are collecting AS2 districts. 00:58:13
For that additional 18.9% in revenue. 00:58:19
We are projecting to increase Fire Protection. 00:58:23
Stations. 00:58:26
By 33%. 00:58:27
We're going to go from three stations to four stations. 00:58:29
We also are projecting. 00:58:32
That we're going to add. 00:58:35
3 battalion chiefs. 00:58:37
One fire Marshall. 00:58:38
One captain Training officer. 00:58:40
3 Captains. 00:58:42
3 lieutenants and six firefighters. 00:58:44
The end result is going to be over a 50% increase in firefighters protecting the community. 00:58:47
For an 18.9% increase in revenue. 00:58:52
So just there have been some. 00:58:55
For lack of a better term, rumors that have been floating around the community. I want everybody to understand that these are 00:58:58
facts. 00:59:01
And the last thing I'm going to say is that Susan touched on the fact that New Albany Township Fire Protection District has a 00:59:05
little bit of debt. 00:59:08
That debt stays separate, it does not come to the territory. 00:59:12
The territory does not absorb that debt. 00:59:15
Georgetown has zero debt. 00:59:19
We have never asked the community for more money. 00:59:21
Over 10 years, I showed you that our tax rate has actually gone down. 00:59:24
So I've heard some bad information out there. I would like to correct it and set the record straight. 00:59:28
So is there anybody else on the boards that have any questions for Susan? 00:59:33
Yes, Sir. 00:59:36
So. 00:59:39
OK. 00:59:40
Previous proposal that was made public at the last meeting that had a higher rate than this. 00:59:42
With a third. 00:59:49
Participating unit. So I'm just curious and. 00:59:51
Pleasantly surprised is how it could be. 00:59:54
So much lower with with a smaller tax base. The the last information that was presented on the clips on January 2nd. 00:59:57
Did not have any. 01:00:05
At all. 01:00:07
And the Franklin Township portion of net assessed value was fairly small relative to the amounts for Georgetown and New Albany. 01:00:10
So I believe they were maybe 5% of the net assessed values. They would have equated to roughly 5%. 01:00:18
Of the revenue. 01:00:25
But then when we balance that against some growth. 01:00:26
In the net assessed value going forward for 26 and 27. 01:00:30
That resulted in a rate that was somewhere less than what we had originally talked about. 01:00:34
Because their portion of it was technically so small that had they been 1/3. 01:00:39
Of it like if you were a third, third and a third instead of roughly 4545, you know, 47 and a half, 47 1/2 and. 01:00:44
Five, it would have been a much larger change in that impact and it would have increased it. 01:00:51
More than what you're seeing here. 01:00:56
Got it. Thank you. Sure. 01:00:59
April, did you have a comment the mic's on? 01:01:01
OK. Anybody else a question or comments for Susan? 01:01:08
Gentlemen. 01:01:10
New Albany Fire District has about two and a half, $1,000,000 in reserves. 01:01:11
Cash. 01:01:17
Or they did late last year. 01:01:19
What happens to that? Does that come back to taxpayers? 01:01:22
Or does that go into the entity if the entities dissolve? 01:01:26
I will. 01:01:31
In how much cash in Georgetown bringing to the party, I'm going to turn it over to the lawyer to address that specifically. There 01:01:33
is something called an interlocal operational agreement between the two units that we liken to sort of like a prenup. 01:01:38
It says this is how much of our existing funds we're going to contribute to the territory, how much we may be holding in reserves 01:01:44
to purchase a truck and what happens to those funds if they break up. So you can speak to the details of that, Mister William. 01:01:50
So to answer that question again. 01:01:58
Think of both entities still existing. 01:02:00
Right. So you have New Albany Township Fire Protection District, you have Georgetown. 01:02:03
And those entities enter into a contract. The contract is more or less the territory. 01:02:07
That contract is the Interlocal agreement. 01:02:13
The interlocal agreement would be adopted. 01:02:16
When the two entities both adopt matching resolutions and those resolutions. 01:02:19
Would kind of outline the the terms let's say. 01:02:25
But that interlocal agreement is going to get into the nuts and bolts. It's going to say, for instance, if there is equipment, if 01:02:29
there is apparatus. 01:02:34
Will the two districts. 01:02:38
Then contribute those apparatus and that equipment into the territory so that the territory can use that apparatus and equipment 01:02:40
moving forward. 01:02:44
Again, when you think about the territory, it's not really a new. 01:02:48
Entity. 01:02:52
Right. It is Georgetown Township Fire Protection District, the municipal fire department. That's current. 01:02:53
Operated now. 01:03:00
We'll just continue forward. 01:03:02
It'll just operate in a bigger territory. 01:03:04
And that territory will just be the. 01:03:07
Income coming in now, I know I'm going around your question a little bit, but. 01:03:09
I was hoping to give a little bit broader information, then we get into the details. 01:03:13
Earlier you heard about the creation of. 01:03:18
What would be an executive board, right And that executive board? 01:03:22
Would be the. 01:03:26
It would be the board that's created between the two fire districts. 01:03:29
That would then. 01:03:33
Work to develop. 01:03:34
And approve the budget, working with Georgetown Township as the provider unit. 01:03:36
And so in that interlocal agreement. 01:03:40
You'll do a couple things. 01:03:43
You'll determine as all of the cash contributed. 01:03:45
And #2 is all of the equipment contributed. 01:03:49
#3. 01:03:53
If there is new equipment contributed. 01:03:55
And the your question I think comes into does it. 01:03:59
Go back if the territory is dissolved. Is that the question? 01:04:03
That would be in the agreement, so the parties would agree. 01:04:09
That either the if they bought new equipment together, they would have to prorate for instance, the value of that equipment and 01:04:12
they would try to unwind it that way. 01:04:16
Similarly. 01:04:21
If you. 01:04:22
Contribute funds. 01:04:24
To the fire territory and one of the parties withdraws. 01:04:25
That. 01:04:29
Fire Territory Fund will go away. 01:04:30
OK, there can't be duplicate levies or duplicate funds. 01:04:33
Let's say under the statute here. 01:04:37
So if that fund goes away, it will have to go back. 01:04:40
To the fire districts, which are the participating units. 01:04:43
So sometimes I like to think of it. 01:04:46
Is really, it's just a. 01:04:49
A contract, it will be in that in contract and the parties will be negotiating that contract. 01:04:51
Just like you see other. 01:04:57
Municipal units negotiating contracts when they do something together. 01:05:00
That help? 01:05:05
I will add statutorily as far as the levy goes. 01:05:06
If five years down the road, all parties involved decide they can't be a territory anymore and they want to break apart, and 01:05:10
there's an existing levy assigned to that territory. 01:05:14
It goes back to each of the two participating units based upon proportional share of net assessed values value. So if what if that 01:05:19
happens in 2029, whatever the levy is that year, if say it's $8 million? 01:05:26
And Georgetown is 50% and. 01:05:33
New Albany's 50%, they would each get half of that $8 million back in levy to continue funding fire service. 01:05:36
From the operational side, that's that's the only real thing that talks about the unwinding of the process. 01:05:43
In statute. 01:05:51
Up front just says you have to have the interlocal, you have to have the resolutions agreed to. The content of those is up to the 01:05:52
the units that are going in together, even the contribution of funds. This is like I said kind of a special case because you have 01:05:58
two units here that are currently only already providing fire. 01:06:04
If it was a traditional situation where it was just a Township and a town, maybe. 01:06:10
And they had fire funds in a. 01:06:14
Being held. 01:06:16
They could potentially use them for something else. 01:06:17
These two existing units have no functions other or responsibilities other than providing fire service. 01:06:20
So however you know what have the way that they go through that. 01:06:26
Negotiations for the Interlocal. 01:06:30
And decide what happens to those existing funds they have up front. 01:06:32
Is within the. 01:06:36
Individuals that are here at the front of the table tonight. 01:06:37
Ma'am, I believe you had a question. 01:06:43
I have a question about. 01:06:45
Fire services. 01:06:47
I don't understand what it is. 01:06:49
For tax bill and then. 01:06:58
Our property taxes. 01:07:03
What's the? 01:07:05
Percent and so then you mentioned. 01:07:06
Kind of is being kind of likely to. 01:07:11
So would that be like if I marry somebody? 01:07:14
But they didn't seem like that. 01:07:17
Some yes. The Statute for Fire territories clearly says that existing debt from one unit does not get shared across multiple the 01:07:20
units forming the territory. 01:07:25
So what that is? 01:07:29
Had to come before Floyd County. 01:07:33
They to get an additional tax rate to pay for debt. I don't know what they used the debt for. I don't know if it was a building or 01:07:35
if it was a vehicle. 01:07:39
Or what that debt was, but they issued a bond or a loan of some sort. 01:07:42
And then there was an additional tax rate added. That current rate, like I said, is .0083. 01:07:47
To assist the district to pay that debt back. 01:07:52
So they didn't have enough available revenues to cover? 01:07:56
The debt? Likely. 01:08:00
And so they went for that additional portion. The county approved it, it went through the DLGF, the DLGF approved it. And I don't 01:08:01
have to admit I don't know at what year it was added. 01:08:06
To the New Albany rate. 01:08:11
But since it was originally on the citizens in New Albany Township, it stays with the individuals in New Albany Township. It 01:08:13
doesn't per the statute, it doesn't get included across the territory. 01:08:19
I believe that debt is scheduled to be paid off in 2029. 01:08:27
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's close to being paid off. 01:08:32
OK. Any other questions for Susan or Will? 01:08:36
Go to Keith, who's going to have just a couple. Actually, I think he hit most of it already. 01:08:39
That's that's what I tried to do with that. 01:08:44
Comment so that you didn't have to listen to another presentation. 01:08:46
OK. Any further questions for Susan? Otherwise, we'll move forward to public comments. 01:08:49
Anybody on the boards? 01:08:56
No. OK. So the way that we're going to do things at this point is that we welcome and encourage public comment. 01:08:59
We would like you to approach the podium. 01:09:05
Write your name down on the sheet of paper and your address. Introduce yourself once you're done right, You don't have to rush 01:09:07
writing your name down or introducing yourself. 01:09:11
We'll start the timer so everybody has a chance to talk. 01:09:15
And I'll let you know when you've got about 30 seconds left and then when 3 minutes are up, I'll let you know that also. 01:09:18
So thank you. 01:09:25
Well, hell, boys, don't step up all at once. 01:09:39
Hey, I'm Andy Dietrich. I live in the Township. 01:09:44
I think. 01:09:47
We have a town of the Township. 01:09:48
Oh, where? 01:09:52
Sorry I'd ask my neighbor I'm new to. 01:09:53
The great state of Indiana. I've been here for four years, though. 01:09:56
1st I just want to thank. 01:10:00
All the professionals in this room, firefighters, like, thank you all for your service because I really do appreciate that as a 01:10:01
citizen here. 01:10:04
With regards to the financials. 01:10:08
I have a couple questions. I don't think they were. 01:10:10
That you would be able to answer. I think that's more for them, but if you do have a data. 01:10:13
Awesome, I'm more asking questions just for my own. 01:10:16
Ability, and I think the public's ability to really take in. 01:10:20
What we're building here. 01:10:23
Which umm. 01:10:25
I think fire service is absolutely vital and as a taxpayer, I'll. 01:10:26
Think that's a good use of funds? 01:10:30
But I wouldn't be a good taxpayer if I didn't look at. 01:10:33
What our expenses are going to. 01:10:36
So I'd like to make a request. 01:10:39
For the last three years of financials by line item, specifically operational expenses. 01:10:43
Of all three districts. 01:10:48
Because I'd like to learn why Franklin was taken out. 01:10:52
So that's another question that's being added to this. 01:10:55
So the operational expenses I'd like to. 01:10:58
Learn more about the increase in call volume. 01:11:01
As to where they're going, what the purpose was. 01:11:04
How many firefighters are going on each call? 01:11:06
Et cetera. I don't need to know specifics personnel information, Obviously it can be redacted that does, that's irrelevant. 01:11:10
But another question is why do we have as much overtime as we do? 01:11:16
Just out of curiosity, I'd like to learn more about the operations and how we're doing things. 01:11:23
Last question is. 01:11:28
When you look at your operating model and you pulled up your org chart which I thought was great, all made sense on my ex military 01:11:31
so I get it. 01:11:34
I'd like to learn and then for my business side, right? 01:11:39
What's the justification in adding all these people, especially those with titles? 01:11:41
Right, 'cause I. 01:11:46
From my experience, especially in the military, the firefighting community is very similar to that. 01:11:48
I learned that there's a lot of value down at the lower ranks. 01:11:52
People out actually doing the job. 01:11:55
Then there is at the administration level. Administration levels arguably more expensive. 01:11:57
And you know, rightfully so, for the responsibility they take, they undertake. 01:12:02
But are we able to see? 01:12:06
The justification as to why we're adding these these groups, because we're merging people together. 01:12:09
Typically, there's some synergies and some operational efficiencies that we should gain. 01:12:14
And what I read, unless I missed it, I'm not seeing any operational efficiencies gained. Why are we not looking at contracts for 01:12:18
CFO? 01:12:22
Third party HR which I know you're combining some roles which. 01:12:26
I think is smart. 01:12:29
30 seconds. 01:12:30
That I just I want to see this information and understand we or where we can find it. 01:12:32
Or how we can look and work together to make it all make sense. 01:12:37
To both for us to understand that there's a plan, the plan makes sense, we're all getting better service. 01:12:41
And then two. 01:12:46
Hey, it's due diligence, right? I mean, that's. 01:12:48
Part of what we do, but thank you guys for your time. 01:12:50
Enlisting. 01:12:53
Thank you, Sir. 01:12:54
Dale Mad, Georgetown Township. 01:13:02
And I've always ragged on Georgetown's fire department. 01:13:05
I think they do an excellent job. 01:13:09
What I want to ask is the new Firehouse is planned on going into Norman Township, right? 01:13:11
Then why? That's where the most of the cost is. Why in the world would Georgetown want to join that? 01:13:19
And put all that debt on this. Why? 01:13:24
And another thing that's been hidden here. 01:13:28
We're always talking about our tax increases to our total property tax, the increase of our fire district costs or fire charity 01:13:30
costs more than double S. 01:13:34
Actually, we'd be paying a whole lot more for our Fire Protection than we do for our whole county budget. 01:13:39
If you look at those patch charts, that's what I've used. You buy a gallon of gas. 01:13:45
And they rate they double it. You complain about the gallon of gas with your pan, not what your total budget is. 01:13:49
And that's what you're doing. You're hiding the total increase in cost was more than double. 01:13:54
For the Fire Protection we get right now. 01:13:59
And that's in your pie chart. That's your numbers. 01:14:02
Thank you, Gary. 01:14:04
Thank you. 01:14:06
First of all, firefighters, thank you guys for what you do. 01:14:20
You could sign in perfect, but first of all, I appreciate the undertaking you're having to do this. First time I've seen these 01:14:24
numbers. My name is Dennis Davis. 01:14:29
I've been with Georgetown for 32 years. 01:14:34
Built a house here and every year we've had property taxes always coming at us. I think there were maybe two years out of last 30 01:14:38
that we got a little break. 01:14:42
So we've seen those, but I think I want to make it very clear what you all are talking about. The 14 or the 12% is in addition to. 01:14:46
A value of your house. So if you're. 01:14:54
Property taxes goes up from the county from your property tax 3% and we unfortunately have the 14 you're at 17%. 01:14:56
Is that fair? 01:15:04
Is from my understanding of the data, that's what that's. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And I'm not trying to prove or 01:15:07
disprove anything. I'm simply saying I need to digest this data a little bit more. 01:15:12
And I'd really believe that that the general population needs to. 01:15:18
Have a better understanding of what we're trying to build. 01:15:22
Building a better tomorrow is always in favor. 01:15:24
And I'm a Georgetown person and I'm I'm in favor of building the ball. But I agree with the first speaker, we need to see the 01:15:27
efficiencies we're going to gain. Are we getting the bang for our buck? 01:15:31
Not because of lack of effort. 01:15:36
But we just need to know more about the data and what we're going to gain by that. The other part is that's a hard pill to swallow 01:15:38
for a lot of people in 2020, the low income of the national of. 01:15:44
National Housing has shown that 30%. 01:15:50
Of a person's income. 01:15:54
Is spent on their housing. 01:15:56
So now you're asking in addition to that to compound it even more. 01:15:58
And too many people out there right now struggling, so you might inadvertently. 01:16:02
Be seeing a reduction in your populations in your town because people can't afford it. 01:16:07
And with that, I respect the time that you've given me. I'll probably be back in another one. 01:16:12
Looking at your data, probably calling, you find out some more. 01:16:16
But thank you for your time. 01:16:19
Thank you, Dennis. 01:16:21
Good evening. 01:16:43
My name is Dennis Conkel. 01:16:45
And I'm a full time farmer. 01:16:47
One of very few left in this county. 01:16:50
I want to tell you that I've got 180 acres in them. 01:16:55
Georgetown Township area there. 01:16:59
And I kind of like to do a little. 01:17:02
AG economics for you all to give you an idea of where we come from. 01:17:04
And I'm going to use myself as an example. 01:17:09
So in 2024, the net income per acre. 01:17:12
On my cropland was $67 per acre. 01:17:18
My property tax, Current property tax on that same maker. 01:17:22
Is $33. 01:17:27
With a 14% increase. 01:17:30
That increases my property tax per acre by $4.70. 01:17:33
That puts me at almost $40. 01:17:39
Out of a $67 revenue. 01:17:41
Out of that $67 revenue, that leaves me that $27.00 to pay my personal property taxes and my residence. 01:17:45
Now you say, well, how can farmers stay in existence? Well, the problem that we have in Floyd County. 01:17:53
Is that out of that 180 acres, only A50 of it is terrible? 01:17:58
So I'm only able to obtain revenue. 01:18:04
From a portion of that farmland that I own. 01:18:06
And that farmland and that portion is being consumed by taxes. 01:18:10
Leaving agriculture nothing to live. 01:18:15
Now the Highland. 01:18:19
Our district that was created a few years ago. 01:18:21
Had a major impact on a person very close to me and that's my dad. 01:18:24
His property taxes now have exceeded his revenue from the potential that he can earn from his acre. 01:18:29
He's in a negative cash flow because of property taxes on his farm. 01:18:36
Now, is that fair to? 01:18:40
To anything in the United States, you know we're getting. 01:18:42
We're supposed to get tax relief from the Federals. 01:18:45
From our state, but our counties are sucking it back up out of this. We can't afford it. 01:18:48
I can't afford to give you anymore. 01:18:53
Thank you. Thank you. 01:18:57
Charlie Moon, Franklin Township Trustees. 01:19:16
1st all. 01:19:34
For the two boards. 01:19:35
I apologize on behalf of Franklin Township. 01:19:37
For the questions that was asked tonight about Franklin Township. 01:19:41
As these boards know. 01:19:45
The board voted to move forward. 01:19:47
With the territory talks. 01:19:50
And in the 11th hour. 01:19:52
Two board members approached and said they were not for the territory. 01:19:54
To answer the question why they're not for the territory that was asked earlier. 01:19:59
Is they believe that the Volunteer Fire service is the right way to go in Franklin Township? 01:20:04
So I just wanted to make sure we make that clear. 01:20:10
That way there's no. 01:20:12
This boards is not. 01:20:14
Speaking on behalf of our Township. 01:20:16
Again, I am sorry. 01:20:18
We started out good, we had good intentions. 01:20:20
Maybe one day we'll get there. 01:20:24
Thank you. 01:20:26
Thank you, Charlie. 01:20:27
Hey, Cortana. 01:20:31
Some signing in. I'd like to thank everybody in this room that's ever put turn out gear on. 01:20:45
Or helped aid those who do. 01:20:51
My, my hat's off to you. 01:20:55
My father was a firefighter, my brother's firefighter. 01:20:58
I've been involved with the Fire Protection district for 15 years. 01:21:02
Myself and two other board members got pushed off the board. 01:21:07
Because. 01:21:11
We had concerns about this. 01:21:12
I'm sorry. 01:21:15
If you just state your name, Eric Furnish. Thank you, Eric. 01:21:16
Yeah, sorry. 01:21:19
Yeah, so 3 board members got pushed off the board. 01:21:21
Late last year because we had concerns about this. 01:21:24
I think these are two of the newer members. I'm glad you're doing what you're doing. I don't know if you knew about the genesis of 01:21:29
why you're here. 01:21:32
That's kangaroo politics. 01:21:36
When people are getting shoved off the ship. 01:21:38
To ease the way and grease the wheels. 01:21:41
For a certain path. 01:21:44
That's wrong. 01:21:46
That's wrong, and there's nobody up here that can say that that's right. 01:21:48
I learned a long time ago. 01:21:53
Fire and EMS. 01:21:56
Is a black hole. 01:21:58
That will absorb unlimited amounts of money and resources. 01:21:59
And it takes dedicated. 01:22:05
Stewards. 01:22:08
For the taxpayers. 01:22:09
To say. 01:22:11
We have adequate protection. 01:22:13
We're drawing the line. It stops here. 01:22:15
We could have a Firehouse across from every house in this. 01:22:20
County. 01:22:24
We could have 1000 fire trucks. 01:22:26
At some point you have to draw the line. 01:22:29
And it's up to you all to do that. 01:22:33
We've got a 1% Floyd County income tax that's killed and seen going to kill seniors. 01:22:35
That Social Security's taxed. 01:22:42
401K distributions taxed. 01:22:44
We've got this coming. Throwing up, heaping up on them as well. 01:22:47
The Chase Building was purchased and renovated. 01:22:52
Here comes West Bank, where? 01:22:55
You cannot tax yourself into prosperity. 01:22:57
That does not work. 01:23:01
That is a failed exercise. 01:23:03
We're talking about growth in this county. 01:23:06
There will be growth. 01:23:09
If you keep laying on taxes. 01:23:12
People will grind. 01:23:15
People will walk. 01:23:17
People will fly, they'll go elsewhere. They can't absorb that. 01:23:20
I I can keep going on. 01:23:30
We're talking about an individual taxpayer, a 30 year old couple, $400,000 house. I don't know where you find a $100,000 house in 01:23:32
this county. 01:23:37
You're talking 500 a year. 01:23:42
Out of their pocket on top of the income tax and other stuff. 01:23:44
Add that up over 50 years until they die. 01:23:48
Those numbers are hitting 500,000 that you're you're taking out. 01:23:51
Out of them. 01:23:57
I'm sorry, close to 25,000 you're taking out? 01:23:59
You know, over A50 year period. 01:24:01
I also want to remind you. 01:24:05
When taxpayers in a year. 01:24:07
Who are asleep at the wheel and don't realize what's happening in the dark of this night. 01:24:10
Wake up. 01:24:15
What's going to happen is the politicians are going to point back at you. 01:24:17
Because they didn't raise your taxes. 01:24:22
You all raise the taxes if you pull the trigger on this, so keep that in mind. You will get the blame for this. 01:24:27
Thank you. 01:24:35
Anyone else? 01:24:56
Don't worry, that's never happened in this room before. 01:25:11
My name is John Murray. 01:25:21
I'm in the Georgetown Township. 01:25:23
And kind of one topic that you guys brought up earlier and. 01:25:26
This was nicely presented by Jason last year. 01:25:30
For the local income tax, I know you guys don't really have an answer right now, if you can take that. 01:25:33
14 ish million or whatever is projected out of the 80,000 Floyd County residents. 01:25:38
But I definitely encourage. 01:25:44
Looking at that, as stated in. 01:25:45
Many interviews it was. 01:25:48
May know that this could also go to other emergency funds. Obviously none of that was labeled. I'm sure most of you guys saw the. 01:25:50
I might have upset people calling it slush funds blah blah blah. 01:25:58
Although I do believe that is important. 01:26:03
If you guys could also look in the grants or if there's any TIF money that can be made? 01:26:06
Yearly from something else to offset any price. 01:26:12
That may be passed on to the taxpayer. That's just my perspective. 01:26:15
To continue to try to find other money besides. 01:26:20
Continue the taxation, as this gentleman is pointed out while he was up here. 01:26:23
All right, that's it. 01:26:30
Thank you, John. 01:26:32
Anyone else? 01:26:46
OK. Seeing as how we've provided an opportunity for people to talk, we know that. 01:26:53
Soon as you walk out the door, you'll probably have a question. 01:26:58
We're going to end this meeting here tonight. We have. 01:27:01
Two more public hearings scheduled. We've posted those dates. They're on our website. 01:27:05
And there. 01:27:10
Going to be out there in the public so that hopefully. 01:27:11
You're not going to forget them or something like that. 01:27:14
There also are ways that you can communicate if you have a question. My e-mail is in the public. 01:27:16
Notification. 01:27:23
I've gotten several emails from the public and. 01:27:24
I try and answer them as promptly as I can. 01:27:27
Please understand that I do have another job. 01:27:30
And sometimes it might take me 2448 hours to get back to you, but. 01:27:33
I will answer you if you communicate with me. 01:27:37
I'd like to thank everybody for being here this evening, taking time out of your busy schedules, those that stepped up and spoke. 01:27:39
We appreciate it. We've all taken some notes. 01:27:43
And. 01:27:48
All right. We'll move to close the hearing at this time. 01:27:55
I'm going to be here for at least another 25 minutes or so since I told my wife I'm not going to be done till 8:00 and if I get 01:27:58
home early I'll get in trouble. 01:28:01
So if you want to come up and talk, I'd be happy to talk to you. 01:28:05
Thank you everybody. 01:28:07
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Thank you everyone for taking this. 00:00:04
Thank you everyone for your patience. My name is Keith Podium. I'm the attorney for the. 00:00:11
Board of Fire Trustees for Georgetown Township. 00:00:16
Fire Protection District. 00:00:19
I will now open the public hearing and I will turn it over to the Chairman, Mr. Moody, to call Roll. 00:00:21
Thank you, Keith, for the Georgetown Board. Michael Moody, that's me. I'm here. 00:00:31
Mark Ringenberg. 00:00:35
Is attempting to dial in electronically. 00:00:36
We're having a little difficulty with the IT apologize. 00:00:39
David Fear. 00:00:42
Gary Clayman. 00:00:43
Ed Thomas. 00:00:46
Jeff McNulty. 00:00:48
Travis Sharp. 00:00:49
OK. Thank you. 00:00:51
Turn it over to April. 00:00:52
Thank you. 00:00:54
My name is April Geltmaker and I am general counsel for New Albany Township. 00:00:56
Fire and Rescue Board. 00:01:01
And I will call. 00:01:02
Roll call for this public hearing. Kyle Lanoue. 00:01:04
Danny Jacobs. 00:01:09
Mr. Gilbert Kinney. 00:01:12
Scott Sears here. 00:01:14
Ben Guy. 00:01:16
Jennifer McFarlane Kern. 00:01:18
OK. Thank you. 00:01:20
OK. Thank you very much. 00:01:23
We're going to. 00:01:25
Have a couple different presentations to help educate the public on what we're working on and what our vision is for the future. 00:01:27
We'll start with a background and a little bit information about what fire territories are. 00:01:34
And then we will. 00:01:39
Get to what a lot of you are probably interested in is what the impact to the community is. 00:01:41
And then we'll wrap up our presentation mode. 00:01:45
With a little bit more information about the vision of what a fire territory is going to look like in practice. 00:01:48
At the end of our meeting. 00:01:53
We welcome public comments or questions. 00:01:55
We'll ask you to step up to the podium. Introduce yourself. Sign in on the sign in sheet. 00:01:57
And then so we have an opportunity for everybody to have a chance to speak. We'll limit comments tonight to three minutes. 00:02:02
It will take comments or questions in and hopefully be able to get some answers so that we can present them at the next meeting. 00:02:08
So that's our process tonight. We thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here. 00:02:15
And we'll go ahead and get started. 00:02:19
So. 00:02:21
In our community, we've had a rich tradition. Fire service protecting our community started out with Volunteer Fire departments. 00:02:23
The problem is that the volunteer model just doesn't really work very well in today's world. 00:02:31
People don't live and work in the same community. 00:02:36
So it's hard to respond to a fire or emergency if you're across the river in Louisville when you're working. 00:02:39
We're also a lot busier as a society. It's harder for people to volunteer. 00:02:46
And quite honestly, the demands of the firefighter are a lot different than they used to be 20-30 or forty years ago. 00:02:51
A lot more complex. 00:02:56
Requires more training and equipment. 00:02:58
So the legislature created a new entity called a. 00:03:00
Fire District. 00:03:04
In order to provide a revenue stream so that you could hire employees and provide a professional fire service. 00:03:07
The problem with the district model is that it has not. 00:03:13
Kept up with society as we've changed. 00:03:16
So the revenue actually is going to be kind of frozen. 00:03:19
And it has not allowed for the growth of the community the way our communities are growing. 00:03:21
And it has not kept up with the technology requirements of a modern fire department. 00:03:26
So next slide please. 00:03:31
So the legislature created and has updated. 00:03:34
Quite recently a new entity called a Fire territory. 00:03:37
Fire territories where two or more taxing units, which could be either a Township, municipality or a fire district. 00:03:41
And they have to share a physical border. 00:03:47
Joined together to form a fire territory. 00:03:50
One of the value and benefits of the fire territories that you help consolidate fire services. 00:03:53
Next slide. 00:03:58
That allows us to better align Fire Protection with community needs. 00:03:59
It will allow us specifically to provide professional fire service in the southern end of New Albany Township. 00:04:03
Which right now is not receiving the Fire Protection service that the rest of the Township. 00:04:09
In Georgetown are used. 00:04:13
It will also increase Fire Protection. 00:04:15
And prevention. 00:04:18
For both Georgetown and in all, New Albany Township. 00:04:19
And it will address the revenue imbalance for the districts. 00:04:22
Next slide. 00:04:27
Some of the value and benefits to the community is that you end up with one command structure. 00:04:31
And you increase efficiencies? 00:04:35
Which will increase training efficiencies, equipment. 00:04:37
Standard operating procedures. 00:04:41
Human resources and accounting. 00:04:43
The last two kind of sound kind of funny talking about the fire service, but today's fire service you need to have human resources 00:04:45
and accounting, otherwise you end up wasting money and time and effort. 00:04:50
And as I have already said, a fire territory provides an appropriate revenue stream to sustain professional fire service for the 00:04:57
community. 00:05:00
Because the current district model is not sustainable. 00:05:04
So some background. 00:05:09
In the first quarter last year. 00:05:11
Georgetown Fire was approached by Franklin Township about forming a fire territory. 00:05:13
In May of 2024, New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:05:18
Inquired about joining the discussion. 00:05:22
Georgetown Fire contracted with Baker Tilly. 00:05:25
To calculate the impact to community and receive the first draft report in late October. 00:05:29
And data was first presented to the public in November 21st and again January 2nd of this year. 00:05:34
Earlier this month, Franklin Township decided that it was not the right time for them to continue with the project. 00:05:43
And we wish them well. 00:05:49
Our door is always open if they want to come back and talk to us about. 00:05:51
Joining fire territory. 00:05:55
Georgetown and New Albany Township have decided to continue. We requested new data from Baker Tilly. 00:05:57
For the formation of the Floyd County Fire territory. 00:06:03
Because it was kind of late when all that was happening, we've just been getting some of that data this week. We really appreciate 00:06:07
the work Baker Tilly has done. 00:06:10
And pivoting to get us the data, which you're going to see here in just a few minutes. 00:06:13
So the proposal is that the two districts have worked together and created a master plan for the new territory. 00:06:19
Georgetown Fire will be the providing agency. 00:06:25
Plan is that Chief Ned Wiseman will be the chief of the territory. 00:06:29
Chief Tim Franklin will be the deputy chief of the territory. 00:06:33
All of the current firefighters in both Georgetown Fire and New Albany Township Fire will be employed by the department. 00:06:37
In the existing 2023 agreement between Georgetown. 00:06:44
And the International Association of Firefighters, AFLCIO. 00:06:48
Georgetown Professional Firefighters 5393 will be the contract that is in force. 00:06:52
So between January 1st and March 31st, each entity must hold three public hearings. 00:07:02
And that's what this one is here tonight. 00:07:08
All three of them will be here at the Pineview Government Center. We appreciate county. 00:07:10
Leadership allowing us to use this facility. 00:07:15
Neither department really has a room. 00:07:18
Structured to be able to accommodate the public. So we appreciate being able to use this facility and the technology in the room. 00:07:20
Each of the three meetings is going to be at 6:00 PM. 00:07:27
Tonight the 30th, then February 13th and February 27th. 00:07:31
1/4 adoption meeting. 00:07:35
Will be held to vote on a resolution to create the territory and that is scheduled for 6:00 PM. 00:07:37
Here at Pine View, March 13th. 00:07:42
Then on January 1st, 2026, the new territory will take effect. 00:07:45
And just a side note, the two entities do remain in existence, but really we don't need to spend a lot of time on that. They just 00:07:50
kind of remain in existence. 00:07:53
So I want to give you a little background on how we ended up where we are today looking at Georgetown Fire. 00:07:59
Next slide. 00:08:05
This is a look at the tax rate for Georgetown Fire since the district was created back in 2007. 00:08:06
If we go to the next slide. 00:08:13
This is a snapshot over the past 10 years. 00:08:16
The tax rate started 10 years ago in 2014 at about $0.35 per $100.00 of net assessed value. 00:08:19
And over the past 10 years, it's seen a 37% reduction. 00:08:27
So while the tax rate has gone down by over 1/3. 00:08:32
Next slide, please. 00:08:35
The involvement in providing Fire Protection for the community has increased over 80%. 00:08:39
We've gone from 639 runs. 00:08:43
In 2014. 00:08:46
To over 1150 runs for the calendar year that we just finished. 00:08:48
If you could click one more please. 00:08:54
In October 2022. 00:08:56
We moved to Staff station 124 Seven. 00:08:59
We had historically staffed Station 2 which is on Cordon Ridge Rd. 00:09:02
24/7. 00:09:07
But we recognize that we were seeing an imbalance in calls in the evening hours from the West End of the district. 00:09:08
So Georgetown District went ahead and said we're going to step into this by providing the service to the community without any 00:09:16
increase in revenue. 00:09:20
So if you'll keep that in mind as we go through the rest of our presentation tonight. 00:09:24
Next slide, please. 00:09:29
So what is currently provided to the community by the two districts? 00:09:30
Georgetown Fire As I said, we have Station 1, which is. 00:09:35
I always giggle a little bit. 00:09:38
Downtown Georgetown. 00:09:40
As three firefighters on call 24/7. 00:09:43
Station 2, which is our main training and command station for the district on Corridor Ridge Rd. 00:09:46
Has four firefighters, 24/7. 00:09:52
Battalion Chief, 24/7. 00:09:54
And a chief and deputy chief. 00:09:57
That work 40 hours a week and they're all call 24/7. 00:09:59
New Albany Township at their Charlestown Rd. station have 3 firefighters 24/7. 00:10:03
And a chief and a deputy chief on call, 40 hour, I'm sorry, on 40 hours a week. 00:10:08
Then on call 24/7. 00:10:13
The proposal for the Floyd County Fire territory is to increase from three stations for the area to four stations. 00:10:18
We will fully staff Bud Rd. station 24/7. 00:10:25
The longer range vision and we're thinking somewhere in the three to five years. 00:10:29
Is to evaluate is that the best location for that 4th station? 00:10:34
And if it's decided that it's not and trying to shoehorn it in just because it's there? 00:10:38
The territory would begin to look at. 00:10:43
A better placement geographically. 00:10:46
Which would entail purchasing land and building a station. 00:10:49
Part of that is an estimation and evaluation of what is the future growth in the areas. 00:10:52
There are NFPA standards on how far a fire station should be from the community that it serves. 00:10:57
There's a lot of history and technology built into those metrics. 00:11:02
We would take that incorporated into that decision making process. 00:11:06
In the short term, we would increase staffing at Charlestown Rd. station. 00:11:10
Our staffing Ladder 49. 00:11:14
With four firefighters, 24/7. 00:11:16
And adding a Battalion Chief 24/7. 00:11:18
A component of the territory by statute is that you have to do fire prevention. 00:11:22
So we are proposing to staff a full time fire Marshall. 00:11:27
This individual would work full time to help prevent fires, would help educate the community on fire prevention, and also work on 00:11:33
code compliance. 00:11:36
This is what we envisioned the fire. 00:11:42
Territory would look like and I know this is. 00:11:45
A colorful eye chart. So I'm going to try and break it down a little bit. 00:11:47
The two top yellow boxes say chief and deputy chief. 00:11:51
That's your command structure. 00:11:54
And then if you go down below that, you'll see it's broken into two districts, District 1. 00:11:57
In District 2. 00:12:02
And just for simplification for right now. 00:12:03
District 1 is legacy Georgetown. 00:12:06
District 2 is legacy. 00:12:09
New Albany Township. 00:12:11
The way that we run the fire department, it's a little bit weird if you're a normal person. 00:12:13
Most of the firefighters work what's called a 24/7 shift. 00:12:19
They come on duty and they work 24 hours and then they're all 48 hours. 00:12:23
So in order to staff the department you have 3 shifts. 00:12:27
We call them A shift, B shift, and C shift. 00:12:31
So a shift would come on Monday at 6:00 AM, work till Tuesday morning 6:00 AM. 00:12:34
Then B shift comes on, works the next 24 hours. 00:12:39
Then C shift and then a shift comes back on. 00:12:42
So you're not working every Monday or every Thursday. It's a rolling 24 every 48 hours. 00:12:45
So if you look over on the left hand side, Battalion Chief A. 00:12:51
Under District 1. 00:12:55
It then breaks up into two. 00:12:57
Flows Engine 2 and Ladder 2. 00:13:00
Ladder 2 is currently staffed at Georgetown Station 2. 00:13:03
Engine 2 is Georgetown Station 1. 00:13:07
On shift for Engine 2 is a captain, a Sergeant and a firefighter. That's three firefighters on call 24/7. 00:13:10