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Yeah. 00:00:02
OK. 00:00:17
OK. Good evening, everybody. 00:00:18
We're going to go ahead and get started at 6:00 and we've got some people joining online. 00:00:22
We'll go ahead and start with the pledge. 00:00:33
The United States of America. 00:00:42
And to the Republic, which stands one nation under God. 00:00:46
Indivisible with everything because it's wrong. 00:00:50
OK, before we get started first. 00:01:01
Action item will do is we'll call. 00:01:04
For uh. 00:01:06
Georgetown. 00:01:07
Fire Protection District. My name is Michael Moody. I'm the chairman of the board. 00:01:09
Mark Ringenberg. 00:01:13
Can you hear it? 00:01:18
Working on it, sorry. 00:01:24
We're trying to work on the technical issue. Can you hear me if I speak up? 00:01:51
Some OK. 00:01:56
What we'll do is just to kind of keep the meeting. 00:01:59
Going. 00:02:02
We'll go ahead and do the roll call for the boards. 00:02:03
So. 00:02:07
I did me Mark Ringberg I believe is online. 00:02:08
David Fuhr. 00:02:12
And Jeff McNulty. 00:02:14
And Travis Sharp is not here tonight. He's working. 00:02:16
So we have a quorum. 00:02:19
Hi. Hello. My name is Kyle and I'm the chair of the New Albany Township Board. 00:02:24
Welcome everybody tonight. 00:02:29
Give Kenny. 00:02:32
Gives our treasure. 00:02:34
Our vice president, Danny Jacobs, is not. 00:02:36
Present yet? 00:02:38
Think he's on his way? 00:02:40
Scott Sears, our secretary. 00:02:42
And then Ben Guip is a member. 00:02:45
OK. Thank you, Sir. 00:02:48
All right. 00:02:50
Susanna, should I wait? 00:02:52
OK. 00:02:59
OK, you should be good. 00:03:26
All right. 00:03:28
Thank you for letting us know, hopefully. 00:03:32
It's not too loud. 00:03:35
I'll step back from the mic just a little bit. 00:03:37
The way that we're going to do things this evening is we have a couple of short, a couple of presentations. I'm not going to lie 00:03:39
to you and say the very short. 00:03:43
And then after the presentations we will have. 00:03:47
Public comment. 00:03:50
Each individual that wishes to make public comments, please just come up to the podium. Sign in with your name and address. 00:03:52
And we'll limit comments to three minutes if. 00:03:58
Everybody talks, wants to, and somebody wants to get back up. That's fine. 00:04:01
But umm. 00:04:05
I will let you know if you have about 30 seconds left or when time is up and appreciate everybody being respectful to everybody 00:04:06
else. So anybody that wants to talk. 00:04:10
Has the opportunity to do so. 00:04:14
So the purpose of today's public hearing is to discuss the creation of the Floyd County Fire. 00:04:16
Territory. 00:04:21
The Fire Protection service in our community was originally. 00:04:24
Provided by all Volunteer Fire departments. 00:04:28
It satisfied the need at the time. 00:04:31
But. 00:04:35
The volunteer model is just really not sustainable anymore. 00:04:36
Most people do not live and work in the same geographic area. A lot of people commute over to Louisville, as an example. 00:04:40
And anything that happens during the day, they're not in that area and able to respond. 00:04:46
Society is also busier and it's less of an opportunity for somebody to volunteer, especially for that much of A time commitment. 00:04:50
And the reality is that the demands of being a firefighter in today's world are not like they were 50 years ago. 00:04:58
It's a lot more complex, a lot more training and a lot more equipment. 00:05:03
So the Indiana legislature created a. 00:05:07
Concept called a fire district. 00:05:10
That provided a revenue stream so that you could have a professional. 00:05:12
Staffed fire department. 00:05:15
Unfortunately, the revenue stream has not kept up with society. 00:05:18
Once you start the district, you are given a levy. 00:05:22
And that. 00:05:26
Pretty much it does not change. 00:05:27
So a new process. 00:05:33
That's been updated recently. Is called a fire territory. 00:05:35
A fire territory is when two or more taxing entities, townships, municipalities, or fire districts that share physical borders. 00:05:38
Joined to form a fire territory. 00:05:46
And one of the reasons why they are encouraging this is it also consolidated fire services. 00:05:48
By creating a fire territory. 00:05:57
We expect that we will better align Fire Protection with our communities needs. 00:05:59
An example, the southern end of New Albany Township currently is not. 00:06:04
Service by Fire Protection service in the community. 00:06:08
So we would. 00:06:12
Proposed to address that. 00:06:13
We also will increase Fire Protection for Georgetown and New Albany townships together. 00:06:15
And it addresses the revenue imbalance for the fire districts. 00:06:20
By having a fire territory, we'll have one command structure. 00:06:26
Which will increase efficiencies and training equipment. 00:06:29
SOP's human resources and accounting. 00:06:33
And it will provide appropriate revenue to sustain the professional Fire Protection for the community. 00:06:36
And I may say this more than once. 00:06:41
The current district model is not financially sustainable. 00:06:44
So background. 00:06:49
In the first quarter of last year, Georgetown Fire was approached by Franklin Township about forming a fire territory. 00:06:50
In May, New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:06:57
Asked to be a part of the conversation also. 00:07:00
Georgetown Fire contracted with Baker. 00:07:03
To calculate impact to the community and received our first draft report in October. 00:07:06
We've had three public presentations of the information. 00:07:12
Dates there on the screen. 00:07:16
This is the first of the three. 00:07:18
Required public hearings. 00:07:21
In mid January. 00:07:25
This year, Franklin Township decided that the timing was not right for them to continue with the project. 00:07:27
Georgetown Fire New Albany Township Fire decided to continue and requested new data from Baker Tilly. 00:07:32
And I'll go on the record as thanking Baker Tilly. They turned that around really quick. 00:07:38
And at a very busy time of the year. 00:07:42
So. 00:07:45
What we are going to talk about from this point forward is the Floyd County Fire territory. 00:07:46
The two districts work together to create a master plan for the new territory. 00:07:51
Georgetown Fire will be the providing agency. 00:07:55
Chief Ned Wiseman will be the chief of the territory. 00:07:59
Chief Tim Franklin will be the deputy chief of the territory. 00:08:02
All firefighters that are currently working for both departments. 00:08:05
Will be employed by the department. 00:08:09
And the existing labor agreement between Local 5393 and Georgetown will be the contract in force. 00:08:12
Between January 1st and March 31st this year. 00:08:23
We are required to have three public hearings to educate the community. 00:08:26
Dates are February 13th, the 27th and March 13th. 00:08:31
And then a fourth adoption meeting. 00:08:35
To vote on the resolution to create the territory. 00:08:37
We are tentatively penciling in, I hate to say it this way, March 26. 00:08:41
But that date may change. We will. 00:08:45
Provide the legally legally required notification to the community well in advance. 00:08:48
And we'll have it on our website and everywhere, so we'll make sure everybody knows if that date does change. 00:08:54
And then, starting in 2026, the new territory will take effect. 00:09:01
And just as a side note. 00:09:06
The two districts technically remain in effect. 00:09:07
They don't disappear or go away. 00:09:10
A little bit of background information. I'm going to use Georgetown. 00:09:15
Because, umm. 00:09:18
I have access to most of the data. 00:09:20
And. 00:09:22
I think that it shows a good picture of why we are where we are today. 00:09:26
This is a look at the tax rate for Georgetown Fire from when the District was first. 00:09:30
Formed in 2007. 00:09:35
If we take a closer look at the last 10 years. 00:09:37
You'll see that the tax rate has decreased 37%. 00:09:41
Georgetown Fire has zero debt. 00:09:45
And we have never gone back to the community and asked for additional revenue. 00:09:48
Yet during that same 10 year period. 00:09:54
The run volume has increased by 80%. 00:09:58
Our community has grown by over 12%. 00:10:04
About six years ago. 00:10:08
We started staffing a second station in Georgetown. 00:10:10
Our administrative and training in our main station is historically as Station 2 on Cordon. 00:10:14
Ridge Rd. 00:10:20
And we opened. 00:10:21
Georgetown Station 1, which is downtown Georgetown. 00:10:23
But we staffed it during the day. 00:10:27
Monday through Friday. 00:10:29
And the idea was we wanted to have a closer response to the school in case something happened. 00:10:31
So as we were all dealing with. 00:10:37
COVID and coming out of that. 00:10:39
We looked at our data. 00:10:43
And we saw that. 00:10:45
60% of the runs were on the east side of the district during the day. 00:10:48
And roughly 60% of the runs during the night were on the West side of the district. 00:10:53
And we didn't have anybody on station. 00:10:57
At night on the West side of the district. 00:11:00
So the board worked with command staff and we made a decision that we would staff Station 124 Seven. 00:11:02
We didn't get any extra money to do that. 00:11:09
We had some money in the bank that we had. 00:11:11
Not spent. 00:11:14
And we decided that we would start providing that service to the community. 00:11:16
But we did not get an increase in revenue. 00:11:20
To fund that operation. 00:11:22
We knew we had a. 00:11:24
Look ahead of several years that we would be able to sustain that operation. 00:11:25
But it could not continue forever. 00:11:29
Which is why we're here today. 00:11:32
Since we. 00:11:35
Opened Station 1. 00:11:36
Actually, I'm sorry, I had last year during 2024. 00:11:40
Both both stations were dispatched at the same time 47 times. 00:11:43
So it's 47 times where both stations were out in the community serving. 00:11:48
At the same time. 00:11:53
And as you can see, the run volume is. 00:11:55
Increasing quite a bit. 00:11:57
Currently. 00:11:59
Both districts. 00:12:01
Serve the community with Fire Protection, Georgetown Station 1. 00:12:04
3 firefighters on call 24/7. 00:12:07
Station 2 at Cordon Ridge Rd. is for firefighters on station 24/7. 00:12:10
A Battalion Chief. 00:12:16
24/7 that kind of floats around. 00:12:17
And the chief And the deputy chief. 00:12:20
Who technically are 40 hours a week but honestly they're on call 24/7 also. 00:12:22
In New Albany Township. 00:12:27
They are currently staffing Charlestown Rd. station. 00:12:29
With three firefighters, 24/7. 00:12:31
And they also have a chief and deputy chief that are on 40 hours a week and on call 24/7. 00:12:34
Our proposal for the Floyd County Fire territory is to increase the four stations. 00:12:42
We are planning to fully staff Bud Road 24/7. 00:12:46
Longer range plan is to reevaluate the best location for that 4th station. 00:12:51
It may end up being where it is. We may decide that based on growth and population density that it might need to be someplace 00:12:55
else. 00:12:59
We also proposed to increase staffing at Charlestown Rd. 00:13:05
So that the latter is staffed with four firefighters 24/7. That is the NFPA standard. 00:13:08
And that's pretty much what most departments in America run. 00:13:13
We also are recommending to add a Battalion Chief 24/7. 00:13:19
Fire prevention is required by the statute. 00:13:24
We're proposing to staff a full time Fire Marshall. 00:13:27
That person would work. 00:13:30
Help prevent fires, educate the community, and work on proper code compliance. 00:13:32
I know this is a busy chart and we've gotten feedback that it's a little bit complex and difficult for some people to follow so. 00:13:39
This is what we are proposing for the fire territory. 00:13:47
The top 2 yellow boxes, that is the command staff, there are two chiefs, there's a chief and there's a deputy chief. 00:13:51
Who's number 2? 00:13:57
As it goes down another level. 00:13:59
These aren't people, it's just describing the breakup of the operation. 00:14:01
So District 1 you could think of as legacy Georgetown, District 2, legacy New Albany Township. 00:14:07
The way the fire department works on its staffing is if you're a 24/7 employee. 00:14:13
We have 3 shifts. 00:14:19
So shift A. 00:14:20
Let's say for example, would start Monday morning and work 24 hours to Tuesday morning. 00:14:22
Then shift B comes on. 00:14:27
And then Wednesday morning shift C comes on. 00:14:29
And then Thursday morning Shift A comes back on. So it's just a continuous loop ABC. 00:14:32
So what we are trying to depict here is that. 00:14:38
If you look at Battalion Chief A. 00:14:41
That's a shift. 00:14:44
That's the Battalion Chief. 00:14:46
And then Engine 2 is at Station 1 downtown Georgetown. 00:14:48
And has a captain, a Sergeant and a firefighter. That's the three firefighters that I mentioned earlier. 00:14:52
Latter 2, which is at Station 2 as a captain, Sergeant and two firefighters. That's the four people that I mentioned that we're 00:14:58
currently staffing. 00:15:01
And then that repeats for B&C. 00:15:06
So on station. 00:15:09
On any particular day, there are three firefighters, station one and four at Station 2. 00:15:12
Plus the Battalion Chief. 00:15:17
For District 2. 00:15:20
Battalion Chief A, which is. 00:15:23
A little bit off, right side, center of the slide. 00:15:25
Engine 41 would be the Bud Rd. station. 00:15:29
There's a captain, Sergeant, firefighter, that's three firefighters 24/7. 00:15:32
And Ladder 49, a captain, Sergeant and two firefighters. 00:15:36
Said before firefighters on the ladder. 00:15:41
Additionally, we are proposing, as I mentioned, a full time Fire Marshall which would maintain the same rank equivalent of a 00:15:44
Battalion Chief. 00:15:48
That allows us if somebody's sick. 00:15:53
Maybe command staff can decide to swing somebody over to cover a shift. 00:15:55
And we're also proposing a full time training officer with the equivalent level. 00:15:59
Rank of a captain. 00:16:04
We also are proposing an administrative assistant. 00:16:06
Who would function in a heavy hour capacity? 00:16:09
And also all the other tasks that would need to be done by a department this size. 00:16:13
And were required by state law to have a financial officer. 00:16:18
So I know that's a little. 00:16:23
Big and a lot of different colors. 00:16:25
The way that that happens is this is the proposed Floyd County Territory 2026 budget. 00:16:29
And the bottom number on the right hand side. 00:16:36
Is $6,338,585. 00:16:38
That would have a total of 54 employees. 00:16:45
52 of which are firefighters. 00:16:49
So working with that information and Baker Tilly. 00:16:53
The proposed 2026 budget. 00:16:57
Calculated with the net asset. 00:17:00
Net assessed value for the territory. What will be the impact to the community? 00:17:02
Now before I transition over to our Baker Tilly expert. 00:17:08
I want to make sure everybody understands something. 00:17:12
By law, the calculations have to be what I call a worst case scenario. 00:17:14
We can't ask for more money. 00:17:20
We can ask for less, but this is the worst case scenario. 00:17:22
A change in the funding for a territory from the districts. The districts currently get roughly 24% of their revenue through local 00:17:26
income tax. 00:17:31
We are not assuming any local income tax goes to the territory. 00:17:37
We also are not. 00:17:41
Assuming that any of the new public safety local income tax will go to the fire territory. 00:17:43
But if they do. 00:17:49
The property tax would be reduced dollar for dollar. 00:17:51
We would not double collect. 00:17:54
So if we're. 00:17:56
Able to get. 00:17:58
Local income tax that would reduce. 00:17:59
All of the numbers you're about to see because they are strictly property tax numbers. 00:18:02
And we have to do it that way. 00:18:07
So at this time. 00:18:10
I'd like to introduce Paige Sansong. 00:18:12
If you don't know, Baker Tilley is a top 10 worldwide CPA firm. 00:18:15
And one of the preeminent advisory tax and assurance firms in Indiana. 00:18:19
So Paige. 00:18:23
Thank you. Yes. My name is Paige Sansone. If you were here previously, you heard Susan give this presentation. 00:18:28
It will be the same presentation, I will just be delivering it tonight. 00:18:36
OK. So we're going to go to the next slide. 00:18:40
Some some of this information has already been covered, but we'll quickly go through this. 00:18:45
A fire territory is a type of fire service consolidation provided by Indiana law. I almost want to kind of see the people. 00:18:52
I want to talk to all of you. 00:19:01
OK. 00:19:04
So it's a type of fire service consolidation provided by Indiana law. Obviously, it is different than a fire district. 00:19:06
The main difference is that fire districts are established by the county commissioners. A fire territory can be established by two 00:19:14
local units of government that touch boundaries and by fire districts. So that's what you have here tonight is 2 fire districts 00:19:20
that touch boundaries. 00:19:25
Are going to are proposing to form this fire territory. 00:19:32
Why establish? Well, the number one reason to establish a fire territory is to get additional funding for fire services. 00:19:36
We are seeing this. 00:19:44
All over the state of Indiana and quite frankly all over the nation, the lack of volunteerism. It's not that people don't want to 00:19:45
volunteer, it's just more and more difficult to volunteer as you heard Michael speak about that. 00:19:52
So really this is the way to get additional funding. This is a mechanism to get that additional funding. 00:20:00
It does establish a uniform tax rate over the entire area. 00:20:07
And it does spread that cost over that entire tax base. 00:20:13
Next slide. 00:20:17
So as was mentioned, it's required by law that we have three public hearings. 00:20:19
On January 30th there was a public meeting, but we need to also have three public hearings. Tonight is the first public hearing. 00:20:25
There will be another one on February 27th and as mentioned on March 13th. I don't have that on my slide, but yes, there will be 00:20:33
one on March 13th and then a tentative adoption date on March 26th. They can't. The units cannot adopt on the last day or the last 00:20:40
public hearing. They have to have at least 10 days before they can do the adoption. 00:20:47
After that takes place if the units approve the fire territory. 00:20:54
Then a petition will be submitted to the State of Indiana, the Department of Local Government Finance, and that petition simply 00:21:00
requests approval to levy taxes for the newly formed fire territory. 00:21:06
And that request is based on the budget. 00:21:12
Was shown earlier. I'm going to show a little bit more of it. 00:21:16
But that budget or the estimated expenses is really the basis of how we determine the property tax levy and the property tax rate. 00:21:19
Next slide, please. 00:21:25
So again, we've already talked about who's in this fire territory. 00:21:32
One of the units has to be deemed the provider unit and that really just means that that. 00:21:37
Unit will levy property tax on behalf of the entire fire territory. 00:21:43
That unit will be responsible for preparing the annual budget. 00:21:50
And then performing all the necessary accounting and financial functions related to the services. It doesn't mean that. 00:21:54
One of the entities will not have a say in what's going on there. They will have a say and it's just one unit has to levy the tax 00:22:00
and do the financials. 00:22:05
Next slide. 00:22:10
And then again to the next slide. 00:22:13
So we start out by kind of comparing where are these two districts at right now? 00:22:15
In relation to receipts and disbursements. 00:22:22
So this chart is showing you that the first kind of bars are Georgetown Township Fire Protection District. 00:22:25
The green is the budgeted receipts. 00:22:33
So the receipts in 2025 as budgeted about 2.3 million. 00:22:36
What is budgeted in expenses as 3.2 million. So clearly there is a deficit. This doesn't mean they can't fund the budget. They 00:22:42
have some cash reserves, they can fund the budget. 00:22:47
But it is. 00:22:53
You know, pretty telling that there is a deficit here. You know, Michael mentioned earlier. 00:22:54
This budget is not sustainable. 00:22:59
And really, it isn't sustainable for either fire district. 00:23:02
Because what's budgeted for 2025 doesn't even capture all the needs. 00:23:07
Of both fire departments. 00:23:12
So let's look at the next section, which is New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:23:15
They're a little bit closer, but there still is a deficit. 00:23:22
There's receipts there budgeted of 2.5 million. 00:23:24
And then disbursements of about the same amount, but there's a little bit of a deficit, but again. 00:23:28
That's based on 2025, not what the true needs are of the fire services. 00:23:33
Next slide. 00:23:40
Is a graph of. 00:23:41
Current budget combined. 00:23:43
Compared to proposed budget of the fire territory. 00:23:46
You can see that most of the needs are and personal services. That's not surprising. You heard that there is a need for additional 00:23:51
staffing. 00:23:56
And that's exactly what this chart shows, an increase in primarily the personal services, which is the salaries and benefits. 00:24:01
So the current 2025 fire budget, if we combine both entities, about 5.7 million roughly. 00:24:09
The proposed budget goes up to 6.9 million, so roughly a $1.2 million increase. 00:24:19
So moving on to the next slide, again, as I stated before. 00:24:26
That budget becomes the basis of how we calculate how much property tax it's going to take to fund. 00:24:30
Adequately fund these fire services. 00:24:38
We are required to show the state a three-year progression. 00:24:40
Of the tax rate on the fire territory. So in 2026, that's really the biggest impact to the taxpayer because that's when the fire 00:24:47
territory would come on board. 00:24:52
So here we're just showing how we calculated the tax rate. So starting with the first column in 2026, funding requirements. 00:24:57
We have that operating budget and the capital budget. 00:25:05
Those two combined are the $6.9 million that I said previously. 00:25:08
We also get to build in a modest cash reserve of 20%. 00:25:15
So that simply means that. 00:25:21
At the end of 2026, the fire territory should have about. 00:25:23
Should have a cash reserve equal to approximately 20% of their disbursements. 00:25:28
That's pretty modest. It's about 2 1/2, maybe three months of expenditures. 00:25:34
Now we're allowed to levy that the first year, but then in the second year the state will reduce the levy because in their minds 00:25:39
you're, you've levied that cash reserve, it's in the bank. We're not going to continue to allow you to levy that in future years. 00:25:46
So that's why I almost. 00:25:53
Nearly every fire territory that has created the second year there is a rate reduction. 00:25:55
So we have total funding requirements, budget plus cash reserve of 8.2 million. 00:26:01
Before we calculate how much property tax is needed, we get to include vehicle excise tax. That is a revenue stream that comes 00:26:08
into any local unit of government that levies property tax. 00:26:14
So when you go to the license branch to renew your place or register a vehicle, you're paying Vehicle Excise. 00:26:20
That revenue gets distributed out to the taxing units within the county. 00:26:27
So here we're estimating that this fire territory would receive about 392,000 of that type of revenue. 00:26:32
So if we deduct that off of our funding requirements, we have a resulting balance that needs to be funded with property tax. 00:26:41
Of 7.8 million. 00:26:48
We divide that by each $100.00 of the tax base of this fire territory, which is about $1.8 billion. 00:26:50
So it will take a tax rate of about $0.44 to generate the $7.8 million that we need for fire services. 00:26:59
Moving to 2027, the cash reserve drops off, so now we have funding requirements of about 7.3 million. 00:27:08
We need property tax of 6.9 million. 00:27:16
And if we divide that over the tax base, that's about a 37 cent. 00:27:20
Increase. 00:27:25
Or I'm sorry, that's a 37 cent tax rate that is needed to fund fire services. 00:27:27
Then in 2028, it kind of levels out. 00:27:32
The fire territory will get a normal levee growth just like all other units in the state. 00:27:34
So starting in 2028 and beyond. 00:27:41
It'll be somewhere between maybe 1% or 5%. There is some proposed legislation out there right now, Senate Bill one, that is 00:27:44
attempting to limit that property tax levy growth over. 00:27:50
Three-year period. So we don't know what's going to happen with that. 00:27:58
Here we just built in about a three to 4% increase in the levy. 00:28:01
So. 00:28:06
In 2028, you can see it just it kind of, well actually goes down a little bit because the assessed value is anticipated to 00:28:07
increase. So it's going to level out to about $0.37. 00:28:12
The next slide, and by the way, I forgot to mention there are copies up here that you can grab on your way out if you would like, 00:28:19
if they're up on this table. 00:28:22
So we have to make sure that this fire territory is sustainable. So we do put together a cash flow schedule. 00:28:27
This is the operating fund, so this fund would cover all the day-to-day expenses, including personnel. 00:28:34
And so again. 00:28:40
You can see the budget for just those operating costs without the capital. 00:28:42
Is about. 00:28:46
6.3 million. 00:28:48
Up at the top, you can see that we've broken out the various revenue sources, property tax. 00:28:50
Circuit breaker, which is credit return to taxpayers. So that's a reduction of your property tax. 00:28:56
And then also that vehicle excise. 00:29:01
So we're going to have funding of about 7.6 million in the first year. 00:29:03
Operating disbursement 6.3, so yes. 00:29:08
We are going to have a cash reserve hopefully at the end of the year. 00:29:11
That's close to that 20%. 00:29:14
Year 2. 00:29:17
Now we have total receipts of 6.6 million. So again property tax will go down because we don't fund that cash reserve anymore. 00:29:19
Then operating disbursements about 6.6 million we did. 00:29:27
Make a small adjustment for circuit breaker loss because if. 00:29:31
The fire territory doesn't. 00:29:35
Collect what we think it's going to collect from that levy due to. 00:29:37
Credits to the taxpayers, then there is going to have to be an adjustment. But here it's a very small, minor adjustment. It's only 00:29:42
about $1600. 00:29:46
So again. 00:29:51
You know, if we keep moving forward to 2028, we're holding on to that fund balance, it's around 18 to 19% and they're able to fund 00:29:52
their budget. So it is a sustainable budget. 00:29:58
Moving on to the next slide is the equipment replacement fund. 00:30:06
What's different about the equipment replacement fund is it's it's maxed out with a rate, so the maximum rate is 3.33 cents. 00:30:09
That can't change. The fire territory cannot increase that rate. It stays. 00:30:18
But what happens is as the net assessed value or the tax base increases, the fire territory can. 00:30:23
Can collect additional property tax revenue. 00:30:30
So in this schedule, we've just kind of calculated what. 00:30:33
How the? 00:30:37
Not assessment, you might change. I think we've got about a 3% growth in here. So you're looking at receipts each year of. 00:30:38
Between 621,000 to 670,000 again. 00:30:46
Just depends on how much that tax base grows. 00:30:50
This fund can be used for equipment replacement just as the name suggests, it can be used for housing and apparatus, so it's a 00:30:54
really good fun to have. 00:30:58
It's just like a fire district cumulative fire fund, exactly like that. It just has a different name. 00:31:03
Next slide. 00:31:11
And then the next one. Yep. 00:31:13
So now let's get to the part of How does this impact taxpayers? 00:31:15
So in order to figure out how it's going to impact taxpayers, we need to look at how does this impact the district tax rate. 00:31:21
All of your tax bills are based on a district rate, meaning it's a rate. 00:31:30
That includes the school, the library. 00:31:35
Township. Maybe a municipality? 00:31:39
All those different taxing units make up one whole district rate. 00:31:41
And that's what your bill is based upon. So now. 00:31:46
If we look, there's three taxing districts that are impacted by this fire territory. 00:31:49
Two you see on this page. One is Georgetown Township 002. 00:31:55
The you can see the current district rates in blue. 00:32:01
So the current district rate is 1.6140. 00:32:04
In the red bar you can see what the rate would be if the fire territory comes on board. 00:32:09
So you're looking at the first year it would go up to 1.8436, the second year 1.777. 00:32:15
3rd Year, 1.7766. 00:32:23
The important thing to note is on that first year, it's a 14.2% increase to the district rate. Well, that directly translates to 00:32:26
how much a tax bill would increase 14.2%. 00:32:33
Unless your property is at the tax caps and then you would see no increase. I'm going to show you some examples in a minute. 00:32:40
Georgetown Town 003 is another taxing district impacted so you can see. 00:32:47
Current district rate. 00:32:54
1.886. 00:32:56
First year goes up to 2.1182. 00:32:58
Then it kind of comes down and levels off. 00:33:02
That first year increase is a 12.2% increase. 00:33:04
And by the way, when these district rates are calculated, we get to deduct off the current Fire Protection district rates that are 00:33:09
that are certified for 2025. So that comes off, there's a little bit of an offset then we can put on the fire territory rate. 00:33:17
Next slide. 00:33:26
So the the last district that's involved here is New Albany Township 007. 00:33:28
The current district rate is 1.6058. 00:33:35
The first year it goes up to 1.8564. 00:33:38
That's a 15.6% increase. 00:33:42
And then the rate kind of levels off, it goes down and then levels off after that. 00:33:45
Next slide. 00:33:51
So in case you're interested, we do have some examples of where. 00:33:53
The components of your tax bill goes to. 00:33:59
OK. 00:34:02
This is Georgetown Township 002, so unincorporated Georgetown Township. 00:34:04
This is an example of a $100,000 residential homestead property. So your primary residence. 00:34:09
So in 2025, sixty $2.00 of that $470 tax bill. 00:34:16
Goes to fund fire service. 00:34:23
308 goes to fund the schools, $18.00 to the library, etc. 00:34:25
If this fire territory is established now, you'll pay $537. 00:34:31
And all of that increase will go to fire services, so. 00:34:37
$62.00 you pay now for fire service, it'll go up to $129. That's how that works. 00:34:41
You can see that the school and the other units are getting the same. 00:34:47
Amount of property tax, which makes sense, it's just that the increase is going to go to to the fire. 00:34:50
Same taxing district, now we're looking at a $200,000 home value. 00:34:59
So 180 dollars of the 1375 that you pay for this property value. 00:35:05
Goes to fire service. 00:35:12
With the addition of the fire territory, it would go to $375. 00:35:14
So again, the increase is all going to fire service. 00:35:20
All the other units are getting their same share of property tax. 00:35:23
Next slide. 00:35:28
Georgetown Town oh oh three $100,000 home value again pretty close to the other taxing district, $62.00 goes to fire services of 00:35:31
your tax bill, which is $550. 00:35:38
Your tax bill would go up to $617.00 and now $129 goes to fund fire service. 00:35:44
Next slide. 00:35:52
Same taxing District 003, a $200,000 home value. So here. 00:35:56
This taxpayer would pay $1609 currently. 00:36:01
Of which 180 dollars goes to fund fire service. 00:36:06
That tax bill would go up to $1804.00, which would increase the funding to fire services to $375. 00:36:10
Next slide. 00:36:21
The last taxing district is New Albany Township. This is the $100,000 home value. 00:36:23
Current tax bill is $468. 00:36:29
$55 of that goes to fund fire service. 00:36:32
If a fire territory is established, the tax bill would go up to $541. 00:36:37
And $128.00 would go to fund fire service. 00:36:42
Next slide is a $200,000 home value. 00:36:47
Tax bill currently 1368. 00:36:51
$162.00 of that goes to fund fire service. 00:36:55
With the fire territory, that tax bill would go up to 1581 and $375.00 of that would go to fund fire service. 00:36:59
These next few slides are and again you can have some handouts to take with you are examples of various property types and dollar 00:37:09
values in each of these taxing districts. 00:37:16
I'm not going to go through every single one of these, but I want you to see how this chart works. So we have. 00:37:23
Three different. 00:37:28
Property classes. 00:37:30
The first one is residential homestead and we call that. 00:37:31
1% tax cap properties because here in the state of Indiana, if you have a residential homestead. 00:37:35
Your tax bill is capped at 1% of your gross assessed value. So if you have a $100,000 home. 00:37:42
You would not pay more than $1000 on the less. 00:37:50
A school or some other taxing unit, by referendum put on a tax rate that you voted yes for. You're going to pay that tax rate in 00:37:54
addition to your $1000. 00:37:59
So we have all kinds of examples here. Under residential homestead, I've got a $300,000 home value. We'll look at that one. 00:38:05
Current tax bill is 2279. 00:38:14
It would go up by. It would go up to 2603. Please note that all. 00:38:17
All these changes, percentage changes for all these various property types. 00:38:23
Are 14.2%, so that's very important. That tells me that. 00:38:28
Unless your property is hitting the tax cap, you would expect a maximum increase of 14.2% to your tax bill. 00:38:32
So for a $300,000 home value. 00:38:40
That equates to about $27.00 a month. 00:38:43
Or $324.00 for the whole year. 00:38:46
So we've got it broken up monthly. 00:38:49
And annual. 00:38:51
But again, that percentage change is very important because if somebody says, well, hey. 00:38:53
I've got a $500,000 home value that's not listed on this chart. 00:38:58
Go look at your current your tax bill. Well, I don't you're not gonna have your current 2025, but look at your 2024 tax bill. 00:39:02
You can look at online at the county's website. 00:39:09
See what you're paying. 00:39:12
And then increase it by 14.2%. That 14.2% is the important number there. Figure out where where your property is located, if it's 00:39:14
in. 00:39:19
Georgetown Township 002 then 14% is what you would. 14.2% is what you would expect as an increase. 00:39:23
Next slide is Georgetown Town 003. Again, not going to go through all of these, but. 00:39:32
Please note the percentage change is 12.2%. 00:39:38
So if your property no matter if it's commercial residential rental. 00:39:42
Residential homestead if it's located in Georgetown Town 003. 00:39:46
You would expect to see a maximum increase of 12.2%. 00:39:52
That's how that works. 00:39:57
And you can see on the examples what that equates to for a $300,000 home value, that's about $27.00 a month or $324 annually. 00:39:59
The last taxing district is New Albany Township 007. That percentage change is 15.6%. 00:40:10
So again, doesn't matter what the property type is or what the value is. 00:40:18
If your property is not at the tax caps, you would expect a see a 15.6% increase to your tax bill. 00:40:23
So look at your tax bill. What? What are you paying now? 00:40:29
And then apply the 15.6%. 00:40:33
All right. Next slide. 00:40:38
And then the next slide. 00:40:41
So this section. 00:40:43
It really taxpayers. 00:40:45
Aren't very concerned about because it doesn't have anything to do with you. It has to really do. I mean property tax kind of 00:40:49
property tax caps do. But this section is something that we are required to present at a public hearing. 00:40:56
Because we have to tell the story of how this might impact overlapping taxing units. 00:41:03
So again, this isn't really a taxpayer section, but it's overlapping taxing units like the school, the library, the county. 00:41:10
So first, just a real quick summary of what property tax caps are. You've heard me say circuit breaker credits. That's the same 00:41:16
thing as property tax caps. 00:41:21
We have 3 classifications of property tax caps, residential, homestead. 00:41:26
Is one that's 1% capped. 00:41:32
Other residential rental and AG land and long term care facilities. That's the 2% tax cap category. 00:41:35
And then everything else. 00:41:43
Which is usually commercial, industrial, business, personal property. That's 3% tax cap. 00:41:44
So, you know, that's great for taxpayers here in the state. It is in the Constitution, so it's not going anywhere. But that 00:41:50
translates directly to property tax losses for local government. 00:41:56
If you're not paying your, your. 00:42:03
Total tax bill because you're getting credits. 00:42:05
That means that these taxing units are not receiving that funding like pre circuit breaker. They received everything that was 00:42:08
levied pretty much unless there was delinquencies. 00:42:13
Now with circuit Breakers, they may not receive everything that they levy. 00:42:18
Because of the tax caps. 00:42:22
So the next slide shows you the tax cap impact to every unit in Floyd County because of this fire territory. 00:42:25
It's really not very significant and I'll tell you why because your property tax rates here in this county. 00:42:34
Are relatively low when you compare it to other counties in the state. 00:42:41
In addition, Floyd County has. 00:42:46
Property tax replacement credits, so that helps lower your lower your tax bills as well. 00:42:49
So you can see how impacts each of the units. The proposed fire territory will also have an impact. 00:42:54
Right off the bat, they may have to adjust their budget, maybe by 9 or 10,000. We'll just have to see. 00:43:01
You know when that time comes, but we understand that there could be a small reduction of property taxes. 00:43:07
Due to the circuit breaker credits. 00:43:15
Next slide is local income tax. 00:43:19
So local income tax is what you pay on your adjusted gross income based on the county where you live. 00:43:22
So Floyd County definitely has local income tax. They've got several. They've got certified shares at .75%, public safety .5%. 00:43:29
Economic Development .3. Correctional .2. 00:43:40
Property tax relief I mentioned .1. 00:43:44
And judicial Judicial system at .04%. 00:43:47
This fire territory is not going to impact any of these rates, but what it does impact is how much of this local income tax is 00:43:51
allocated to each of the taxing units in the county. 00:43:58
Because local income tax for the most part. 00:44:04
Is distributed and allocated to the units based on how much each unit levies. 00:44:07
So the more you levy. 00:44:13
The more local income tax you will get as a unit. So like Floyd County I think is levying the most. I think that's right. Usually 00:44:15
in most counties it's the county unit. 00:44:19
So they get the bigger share. 00:44:24
But when I knew unit comes on like a fire territory or district, now they're levying maybe a higher levy. So it's going to draw 00:44:26
away from the shares that go to the other units. There's just one big pie and people are trying to get pieces of that pie. 00:44:34
So we have. 00:44:42
Run an analysis on the next slide. 00:44:44
That shows the impact to some of these local income taxes. So First off. 00:44:46
Is the certified shares. 00:44:51
That's the local income tax that can be deposited in the general fund of local government, can be used pretty much for any 00:44:54
purpose. 00:44:57
So the first column is baseline that this is how much each unit is getting now so. 00:45:01
New Albany I guess is getting the most. I was wrong. New Albany. 00:45:08
Get 6.4 million of that. 00:45:11
15.2 million that comes into the county. Floyd County gets 5 million. 00:45:14
And you can see the breakout of the other units. 00:45:19
Now there is a one year lag, so this allocation to the units is based on what these units levied in the year previous. 00:45:22
So this fire territory won't affect local income tax distributions until 2027. So that's why you see the 1st 2 columns there. 00:45:30
There is no change based on. 00:45:35
The fire territory because it's looking at the previous year, so the first year. 00:45:40
That the units would notice a change is in 2027. 00:45:45
So here we have New Albany. 00:45:50
Fire district in Georgetown Township Fire District, because they're in this fire territory together, we would expect to see an 00:45:53
increase to the amount of certified chairs that they receive. 00:45:58
385,000 for Georgetown. 00:46:04
And 420,000. 00:46:07
For New Albany and you heard. 00:46:09
From the previous presentation that. 00:46:11
These these tax, I'm sorry, the fire districts can use. 00:46:15
That local income tax to fund fire services if they choose and if they would like to do that. 00:46:20
They can directly lower the property tax rate. 00:46:26
We did not include it in the analysis because there's some question. Well, first of all. 00:46:29
We don't know what other levies are changing in the county, so there's some question as to how much will actually go to the fire 00:46:35
districts. But #2. 00:46:39
Is that we've got some proposed legislation out there right now that is trying to eliminate. 00:46:43
All local income tax and allow municipalities to levy their own. 00:46:50
So if that should happen, we need to. 00:46:54
Figure out how much then could go to the fire districts or some of these other units. 00:46:57
So there's a lot of unknowns right now. 00:47:02
We can always come down, we can't go back up. So we are trying to show worst case scenario if there was number local income tax. 00:47:04
How would that impact things? But if there is local income tax, which we do anticipate as long as the legislation doesn't change. 00:47:12
And the fire territory can lower the property tax rate. 00:47:19
The next slide is public safety. 00:47:24
Public safety local income tax only gets distributed to Floyd County. 00:47:27
And the municipalities, with three municipalities, it doesn't get distributed to the fire district nor will it get distributed to 00:47:32
the fire territory. So there's no impact. 00:47:36
To that type of local income tax. 00:47:41
Next slide is local income tax, economic development, same thing. 00:47:44
This income tax only goes to the county unit. 00:47:48
And the municipalities, it does not go to the fire territory or the district. So again, no impact to that one. So just impacts. 00:47:51
The certified shares portion. 00:47:59
Next slide is that vehicle excise tax that I'm required to show you? 00:48:02
The impact of and this is again, when you go to license branch or renew your place register a vehicle, you're paying that vehicle 00:48:08
excise tax. 00:48:11
That excise tax is distributed the same way as local income tax. 00:48:15
The more you levy and property tax, the bigger share of that vehicle excise tax you get, so again, whenever there's a new unit. 00:48:20
And they're levying a higher property tax. They're going to pull away from shares from other units. So we need to show you. 00:48:28
That impact, so the next slide. 00:48:34
Has a chart of all the units within the county. 00:48:37
So you can see it's somewhat minimal changes. 00:48:40
Umm, but the proposed fire territory is going to pull in about 392,000 as I showed on a previous schedule. And where is it going 00:48:44
to come from? From the other taxing units within the county to various degrees? 00:48:50
So and the the next the following year, some of these units get an increase because the fire territories levy goes down. 00:48:57
So it kind of reverses a little bit. 00:49:06
And then the third year, is that leveling out and it's some small changes there? 00:49:08
So that concludes my financial impact presentation. 00:49:14
Thank you, Paige. 00:49:21
OK, excuse me. 00:49:33
Keith Pulliam. 00:49:36
Legal counsel for the Georgetown Township Fire Protection Board as a presentation on the draft. 00:49:37
Resolution. 00:49:42
Sorry for that delay. 00:50:34
To be honest, I. 00:50:36
I was taken out of town for something unexpected the last two days and I just made it back in town in time to be here tonight. 00:50:38
So I'm pleased to be here and kind of give you. 00:50:44
Some general overview of the resolution. 00:50:48
An interlocal agreement. I've got some copies over on the table there. We'll also have them on the website. 00:50:51
Where everybody can download them, I'm sure people. 00:50:57
Are excited to read the legalese. 00:51:00
Generally speaking. 00:51:04
The the draft of the resolution. 00:51:05
Because. 00:51:08
Has 2 units. 00:51:09
It just goes through the the legal requirements required by statute, which are #1. 00:51:11
To identify who would be participating. 00:51:16
You've already heard who the participating units are. It is the. 00:51:19
Georgetown Township Fire Protection District and it is the. 00:51:23
The New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:51:26
The name of the territory again would be the Floyd County Fire Territory. 00:51:29
The boundaries would be the respective boundaries of the existing fire territories together. 00:51:33
And the. 00:51:40
Excuse me? 00:51:43
Again, each of those would be the participating unit. 00:51:44
But Georgetown Township Fire Protection District would be the provider unit. 00:51:47
So one thing just to kind of clarify, to make sure people understand. 00:51:52
A fire district is a special district. 00:51:58
It's an entity that's created for kind of a singular purpose. 00:52:01
And that purpose is. 00:52:05
To provide Fire Protection within its boundaries. 00:52:08
What is a little bit different here from maybe 2 towns? 00:52:11
Or a Township or something else? 00:52:15
Is that the fire district's only purpose will be to participate in this territory. 00:52:17
So one might think that what's the overlap, right? Well. 00:52:22
The overlap will be really that the districts will still continue to exist. 00:52:25
But they won't won't really have a purpose. 00:52:30
That will be independent, so you will have Georgetown Township, which will continue to exist to operate the. 00:52:33
Fired the municipal fire department to service the territory. 00:52:40
And you will have the two participants. 00:52:45
Budgeting together. 00:52:47
To run as a single fire territory. 00:52:49
And the. 00:52:52
Upon the adoption of the resolution. 00:52:55
Again, the what's been discussed here, one of the things that has to be addressed is there will be a unified rate against. 00:52:58
All property within the new territory. 00:53:04
They would also create the a territory operating fund which has already been discussed and then they would create. 00:53:07
A equipment fund. 00:53:14
That equipment fund, you've already heard the numbers. The resolution kind of goes through and just establishes each of those 00:53:16
pieces. 00:53:19
The interlocal agreement would talk about. 00:53:22
The establishment of a joint board. 00:53:26
And the concept between the group. 00:53:29
To be discussed and ultimately determined. 00:53:32
Is is one of. 00:53:35
An attempt at simplicity. 00:53:38
In which to have a board? 00:53:40
Of equal representation for each. 00:53:41
For each fire district that's coming to the table. 00:53:45
And the thought was to have a joint board comprised of four members, 2 from each board. 00:53:48
And those members would be designated by each entity that year they would typically meet. 00:53:54
In order to go through the budgeting process. 00:54:00
And as the provider unit, you can expect that the chief of the provider unit would be there to help facilitate a discussion of the 00:54:04
budget necessary to meet the needs of the of the department. 00:54:09
But each year, the board would meet. 00:54:16
Because they are fire. 00:54:18
Districts. 00:54:20
Remember. 00:54:22
If there is any existing debt, which there is not any debt on the part of the Georgetown Township Fire District, but. 00:54:23
There is one, I think, outstanding debt obligation. 00:54:30
That debt obligation would remain the obligation. 00:54:33
Of the New Albany Township Fire Protection District and not become part of the territory. 00:54:36
But otherwise the contemplated. 00:54:40
Course of action here would be that each fire district. 00:54:43
Would contribute its monies. 00:54:47
That it has on hand. 00:54:49
To the new fire territory. 00:54:51
And the statute indicates that. 00:54:53
Once this was adopted, if it is adopted and if it's approved. 00:54:57
And it would take effect July 1st. 00:55:01
And So what would happen would be that you would have funds available for the existing fire districts that they would then need to 00:55:03
contribute into the fire territory. 00:55:08
And the funding that you've heard the presentation about would? 00:55:13
Would become available in 26. 00:55:17
And then? 00:55:21
There would be. 00:55:23
There's a place, there's a couple blanks in there where we've talked about. 00:55:24
What would a reserve amount be that would be required for the individual fire districts to just continue to have a little bit of 00:55:30
money for expenses contemplated by those districts? 00:55:34
And on the equipment, one of the other questions that might come up is what happens to the equipment? Well, it will remain. 00:55:40
In the name of the fire district that owns it now. 00:55:47
And it would be not contributed per se, but it would be. 00:55:51
Licensed or you would give permission to use it within the fire territory. 00:55:55
So you have both, you know both participants would then be able to. 00:56:00
We've got to workout some of the detail at the operational level, but. 00:56:05
The what would happen would be everybody would contribute their fire apparatus and the use of their stations and things like that. 00:56:09
And, umm. 00:56:16
And they would just and the monies here contributed and that would pretty much cover it. 00:56:18
The cumulative funds that would ambition would be contributed towards the new equipment fund. 00:56:22
And and. 00:56:27
As far as the what the interlocal agreement also in CUP encompasses would be. 00:56:29
The mechanism for withdrawal. 00:56:35
And what would happen if there were to be withdrawal? 00:56:37
The statutes actually cover quite a bit of. 00:56:40
How the operation occurs. And so those are not set out in you know, we don't, we didn't endeavor to set them out. 00:56:44
In detail, but that's. 00:56:50
If you read these documents. 00:56:53
You know, and the lawyer, I saw a typo immediately, but. 00:56:56
You know, it's it happens to the best of us, but we'll get that fixed. 00:57:00
The again, they'll be available on the website. 00:57:04
And if anyone has any questions, I'll take those later. 00:57:07
Thank you, Keith. 00:57:15
We're hot. 00:57:17
Excellent. So before we. 00:57:20
Go to public comment. 00:57:23
To sum it all up. 00:57:33
What we are proposing is an. 00:57:35
Just under 19% increase in funding. 00:57:37
But for that increase in funding, we're increasing from three fire stations to four fire stations, a 33% increase. 00:57:40
And we also are proposing staffing increase of over 50%. 00:57:48
And my slide got a little bit. 00:57:54
Mixed up? Sorry but. 00:57:56
And those are actual firefighters. 00:57:58
Protecting the community. 00:58:00
That's not administrative staff or anything else like that. 00:58:02
It's now just about 7:00. 00:58:07
Been very patient. I appreciate that and we'll open it up for public comments. 00:58:09
Just a reminder. 00:58:14
Please come up to the podium. Sign in. 00:58:16
I'll start the clock after you've signed in so you don't have to rush. 00:58:19
And I'll give you a heads up when you're getting close to the end of your time. So thank you very much. 00:58:23
Frank Loop. 00:58:39
Lafayette Township County Commissioner. 00:58:41
I had a question, I didn't have comments but. 00:58:45
Keith, you mentioned. 00:58:48
Like New Albany Township. 00:58:51
Would have they have some debt? 00:58:52
So. 00:58:55
There, I might have missed it or didn't get covered. So how did they pay their debt off? 00:58:56
If the money's going to the new. 00:59:02
If they still maintain their debt. 00:59:06
How's that debt get paid off if? 00:59:08
Where they get the money for that? 00:59:10
So I'll. 00:59:13
When uh. 00:59:14
When a special district or any municipality issues dead. 00:59:15
There is a separate debt fund. 00:59:19
And that fund would service that debt through its payment in full. 00:59:21
And that would not be included in any funds contributed. That will just continue to exist. It already exists outside of the. 00:59:27
What's generally called the general fund for each fire district. 00:59:34
They have a general operating fund. It's called a special fire fund. 00:59:38
That is something completely different than the debt. 00:59:41
Fund which? 00:59:44
There's a levee separate for the debt fund it's paid every year. 00:59:46
And that just gets paid to me, you know, towards the debt obligation. 00:59:49
So what we're talking about is being contributed. 00:59:52
Would be monies in that general fund? 00:59:55
Or monies potentially in the queue fund to go into the equipment fund. 00:59:58
So there would still be a debt service being paid every year, however long that bond was, maturity was. 01:00:03
Ten years, then that would continue until that. 01:00:10
10 year maturity is reached and it's been paid in full. 01:00:12
So new opening, can you tell me how much that debt was? 01:00:16
About. 01:00:20
Umm 800,000. 01:00:22
I think is where we were. 01:00:26
In all honesty though. 01:00:28
That's one of the things where. 01:00:29
Rectifying right now, we should enter this agreement with very little to no debt. 01:00:31
Yeah. OK. Thank you. 01:00:35
Dale Man, Georgetown. 01:00:48
Township. 01:00:52
Forgot to write my name last week. 01:00:58
I have the same question. 01:01:00
Lafayette Township, they took they maximize their tax levy. Georgetown Township turned it down. 01:01:02
Why was that if we need all these funds now? 01:01:09
Anybody answer that? 01:01:13
The reason why Georgetown did not previously. 01:01:17
File for what's called a 10 year population growth increase. 01:01:21
Was that we didn't need to take the extra money from the community. 01:01:24
Now we are filing that request now. 01:01:29
And it will go into effect in 2026. 01:01:32
So something to consider is that all of the calculations that you saw? 01:01:36
Don't take that into effect. 01:01:41
Baker Tilly has calculated that they believe we are eligible for that. 01:01:43
And it's about $440,000 additional revenue. 01:01:48
So the difference between us being a territory or a district? 01:01:52
It's actually a smaller number than what we presented. 01:01:57
OK, they could. They didn't take it then because. 01:02:00
We had money in the bank, You had money in the bank. 01:02:05
OK. And another question. 01:02:07
You know, I've always bagged on Georgetown, we were told when Georgetown. 01:02:11
Went to far district, our district and paid for our departments that we would have. 01:02:14
One of the best and best Fire Protection we could have. 01:02:18
And now you're telling us we don't? 01:02:21
Because we got now we got to have another Firehouse down in New Albany. 01:02:23
To give us better protection. 01:02:27
And I can't see. 01:02:29
Why Georgetown would even do that? It's it's. 01:02:31
And I know the question I have. 01:02:33
The new Firehouse on Bud Rd. How close is that to the annexation that New Albany is taking down there? 01:02:35
You might know that. 01:02:41
Pretty close. 01:02:43
City nominees annexing down in there. 01:02:44
And I I don't know how anybody on Georgetown board can actually. 01:02:47
Go look at your citizens. Tell us we need this. 01:02:50
It's going to New Albany. 01:02:53
It's not going to Georgia. It doesn't help Georgetown. 01:02:55
We've got the best, we've always had the best. 01:02:58
And now you're you're trying to drag new object and work at Georgetown's people to pay for George for New Albany. 01:03:01
And I can't see how anybody on the Georgetown board can look us taxpayers in the eye and tell us we're building a new Firehouse 01:03:07
and most of this increase as far as the supply of that Firehouse with supplies and personnel. 01:03:13
And I can't see. Anybody from Georgetown can look at us. And I tell us that's better for us. Thank you. 01:03:20
Do this and talk at the same time. 01:03:49
Ken Keithley, Georgetown, IN. 01:04:00
57 year. 01:04:03
Resident Lisa, the same born and raised. 01:04:04
Nine years ago, we broke ground in Georgetown. 01:04:09
50 feet out of the town. 01:04:13
Got our own septic system, not the town. We did all our homework, kept the house under 1500 square feet. 01:04:17
They said you want a rough in basement. 01:04:23
Toilet. No, that's where they get you. We tried everything in the world to keep it. 01:04:25
She came in at 1400 first year assessment. 01:04:29
Now it's. 01:04:33
Over 2800. 01:04:34
I don't know if over double. 01:04:36
Is normal or? 01:04:38
Should be expected. 01:04:40
Two years ago. 01:04:45
We bought an acre ground. 01:04:47
Off the Waynesville exit, 100 feet in Harrison County. 01:04:48
Because. 01:04:52
How much things are going up? 01:04:54
And it doesn't show any trajectory of changing. 01:04:56
And when we get out and ride around, we look at the. 01:05:00
100 houses off Henriette or the 200 off Alonzo Smith. 01:05:04
Five feet apart. 01:05:07
You know Floyd County is the second smallest county in the state. 01:05:09
And all we see is Georgetown just blowing up. 01:05:12
And what used to be the golf course? 01:05:15
All those houses up there. 01:05:17
And all those three story condos, every time one of them. 01:05:19
We think that's got to be the last one, and there's another one. 01:05:22
With a great view of that bridge to nowhere and it's like. 01:05:25
All these people coming in my question I guess is probably more of a planning zoning thing, but. 01:05:28
With all that revenue coming in? 01:05:33
From all those places that are tapped in. 01:05:36
That built a house. 01:05:39
And moved from Louisville or whatever. 01:05:40
Just in the last, say, three years. 01:05:42
I would just. 01:05:45
Think we'd be flush with cash? 01:05:46
I'm probably ignorant in that way, but it just. 01:05:49
And some people said, well, you got more people, you need more services. But it seems like we would just be. 01:05:51
Loaded. 01:05:56
In Floyd County. 01:05:57
Nothing against the fire department. 01:05:59
No firemen, no cops. 01:06:00
All that, but it's a. It's a. 01:06:03
It's just a money thing. 01:06:06
And to see it. 01:06:07
Jumping up when I think, you know, we're 57, we're going to start that and the house is getting older, we're getting older. We're 01:06:08
going to start. It'll start going down and then you find out it's just going up. 01:06:12
That's. 01:06:18
Bomb standing here. 01:06:19
Thank you. 01:06:21
Thank you. 01:06:22
David Rowley from Georgetown Township also. 01:06:29
This is really for Baker Tilly. 01:06:32
We've got two tiffs that are probably within eyesight of the Georgetown Station 2. 01:06:35
Innovation and the. 01:06:41
The Edwardsville School. 01:06:43
And it's my understanding that they can have Fire Protection. 01:06:45
Out of that paid out of that tip, they're both new tips, so it's probably you know, but that would be a. 01:06:49
Question for Baker that maybe we could answer tonight. 01:06:54
Also. 01:06:57
I guess out to the since all the commissioners are here. 01:06:59
That they go to the council and get a. 01:07:02
Set set idea on the public service. 01:07:06
And, you know, it's kind of like. 01:07:11
Yeah, we need the protection, you know, and if you're going to have it, you know, at least. 01:07:14
Use some of the other things that are out-of-the-box to get more help. 01:07:19
So that's all I got. 01:07:23
Thank you. 01:07:26
Hey, Michael, Is it OK if I. 01:07:38
And these short pieces of paper do you want? 01:07:39
I could, I could have handed them out for you. Sorry. 01:07:53
Thank you. 01:07:56
All right. 01:08:27
Good evening board members, hope you all are doing well tonight. 01:08:29
So as we close the first meeting or I guess the initial meeting. 01:08:33
Two weeks ago. 01:08:36
Listening to everything that you all presented and to the. 01:08:39
People that came up and spoke before me, I quickly just came up here and and highlighted 3. 01:08:43
Basically. 01:08:48
Other options to look into in between time? Now I understand it's been kind of a short amount of time, but. 01:08:50
The big thing that you guys brought up and a lot of people have talked about already today. 01:08:56
Is the local income tax that was passed last year and trying to figure out exactly what. 01:09:00
That amount will basically put towards this proposed fire territory. 01:09:06
Now again, I think you guys did. 01:09:12
Probably a much better job today about saying, hey, like these are estimated numbers. There's obviously some stuff in the 01:09:14
background. I didn't really get that kind of information the first time. It was not saying it was set in stone, but it seemed a 01:09:20
little bit more firm, like this is probably what it's going to look like, give or take just maybe 1% or something. 01:09:26
With that being said, I know you guys probably haven't had enough time to talk to Floyd County Council or maybe Mr. Sharp has 01:09:33
already done that already. 01:09:36
But nonetheless, I'm sure that will come to light here over the next couple meetings before voting. 01:09:41
Second, I brought up grants. I said hey, can you all please look into grants if you guys have not? 01:09:46
Just kind of something quick I put in there for you. 01:09:52
Obviously this is from FEMA. 01:09:55
And basically the grants are. 01:09:57
For fire station construction, grant form which is a. 01:09:59
I think oh Yep. 01:10:03
S4690 hundred and 17th. 01:10:07
For the Grant Act, you can kind of read through that, but obviously it's dedicated to building renovating. 01:10:11
Anything to do with EMS fire upgrading existing facilities? 01:10:17
But just to kind of give you and paint a picture. 01:10:23
This is actually. 01:10:25
You are able to file this every November through December, so we already missed last year and I know that this was proposed or 01:10:27
drawn up around that time. 01:10:31
And it was probably a little bit of a tight window and maybe nobody knew about this grant, or maybe they did. 01:10:35
But just to give you some figures from 2024 and Indiana alone. 01:10:40
They gave away $2.4 million. 01:10:44
To Indiana Fire departments 2020 three, $4.69 million. In 2022 they gave away $20.6 million, which Indianapolis received $15 01:10:46
million. This is all public record, it's easy to look at. 01:10:52
Totaling for 2020, three, $720 million. 01:10:58
That can go for a new building. That goes. That goes for salaries. 01:11:02
That goes for any. 01:11:05
Public, umm. 01:11:07
Service that's just general. 01:11:09
Information about what we're doing in our fire, so if you guys wanted to host an event. 01:11:11
Literally there's three sections on there, you can look at it. 01:11:17
I put the number on there so you guys can call and ask the help desk the links. Obviously you can't click the page but you can 01:11:20
copy and paste or find that. 01:11:24
Pretty easily. 01:11:28
For everyone, but that's behind me. 01:11:30
Just a little background, we grants have helped Georgetown in 1994. Some of this has to do with. 01:11:32
I believe it was the. 01:11:38
Water or sewage at the time. 01:11:41
Yeah, you're over 30. Sorry. Think it's OK. 01:11:44
You guys can continue to read on down TIF districts and again Mr. Riley kind of touched on that. So I just. 01:11:47
Kindly also just consider that. 01:11:54
Georgetown is also. 01:11:56
In a proposal for an annexation as well, which is also an increased 14% that was drafted last year around the same time that this 01:11:58
was as well. 01:12:02
Thank you. I'm sorry, could you say your name? 01:12:07
John Murray. 01:12:09
John Murray, Georgetown. 01:12:10
Thank you. 01:12:11
Dale man back again. 01:12:21
I just wanted to tell you there's a petition going around. 01:12:23
Now I have some copies here that are trying to give us impact fees for services. 01:12:26
In the state of Indiana, the only thing we can get impact fees is for roads. 01:12:31
Drainage. 01:12:35
In parks. 01:12:37
We're trying to get a petition into the state. I've got copies of it here. 01:12:38
To change impact fees, where we can get impact fees? 01:12:41
For services for schools. 01:12:45
For for anything. We're not limited, is what we're asking for. 01:12:47
I've got copies of that now. 01:12:53
That would help us out maybe if we had them back in 94 when impact fees first started. 01:12:56
Maybe we wouldn't be in the shape we are today. 01:13:01
And I very recommend that you guys get a copy and I've got copies and maybe pass them out, get them. 01:13:05
Sign in. Commissioners assigned them. 01:13:10
Local leaders have signed it. 01:13:13
And we need to get everybody on board because it needs to change or we if we had it like I said in 94. 01:13:15
We wouldn't be in the shape we are in today. Thank you. 01:13:21
Thank you. 01:13:24
Good evening. Jason Sharp, Floyd County Commissioner. Just have a few questions for you. 01:13:51
So I think there's a little bit of clarification needs to happen for. 01:13:55
For some of the members of our community. 01:14:00
For New Albany Township. 01:14:02
Under your current model, do you have the capability to staff the fire station at bedroom? 01:14:04
OK, no, OK. 01:14:10
So for those people who are currently paying that district rate. 01:14:13
Where is your agency coming from? 01:14:16
Sorry, where is your agency coming from this responding out there? 01:14:20
To make that run. 01:14:23
That'd be that'd be Charlestown Rd. Charlestown. 01:14:26
For the Georgetown Fire Board. 01:14:29
There's been a lot of talk that. 01:14:34
They don't see what the benefit for Georgetown is. 01:14:36
You all have said that. 01:14:39
You're currently using your reserves that you've had on hand to pay for staffing. 01:14:41
For the Legacy Georgetown station, which is downtown Georgetown. 01:14:46
So what happens if you don't? 01:14:51
This territory doesn't come through with you as your district model capable of staffing that fire station. 01:14:53
No. So you cannot staff the fire station. 01:14:57
In Georgetown. Not the way we're doing it today, If. If at all. 01:15:00
OK. So one of the other questions that I've received is the number of staffing that you have put on engines, ladders, so on and so 01:15:04
forth. And I agree with you that's in compliance with it FPA standards, which is NFPA 1710. 01:15:10
So NFPA 1710 states that you need to have a total of 14 firefighters. 01:15:18
And one district commander. 01:15:25
Our incident commander. 01:15:28
On the scene of a residential structure fire. 01:15:29
Correct. OK. 01:15:32
So with two ladders. 01:15:34
Two staffed engines every day, three on both engines. 01:15:36
Four on both ladders. 01:15:40
Where does that number put you at? 01:15:41
1414. 01:15:45
And you also have Battalion Chief? 01:15:47
Correct. Yep. So that covers your incident commander, which is. 01:15:50
A requirement by NFPA 1710. 01:15:54
It's one thing that. 01:15:57
Structure fire or working incident needs is an instant commander, so. 01:15:59
You're all not outside of. 01:16:04
NFPA standards, right? No. OK, Thank you. 01:16:05
Welcome. 01:16:09
Anybody else? 01:16:22
All right. 01:16:33
Take a motion to adjourn. 01:16:35
Close the public hearing. 01:16:38
I'd like to make a motion to close the public hearing at this time. 01:16:43
OK, so moved. 01:16:47
We'll need to vote on. 01:16:49
If anybody has a question, they didn't want to jump up on the mic. 01:16:52
Might not be happy to talk to you. 01:16:56
I'll be. 01:16:58
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Yeah. 00:00:02
OK. 00:00:17
OK. Good evening, everybody. 00:00:18
We're going to go ahead and get started at 6:00 and we've got some people joining online. 00:00:22
We'll go ahead and start with the pledge. 00:00:33
The United States of America. 00:00:42
And to the Republic, which stands one nation under God. 00:00:46
Indivisible with everything because it's wrong. 00:00:50
OK, before we get started first. 00:01:01
Action item will do is we'll call. 00:01:04
For uh. 00:01:06
Georgetown. 00:01:07
Fire Protection District. My name is Michael Moody. I'm the chairman of the board. 00:01:09
Mark Ringenberg. 00:01:13
Can you hear it? 00:01:18
Working on it, sorry. 00:01:24
We're trying to work on the technical issue. Can you hear me if I speak up? 00:01:51
Some OK. 00:01:56
What we'll do is just to kind of keep the meeting. 00:01:59
Going. 00:02:02
We'll go ahead and do the roll call for the boards. 00:02:03
So. 00:02:07
I did me Mark Ringberg I believe is online. 00:02:08
David Fuhr. 00:02:12
And Jeff McNulty. 00:02:14
And Travis Sharp is not here tonight. He's working. 00:02:16
So we have a quorum. 00:02:19
Hi. Hello. My name is Kyle and I'm the chair of the New Albany Township Board. 00:02:24
Welcome everybody tonight. 00:02:29
Give Kenny. 00:02:32
Gives our treasure. 00:02:34
Our vice president, Danny Jacobs, is not. 00:02:36
Present yet? 00:02:38
Think he's on his way? 00:02:40
Scott Sears, our secretary. 00:02:42
And then Ben Guip is a member. 00:02:45
OK. Thank you, Sir. 00:02:48
All right. 00:02:50
Susanna, should I wait? 00:02:52
OK. 00:02:59
OK, you should be good. 00:03:26
All right. 00:03:28
Thank you for letting us know, hopefully. 00:03:32
It's not too loud. 00:03:35
I'll step back from the mic just a little bit. 00:03:37
The way that we're going to do things this evening is we have a couple of short, a couple of presentations. I'm not going to lie 00:03:39
to you and say the very short. 00:03:43
And then after the presentations we will have. 00:03:47
Public comment. 00:03:50
Each individual that wishes to make public comments, please just come up to the podium. Sign in with your name and address. 00:03:52
And we'll limit comments to three minutes if. 00:03:58
Everybody talks, wants to, and somebody wants to get back up. That's fine. 00:04:01
But umm. 00:04:05
I will let you know if you have about 30 seconds left or when time is up and appreciate everybody being respectful to everybody 00:04:06
else. So anybody that wants to talk. 00:04:10
Has the opportunity to do so. 00:04:14
So the purpose of today's public hearing is to discuss the creation of the Floyd County Fire. 00:04:16
Territory. 00:04:21
The Fire Protection service in our community was originally. 00:04:24
Provided by all Volunteer Fire departments. 00:04:28
It satisfied the need at the time. 00:04:31
But. 00:04:35
The volunteer model is just really not sustainable anymore. 00:04:36
Most people do not live and work in the same geographic area. A lot of people commute over to Louisville, as an example. 00:04:40
And anything that happens during the day, they're not in that area and able to respond. 00:04:46
Society is also busier and it's less of an opportunity for somebody to volunteer, especially for that much of A time commitment. 00:04:50
And the reality is that the demands of being a firefighter in today's world are not like they were 50 years ago. 00:04:58
It's a lot more complex, a lot more training and a lot more equipment. 00:05:03
So the Indiana legislature created a. 00:05:07
Concept called a fire district. 00:05:10
That provided a revenue stream so that you could have a professional. 00:05:12
Staffed fire department. 00:05:15
Unfortunately, the revenue stream has not kept up with society. 00:05:18
Once you start the district, you are given a levy. 00:05:22
And that. 00:05:26
Pretty much it does not change. 00:05:27
So a new process. 00:05:33
That's been updated recently. Is called a fire territory. 00:05:35
A fire territory is when two or more taxing entities, townships, municipalities, or fire districts that share physical borders. 00:05:38
Joined to form a fire territory. 00:05:46
And one of the reasons why they are encouraging this is it also consolidated fire services. 00:05:48
By creating a fire territory. 00:05:57
We expect that we will better align Fire Protection with our communities needs. 00:05:59
An example, the southern end of New Albany Township currently is not. 00:06:04
Service by Fire Protection service in the community. 00:06:08
So we would. 00:06:12
Proposed to address that. 00:06:13
We also will increase Fire Protection for Georgetown and New Albany townships together. 00:06:15
And it addresses the revenue imbalance for the fire districts. 00:06:20
By having a fire territory, we'll have one command structure. 00:06:26
Which will increase efficiencies and training equipment. 00:06:29
SOP's human resources and accounting. 00:06:33
And it will provide appropriate revenue to sustain the professional Fire Protection for the community. 00:06:36
And I may say this more than once. 00:06:41
The current district model is not financially sustainable. 00:06:44
So background. 00:06:49
In the first quarter of last year, Georgetown Fire was approached by Franklin Township about forming a fire territory. 00:06:50
In May, New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:06:57
Asked to be a part of the conversation also. 00:07:00
Georgetown Fire contracted with Baker. 00:07:03
To calculate impact to the community and received our first draft report in October. 00:07:06
We've had three public presentations of the information. 00:07:12
Dates there on the screen. 00:07:16
This is the first of the three. 00:07:18
Required public hearings. 00:07:21
In mid January. 00:07:25
This year, Franklin Township decided that the timing was not right for them to continue with the project. 00:07:27
Georgetown Fire New Albany Township Fire decided to continue and requested new data from Baker Tilly. 00:07:32
And I'll go on the record as thanking Baker Tilly. They turned that around really quick. 00:07:38
And at a very busy time of the year. 00:07:42
So. 00:07:45
What we are going to talk about from this point forward is the Floyd County Fire territory. 00:07:46
The two districts work together to create a master plan for the new territory. 00:07:51
Georgetown Fire will be the providing agency. 00:07:55
Chief Ned Wiseman will be the chief of the territory. 00:07:59
Chief Tim Franklin will be the deputy chief of the territory. 00:08:02
All firefighters that are currently working for both departments. 00:08:05
Will be employed by the department. 00:08:09
And the existing labor agreement between Local 5393 and Georgetown will be the contract in force. 00:08:12
Between January 1st and March 31st this year. 00:08:23
We are required to have three public hearings to educate the community. 00:08:26
Dates are February 13th, the 27th and March 13th. 00:08:31
And then a fourth adoption meeting. 00:08:35
To vote on the resolution to create the territory. 00:08:37
We are tentatively penciling in, I hate to say it this way, March 26. 00:08:41
But that date may change. We will. 00:08:45
Provide the legally legally required notification to the community well in advance. 00:08:48
And we'll have it on our website and everywhere, so we'll make sure everybody knows if that date does change. 00:08:54
And then, starting in 2026, the new territory will take effect. 00:09:01
And just as a side note. 00:09:06
The two districts technically remain in effect. 00:09:07
They don't disappear or go away. 00:09:10
A little bit of background information. I'm going to use Georgetown. 00:09:15
Because, umm. 00:09:18
I have access to most of the data. 00:09:20
And. 00:09:22
I think that it shows a good picture of why we are where we are today. 00:09:26
This is a look at the tax rate for Georgetown Fire from when the District was first. 00:09:30
Formed in 2007. 00:09:35
If we take a closer look at the last 10 years. 00:09:37
You'll see that the tax rate has decreased 37%. 00:09:41
Georgetown Fire has zero debt. 00:09:45
And we have never gone back to the community and asked for additional revenue. 00:09:48
Yet during that same 10 year period. 00:09:54
The run volume has increased by 80%. 00:09:58
Our community has grown by over 12%. 00:10:04
About six years ago. 00:10:08
We started staffing a second station in Georgetown. 00:10:10
Our administrative and training in our main station is historically as Station 2 on Cordon. 00:10:14
Ridge Rd. 00:10:20
And we opened. 00:10:21
Georgetown Station 1, which is downtown Georgetown. 00:10:23
But we staffed it during the day. 00:10:27
Monday through Friday. 00:10:29
And the idea was we wanted to have a closer response to the school in case something happened. 00:10:31
So as we were all dealing with. 00:10:37
COVID and coming out of that. 00:10:39
We looked at our data. 00:10:43
And we saw that. 00:10:45
60% of the runs were on the east side of the district during the day. 00:10:48
And roughly 60% of the runs during the night were on the West side of the district. 00:10:53
And we didn't have anybody on station. 00:10:57
At night on the West side of the district. 00:11:00
So the board worked with command staff and we made a decision that we would staff Station 124 Seven. 00:11:02
We didn't get any extra money to do that. 00:11:09
We had some money in the bank that we had. 00:11:11
Not spent. 00:11:14
And we decided that we would start providing that service to the community. 00:11:16
But we did not get an increase in revenue. 00:11:20
To fund that operation. 00:11:22
We knew we had a. 00:11:24
Look ahead of several years that we would be able to sustain that operation. 00:11:25
But it could not continue forever. 00:11:29
Which is why we're here today. 00:11:32
Since we. 00:11:35
Opened Station 1. 00:11:36
Actually, I'm sorry, I had last year during 2024. 00:11:40
Both both stations were dispatched at the same time 47 times. 00:11:43
So it's 47 times where both stations were out in the community serving. 00:11:48
At the same time. 00:11:53
And as you can see, the run volume is. 00:11:55
Increasing quite a bit. 00:11:57
Currently. 00:11:59
Both districts. 00:12:01
Serve the community with Fire Protection, Georgetown Station 1. 00:12:04
3 firefighters on call 24/7. 00:12:07
Station 2 at Cordon Ridge Rd. is for firefighters on station 24/7. 00:12:10
A Battalion Chief. 00:12:16
24/7 that kind of floats around. 00:12:17
And the chief And the deputy chief. 00:12:20
Who technically are 40 hours a week but honestly they're on call 24/7 also. 00:12:22
In New Albany Township. 00:12:27
They are currently staffing Charlestown Rd. station. 00:12:29
With three firefighters, 24/7. 00:12:31
And they also have a chief and deputy chief that are on 40 hours a week and on call 24/7. 00:12:34
Our proposal for the Floyd County Fire territory is to increase the four stations. 00:12:42
We are planning to fully staff Bud Road 24/7. 00:12:46
Longer range plan is to reevaluate the best location for that 4th station. 00:12:51
It may end up being where it is. We may decide that based on growth and population density that it might need to be someplace 00:12:55
else. 00:12:59
We also proposed to increase staffing at Charlestown Rd. 00:13:05
So that the latter is staffed with four firefighters 24/7. That is the NFPA standard. 00:13:08
And that's pretty much what most departments in America run. 00:13:13
We also are recommending to add a Battalion Chief 24/7. 00:13:19
Fire prevention is required by the statute. 00:13:24
We're proposing to staff a full time Fire Marshall. 00:13:27
That person would work. 00:13:30
Help prevent fires, educate the community, and work on proper code compliance. 00:13:32
I know this is a busy chart and we've gotten feedback that it's a little bit complex and difficult for some people to follow so. 00:13:39
This is what we are proposing for the fire territory. 00:13:47
The top 2 yellow boxes, that is the command staff, there are two chiefs, there's a chief and there's a deputy chief. 00:13:51
Who's number 2? 00:13:57
As it goes down another level. 00:13:59
These aren't people, it's just describing the breakup of the operation. 00:14:01
So District 1 you could think of as legacy Georgetown, District 2, legacy New Albany Township. 00:14:07
The way the fire department works on its staffing is if you're a 24/7 employee. 00:14:13
We have 3 shifts. 00:14:19
So shift A. 00:14:20
Let's say for example, would start Monday morning and work 24 hours to Tuesday morning. 00:14:22
Then shift B comes on. 00:14:27
And then Wednesday morning shift C comes on. 00:14:29
And then Thursday morning Shift A comes back on. So it's just a continuous loop ABC. 00:14:32
So what we are trying to depict here is that. 00:14:38
If you look at Battalion Chief A. 00:14:41
That's a shift. 00:14:44
That's the Battalion Chief. 00:14:46
And then Engine 2 is at Station 1 downtown Georgetown. 00:14:48
And has a captain, a Sergeant and a firefighter. That's the three firefighters that I mentioned earlier. 00:14:52
Latter 2, which is at Station 2 as a captain, Sergeant and two firefighters. That's the four people that I mentioned that we're 00:14:58
currently staffing. 00:15:01
And then that repeats for B&C. 00:15:06
So on station. 00:15:09
On any particular day, there are three firefighters, station one and four at Station 2. 00:15:12
Plus the Battalion Chief. 00:15:17
For District 2. 00:15:20
Battalion Chief A, which is. 00:15:23
A little bit off, right side, center of the slide. 00:15:25
Engine 41 would be the Bud Rd. station. 00:15:29
There's a captain, Sergeant, firefighter, that's three firefighters 24/7. 00:15:32
And Ladder 49, a captain, Sergeant and two firefighters. 00:15:36
Said before firefighters on the ladder. 00:15:41
Additionally, we are proposing, as I mentioned, a full time Fire Marshall which would maintain the same rank equivalent of a 00:15:44
Battalion Chief. 00:15:48
That allows us if somebody's sick. 00:15:53
Maybe command staff can decide to swing somebody over to cover a shift. 00:15:55
And we're also proposing a full time training officer with the equivalent level. 00:15:59
Rank of a captain. 00:16:04
We also are proposing an administrative assistant. 00:16:06
Who would function in a heavy hour capacity? 00:16:09
And also all the other tasks that would need to be done by a department this size. 00:16:13
And were required by state law to have a financial officer. 00:16:18
So I know that's a little. 00:16:23
Big and a lot of different colors. 00:16:25
The way that that happens is this is the proposed Floyd County Territory 2026 budget. 00:16:29
And the bottom number on the right hand side. 00:16:36
Is $6,338,585. 00:16:38
That would have a total of 54 employees. 00:16:45
52 of which are firefighters. 00:16:49
So working with that information and Baker Tilly. 00:16:53
The proposed 2026 budget. 00:16:57
Calculated with the net asset. 00:17:00
Net assessed value for the territory. What will be the impact to the community? 00:17:02
Now before I transition over to our Baker Tilly expert. 00:17:08
I want to make sure everybody understands something. 00:17:12
By law, the calculations have to be what I call a worst case scenario. 00:17:14
We can't ask for more money. 00:17:20
We can ask for less, but this is the worst case scenario. 00:17:22
A change in the funding for a territory from the districts. The districts currently get roughly 24% of their revenue through local 00:17:26
income tax. 00:17:31
We are not assuming any local income tax goes to the territory. 00:17:37
We also are not. 00:17:41
Assuming that any of the new public safety local income tax will go to the fire territory. 00:17:43
But if they do. 00:17:49
The property tax would be reduced dollar for dollar. 00:17:51
We would not double collect. 00:17:54
So if we're. 00:17:56
Able to get. 00:17:58
Local income tax that would reduce. 00:17:59
All of the numbers you're about to see because they are strictly property tax numbers. 00:18:02
And we have to do it that way. 00:18:07
So at this time. 00:18:10
I'd like to introduce Paige Sansong. 00:18:12
If you don't know, Baker Tilley is a top 10 worldwide CPA firm. 00:18:15
And one of the preeminent advisory tax and assurance firms in Indiana. 00:18:19
So Paige. 00:18:23
Thank you. Yes. My name is Paige Sansone. If you were here previously, you heard Susan give this presentation. 00:18:28
It will be the same presentation, I will just be delivering it tonight. 00:18:36
OK. So we're going to go to the next slide. 00:18:40
Some some of this information has already been covered, but we'll quickly go through this. 00:18:45
A fire territory is a type of fire service consolidation provided by Indiana law. I almost want to kind of see the people. 00:18:52
I want to talk to all of you. 00:19:01
OK. 00:19:04
So it's a type of fire service consolidation provided by Indiana law. Obviously, it is different than a fire district. 00:19:06
The main difference is that fire districts are established by the county commissioners. A fire territory can be established by two 00:19:14
local units of government that touch boundaries and by fire districts. So that's what you have here tonight is 2 fire districts 00:19:20
that touch boundaries. 00:19:25
Are going to are proposing to form this fire territory. 00:19:32
Why establish? Well, the number one reason to establish a fire territory is to get additional funding for fire services. 00:19:36
We are seeing this. 00:19:44
All over the state of Indiana and quite frankly all over the nation, the lack of volunteerism. It's not that people don't want to 00:19:45
volunteer, it's just more and more difficult to volunteer as you heard Michael speak about that. 00:19:52
So really this is the way to get additional funding. This is a mechanism to get that additional funding. 00:20:00
It does establish a uniform tax rate over the entire area. 00:20:07
And it does spread that cost over that entire tax base. 00:20:13
Next slide. 00:20:17
So as was mentioned, it's required by law that we have three public hearings. 00:20:19
On January 30th there was a public meeting, but we need to also have three public hearings. Tonight is the first public hearing. 00:20:25
There will be another one on February 27th and as mentioned on March 13th. I don't have that on my slide, but yes, there will be 00:20:33
one on March 13th and then a tentative adoption date on March 26th. They can't. The units cannot adopt on the last day or the last 00:20:40
public hearing. They have to have at least 10 days before they can do the adoption. 00:20:47
After that takes place if the units approve the fire territory. 00:20:54
Then a petition will be submitted to the State of Indiana, the Department of Local Government Finance, and that petition simply 00:21:00
requests approval to levy taxes for the newly formed fire territory. 00:21:06
And that request is based on the budget. 00:21:12
Was shown earlier. I'm going to show a little bit more of it. 00:21:16
But that budget or the estimated expenses is really the basis of how we determine the property tax levy and the property tax rate. 00:21:19
Next slide, please. 00:21:25
So again, we've already talked about who's in this fire territory. 00:21:32
One of the units has to be deemed the provider unit and that really just means that that. 00:21:37
Unit will levy property tax on behalf of the entire fire territory. 00:21:43
That unit will be responsible for preparing the annual budget. 00:21:50
And then performing all the necessary accounting and financial functions related to the services. It doesn't mean that. 00:21:54
One of the entities will not have a say in what's going on there. They will have a say and it's just one unit has to levy the tax 00:22:00
and do the financials. 00:22:05
Next slide. 00:22:10
And then again to the next slide. 00:22:13
So we start out by kind of comparing where are these two districts at right now? 00:22:15
In relation to receipts and disbursements. 00:22:22
So this chart is showing you that the first kind of bars are Georgetown Township Fire Protection District. 00:22:25
The green is the budgeted receipts. 00:22:33
So the receipts in 2025 as budgeted about 2.3 million. 00:22:36
What is budgeted in expenses as 3.2 million. So clearly there is a deficit. This doesn't mean they can't fund the budget. They 00:22:42
have some cash reserves, they can fund the budget. 00:22:47
But it is. 00:22:53
You know, pretty telling that there is a deficit here. You know, Michael mentioned earlier. 00:22:54
This budget is not sustainable. 00:22:59
And really, it isn't sustainable for either fire district. 00:23:02
Because what's budgeted for 2025 doesn't even capture all the needs. 00:23:07
Of both fire departments. 00:23:12
So let's look at the next section, which is New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:23:15
They're a little bit closer, but there still is a deficit. 00:23:22
There's receipts there budgeted of 2.5 million. 00:23:24
And then disbursements of about the same amount, but there's a little bit of a deficit, but again. 00:23:28
That's based on 2025, not what the true needs are of the fire services. 00:23:33
Next slide. 00:23:40
Is a graph of. 00:23:41
Current budget combined. 00:23:43
Compared to proposed budget of the fire territory. 00:23:46
You can see that most of the needs are and personal services. That's not surprising. You heard that there is a need for additional 00:23:51
staffing. 00:23:56
And that's exactly what this chart shows, an increase in primarily the personal services, which is the salaries and benefits. 00:24:01
So the current 2025 fire budget, if we combine both entities, about 5.7 million roughly. 00:24:09
The proposed budget goes up to 6.9 million, so roughly a $1.2 million increase. 00:24:19
So moving on to the next slide, again, as I stated before. 00:24:26
That budget becomes the basis of how we calculate how much property tax it's going to take to fund. 00:24:30
Adequately fund these fire services. 00:24:38
We are required to show the state a three-year progression. 00:24:40
Of the tax rate on the fire territory. So in 2026, that's really the biggest impact to the taxpayer because that's when the fire 00:24:47
territory would come on board. 00:24:52
So here we're just showing how we calculated the tax rate. So starting with the first column in 2026, funding requirements. 00:24:57
We have that operating budget and the capital budget. 00:25:05
Those two combined are the $6.9 million that I said previously. 00:25:08
We also get to build in a modest cash reserve of 20%. 00:25:15
So that simply means that. 00:25:21
At the end of 2026, the fire territory should have about. 00:25:23
Should have a cash reserve equal to approximately 20% of their disbursements. 00:25:28
That's pretty modest. It's about 2 1/2, maybe three months of expenditures. 00:25:34
Now we're allowed to levy that the first year, but then in the second year the state will reduce the levy because in their minds 00:25:39
you're, you've levied that cash reserve, it's in the bank. We're not going to continue to allow you to levy that in future years. 00:25:46
So that's why I almost. 00:25:53
Nearly every fire territory that has created the second year there is a rate reduction. 00:25:55
So we have total funding requirements, budget plus cash reserve of 8.2 million. 00:26:01
Before we calculate how much property tax is needed, we get to include vehicle excise tax. That is a revenue stream that comes 00:26:08
into any local unit of government that levies property tax. 00:26:14
So when you go to the license branch to renew your place or register a vehicle, you're paying Vehicle Excise. 00:26:20
That revenue gets distributed out to the taxing units within the county. 00:26:27
So here we're estimating that this fire territory would receive about 392,000 of that type of revenue. 00:26:32
So if we deduct that off of our funding requirements, we have a resulting balance that needs to be funded with property tax. 00:26:41
Of 7.8 million. 00:26:48
We divide that by each $100.00 of the tax base of this fire territory, which is about $1.8 billion. 00:26:50
So it will take a tax rate of about $0.44 to generate the $7.8 million that we need for fire services. 00:26:59
Moving to 2027, the cash reserve drops off, so now we have funding requirements of about 7.3 million. 00:27:08
We need property tax of 6.9 million. 00:27:16
And if we divide that over the tax base, that's about a 37 cent. 00:27:20
Increase. 00:27:25
Or I'm sorry, that's a 37 cent tax rate that is needed to fund fire services. 00:27:27
Then in 2028, it kind of levels out. 00:27:32
The fire territory will get a normal levee growth just like all other units in the state. 00:27:34
So starting in 2028 and beyond. 00:27:41
It'll be somewhere between maybe 1% or 5%. There is some proposed legislation out there right now, Senate Bill one, that is 00:27:44
attempting to limit that property tax levy growth over. 00:27:50
Three-year period. So we don't know what's going to happen with that. 00:27:58
Here we just built in about a three to 4% increase in the levy. 00:28:01
So. 00:28:06
In 2028, you can see it just it kind of, well actually goes down a little bit because the assessed value is anticipated to 00:28:07
increase. So it's going to level out to about $0.37. 00:28:12
The next slide, and by the way, I forgot to mention there are copies up here that you can grab on your way out if you would like, 00:28:19
if they're up on this table. 00:28:22
So we have to make sure that this fire territory is sustainable. So we do put together a cash flow schedule. 00:28:27
This is the operating fund, so this fund would cover all the day-to-day expenses, including personnel. 00:28:34
And so again. 00:28:40
You can see the budget for just those operating costs without the capital. 00:28:42
Is about. 00:28:46
6.3 million. 00:28:48
Up at the top, you can see that we've broken out the various revenue sources, property tax. 00:28:50
Circuit breaker, which is credit return to taxpayers. So that's a reduction of your property tax. 00:28:56
And then also that vehicle excise. 00:29:01
So we're going to have funding of about 7.6 million in the first year. 00:29:03
Operating disbursement 6.3, so yes. 00:29:08
We are going to have a cash reserve hopefully at the end of the year. 00:29:11
That's close to that 20%. 00:29:14
Year 2. 00:29:17
Now we have total receipts of 6.6 million. So again property tax will go down because we don't fund that cash reserve anymore. 00:29:19
Then operating disbursements about 6.6 million we did. 00:29:27
Make a small adjustment for circuit breaker loss because if. 00:29:31
The fire territory doesn't. 00:29:35
Collect what we think it's going to collect from that levy due to. 00:29:37
Credits to the taxpayers, then there is going to have to be an adjustment. But here it's a very small, minor adjustment. It's only 00:29:42
about $1600. 00:29:46
So again. 00:29:51
You know, if we keep moving forward to 2028, we're holding on to that fund balance, it's around 18 to 19% and they're able to fund 00:29:52
their budget. So it is a sustainable budget. 00:29:58
Moving on to the next slide is the equipment replacement fund. 00:30:06
What's different about the equipment replacement fund is it's it's maxed out with a rate, so the maximum rate is 3.33 cents. 00:30:09
That can't change. The fire territory cannot increase that rate. It stays. 00:30:18
But what happens is as the net assessed value or the tax base increases, the fire territory can. 00:30:23
Can collect additional property tax revenue. 00:30:30
So in this schedule, we've just kind of calculated what. 00:30:33
How the? 00:30:37
Not assessment, you might change. I think we've got about a 3% growth in here. So you're looking at receipts each year of. 00:30:38
Between 621,000 to 670,000 again. 00:30:46
Just depends on how much that tax base grows. 00:30:50
This fund can be used for equipment replacement just as the name suggests, it can be used for housing and apparatus, so it's a 00:30:54
really good fun to have. 00:30:58
It's just like a fire district cumulative fire fund, exactly like that. It just has a different name. 00:31:03
Next slide. 00:31:11
And then the next one. Yep. 00:31:13
So now let's get to the part of How does this impact taxpayers? 00:31:15
So in order to figure out how it's going to impact taxpayers, we need to look at how does this impact the district tax rate. 00:31:21
All of your tax bills are based on a district rate, meaning it's a rate. 00:31:30
That includes the school, the library. 00:31:35
Township. Maybe a municipality? 00:31:39
All those different taxing units make up one whole district rate. 00:31:41
And that's what your bill is based upon. So now. 00:31:46
If we look, there's three taxing districts that are impacted by this fire territory. 00:31:49
Two you see on this page. One is Georgetown Township 002. 00:31:55
The you can see the current district rates in blue. 00:32:01
So the current district rate is 1.6140. 00:32:04
In the red bar you can see what the rate would be if the fire territory comes on board. 00:32:09
So you're looking at the first year it would go up to 1.8436, the second year 1.777. 00:32:15
3rd Year, 1.7766. 00:32:23
The important thing to note is on that first year, it's a 14.2% increase to the district rate. Well, that directly translates to 00:32:26
how much a tax bill would increase 14.2%. 00:32:33
Unless your property is at the tax caps and then you would see no increase. I'm going to show you some examples in a minute. 00:32:40
Georgetown Town 003 is another taxing district impacted so you can see. 00:32:47
Current district rate. 00:32:54
1.886. 00:32:56
First year goes up to 2.1182. 00:32:58
Then it kind of comes down and levels off. 00:33:02
That first year increase is a 12.2% increase. 00:33:04
And by the way, when these district rates are calculated, we get to deduct off the current Fire Protection district rates that are 00:33:09
that are certified for 2025. So that comes off, there's a little bit of an offset then we can put on the fire territory rate. 00:33:17
Next slide. 00:33:26
So the the last district that's involved here is New Albany Township 007. 00:33:28
The current district rate is 1.6058. 00:33:35
The first year it goes up to 1.8564. 00:33:38
That's a 15.6% increase. 00:33:42
And then the rate kind of levels off, it goes down and then levels off after that. 00:33:45
Next slide. 00:33:51
So in case you're interested, we do have some examples of where. 00:33:53
The components of your tax bill goes to. 00:33:59
OK. 00:34:02
This is Georgetown Township 002, so unincorporated Georgetown Township. 00:34:04
This is an example of a $100,000 residential homestead property. So your primary residence. 00:34:09
So in 2025, sixty $2.00 of that $470 tax bill. 00:34:16
Goes to fund fire service. 00:34:23
308 goes to fund the schools, $18.00 to the library, etc. 00:34:25
If this fire territory is established now, you'll pay $537. 00:34:31
And all of that increase will go to fire services, so. 00:34:37
$62.00 you pay now for fire service, it'll go up to $129. That's how that works. 00:34:41
You can see that the school and the other units are getting the same. 00:34:47
Amount of property tax, which makes sense, it's just that the increase is going to go to to the fire. 00:34:50
Same taxing district, now we're looking at a $200,000 home value. 00:34:59
So 180 dollars of the 1375 that you pay for this property value. 00:35:05
Goes to fire service. 00:35:12
With the addition of the fire territory, it would go to $375. 00:35:14
So again, the increase is all going to fire service. 00:35:20
All the other units are getting their same share of property tax. 00:35:23
Next slide. 00:35:28
Georgetown Town oh oh three $100,000 home value again pretty close to the other taxing district, $62.00 goes to fire services of 00:35:31
your tax bill, which is $550. 00:35:38
Your tax bill would go up to $617.00 and now $129 goes to fund fire service. 00:35:44
Next slide. 00:35:52
Same taxing District 003, a $200,000 home value. So here. 00:35:56
This taxpayer would pay $1609 currently. 00:36:01
Of which 180 dollars goes to fund fire service. 00:36:06
That tax bill would go up to $1804.00, which would increase the funding to fire services to $375. 00:36:10
Next slide. 00:36:21
The last taxing district is New Albany Township. This is the $100,000 home value. 00:36:23
Current tax bill is $468. 00:36:29
$55 of that goes to fund fire service. 00:36:32
If a fire territory is established, the tax bill would go up to $541. 00:36:37
And $128.00 would go to fund fire service. 00:36:42
Next slide is a $200,000 home value. 00:36:47
Tax bill currently 1368. 00:36:51
$162.00 of that goes to fund fire service. 00:36:55
With the fire territory, that tax bill would go up to 1581 and $375.00 of that would go to fund fire service. 00:36:59
These next few slides are and again you can have some handouts to take with you are examples of various property types and dollar 00:37:09
values in each of these taxing districts. 00:37:16
I'm not going to go through every single one of these, but I want you to see how this chart works. So we have. 00:37:23
Three different. 00:37:28
Property classes. 00:37:30
The first one is residential homestead and we call that. 00:37:31
1% tax cap properties because here in the state of Indiana, if you have a residential homestead. 00:37:35
Your tax bill is capped at 1% of your gross assessed value. So if you have a $100,000 home. 00:37:42
You would not pay more than $1000 on the less. 00:37:50
A school or some other taxing unit, by referendum put on a tax rate that you voted yes for. You're going to pay that tax rate in 00:37:54
addition to your $1000. 00:37:59
So we have all kinds of examples here. Under residential homestead, I've got a $300,000 home value. We'll look at that one. 00:38:05
Current tax bill is 2279. 00:38:14
It would go up by. It would go up to 2603. Please note that all. 00:38:17
All these changes, percentage changes for all these various property types. 00:38:23
Are 14.2%, so that's very important. That tells me that. 00:38:28
Unless your property is hitting the tax cap, you would expect a maximum increase of 14.2% to your tax bill. 00:38:32
So for a $300,000 home value. 00:38:40
That equates to about $27.00 a month. 00:38:43
Or $324.00 for the whole year. 00:38:46
So we've got it broken up monthly. 00:38:49
And annual. 00:38:51
But again, that percentage change is very important because if somebody says, well, hey. 00:38:53
I've got a $500,000 home value that's not listed on this chart. 00:38:58
Go look at your current your tax bill. Well, I don't you're not gonna have your current 2025, but look at your 2024 tax bill. 00:39:02
You can look at online at the county's website. 00:39:09
See what you're paying. 00:39:12
And then increase it by 14.2%. That 14.2% is the important number there. Figure out where where your property is located, if it's 00:39:14
in. 00:39:19
Georgetown Township 002 then 14% is what you would. 14.2% is what you would expect as an increase. 00:39:23
Next slide is Georgetown Town 003. Again, not going to go through all of these, but. 00:39:32
Please note the percentage change is 12.2%. 00:39:38
So if your property no matter if it's commercial residential rental. 00:39:42
Residential homestead if it's located in Georgetown Town 003. 00:39:46
You would expect to see a maximum increase of 12.2%. 00:39:52
That's how that works. 00:39:57
And you can see on the examples what that equates to for a $300,000 home value, that's about $27.00 a month or $324 annually. 00:39:59
The last taxing district is New Albany Township 007. That percentage change is 15.6%. 00:40:10
So again, doesn't matter what the property type is or what the value is. 00:40:18
If your property is not at the tax caps, you would expect a see a 15.6% increase to your tax bill. 00:40:23
So look at your tax bill. What? What are you paying now? 00:40:29
And then apply the 15.6%. 00:40:33
All right. Next slide. 00:40:38
And then the next slide. 00:40:41
So this section. 00:40:43
It really taxpayers. 00:40:45
Aren't very concerned about because it doesn't have anything to do with you. It has to really do. I mean property tax kind of 00:40:49
property tax caps do. But this section is something that we are required to present at a public hearing. 00:40:56
Because we have to tell the story of how this might impact overlapping taxing units. 00:41:03
So again, this isn't really a taxpayer section, but it's overlapping taxing units like the school, the library, the county. 00:41:10
So first, just a real quick summary of what property tax caps are. You've heard me say circuit breaker credits. That's the same 00:41:16
thing as property tax caps. 00:41:21
We have 3 classifications of property tax caps, residential, homestead. 00:41:26
Is one that's 1% capped. 00:41:32
Other residential rental and AG land and long term care facilities. That's the 2% tax cap category. 00:41:35
And then everything else. 00:41:43
Which is usually commercial, industrial, business, personal property. That's 3% tax cap. 00:41:44
So, you know, that's great for taxpayers here in the state. It is in the Constitution, so it's not going anywhere. But that 00:41:50
translates directly to property tax losses for local government. 00:41:56
If you're not paying your, your. 00:42:03
Total tax bill because you're getting credits. 00:42:05
That means that these taxing units are not receiving that funding like pre circuit breaker. They received everything that was 00:42:08
levied pretty much unless there was delinquencies. 00:42:13
Now with circuit Breakers, they may not receive everything that they levy. 00:42:18
Because of the tax caps. 00:42:22
So the next slide shows you the tax cap impact to every unit in Floyd County because of this fire territory. 00:42:25
It's really not very significant and I'll tell you why because your property tax rates here in this county. 00:42:34
Are relatively low when you compare it to other counties in the state. 00:42:41
In addition, Floyd County has. 00:42:46
Property tax replacement credits, so that helps lower your lower your tax bills as well. 00:42:49
So you can see how impacts each of the units. The proposed fire territory will also have an impact. 00:42:54
Right off the bat, they may have to adjust their budget, maybe by 9 or 10,000. We'll just have to see. 00:43:01
You know when that time comes, but we understand that there could be a small reduction of property taxes. 00:43:07
Due to the circuit breaker credits. 00:43:15
Next slide is local income tax. 00:43:19
So local income tax is what you pay on your adjusted gross income based on the county where you live. 00:43:22
So Floyd County definitely has local income tax. They've got several. They've got certified shares at .75%, public safety .5%. 00:43:29
Economic Development .3. Correctional .2. 00:43:40
Property tax relief I mentioned .1. 00:43:44
And judicial Judicial system at .04%. 00:43:47
This fire territory is not going to impact any of these rates, but what it does impact is how much of this local income tax is 00:43:51
allocated to each of the taxing units in the county. 00:43:58
Because local income tax for the most part. 00:44:04
Is distributed and allocated to the units based on how much each unit levies. 00:44:07
So the more you levy. 00:44:13
The more local income tax you will get as a unit. So like Floyd County I think is levying the most. I think that's right. Usually 00:44:15
in most counties it's the county unit. 00:44:19
So they get the bigger share. 00:44:24
But when I knew unit comes on like a fire territory or district, now they're levying maybe a higher levy. So it's going to draw 00:44:26
away from the shares that go to the other units. There's just one big pie and people are trying to get pieces of that pie. 00:44:34
So we have. 00:44:42
Run an analysis on the next slide. 00:44:44
That shows the impact to some of these local income taxes. So First off. 00:44:46
Is the certified shares. 00:44:51
That's the local income tax that can be deposited in the general fund of local government, can be used pretty much for any 00:44:54
purpose. 00:44:57
So the first column is baseline that this is how much each unit is getting now so. 00:45:01
New Albany I guess is getting the most. I was wrong. New Albany. 00:45:08
Get 6.4 million of that. 00:45:11
15.2 million that comes into the county. Floyd County gets 5 million. 00:45:14
And you can see the breakout of the other units. 00:45:19
Now there is a one year lag, so this allocation to the units is based on what these units levied in the year previous. 00:45:22
So this fire territory won't affect local income tax distributions until 2027. So that's why you see the 1st 2 columns there. 00:45:30
There is no change based on. 00:45:35
The fire territory because it's looking at the previous year, so the first year. 00:45:40
That the units would notice a change is in 2027. 00:45:45
So here we have New Albany. 00:45:50
Fire district in Georgetown Township Fire District, because they're in this fire territory together, we would expect to see an 00:45:53
increase to the amount of certified chairs that they receive. 00:45:58
385,000 for Georgetown. 00:46:04
And 420,000. 00:46:07
For New Albany and you heard. 00:46:09
From the previous presentation that. 00:46:11
These these tax, I'm sorry, the fire districts can use. 00:46:15
That local income tax to fund fire services if they choose and if they would like to do that. 00:46:20
They can directly lower the property tax rate. 00:46:26
We did not include it in the analysis because there's some question. Well, first of all. 00:46:29
We don't know what other levies are changing in the county, so there's some question as to how much will actually go to the fire 00:46:35
districts. But #2. 00:46:39
Is that we've got some proposed legislation out there right now that is trying to eliminate. 00:46:43
All local income tax and allow municipalities to levy their own. 00:46:50
So if that should happen, we need to. 00:46:54
Figure out how much then could go to the fire districts or some of these other units. 00:46:57
So there's a lot of unknowns right now. 00:47:02
We can always come down, we can't go back up. So we are trying to show worst case scenario if there was number local income tax. 00:47:04
How would that impact things? But if there is local income tax, which we do anticipate as long as the legislation doesn't change. 00:47:12
And the fire territory can lower the property tax rate. 00:47:19
The next slide is public safety. 00:47:24
Public safety local income tax only gets distributed to Floyd County. 00:47:27
And the municipalities, with three municipalities, it doesn't get distributed to the fire district nor will it get distributed to 00:47:32
the fire territory. So there's no impact. 00:47:36
To that type of local income tax. 00:47:41
Next slide is local income tax, economic development, same thing. 00:47:44
This income tax only goes to the county unit. 00:47:48
And the municipalities, it does not go to the fire territory or the district. So again, no impact to that one. So just impacts. 00:47:51
The certified shares portion. 00:47:59
Next slide is that vehicle excise tax that I'm required to show you? 00:48:02
The impact of and this is again, when you go to license branch or renew your place register a vehicle, you're paying that vehicle 00:48:08
excise tax. 00:48:11
That excise tax is distributed the same way as local income tax. 00:48:15
The more you levy and property tax, the bigger share of that vehicle excise tax you get, so again, whenever there's a new unit. 00:48:20
And they're levying a higher property tax. They're going to pull away from shares from other units. So we need to show you. 00:48:28
That impact, so the next slide. 00:48:34
Has a chart of all the units within the county. 00:48:37
So you can see it's somewhat minimal changes. 00:48:40
Umm, but the proposed fire territory is going to pull in about 392,000 as I showed on a previous schedule. And where is it going 00:48:44
to come from? From the other taxing units within the county to various degrees? 00:48:50
So and the the next the following year, some of these units get an increase because the fire territories levy goes down. 00:48:57
So it kind of reverses a little bit. 00:49:06
And then the third year, is that leveling out and it's some small changes there? 00:49:08
So that concludes my financial impact presentation. 00:49:14
Thank you, Paige. 00:49:21
OK, excuse me. 00:49:33
Keith Pulliam. 00:49:36
Legal counsel for the Georgetown Township Fire Protection Board as a presentation on the draft. 00:49:37
Resolution. 00:49:42
Sorry for that delay. 00:50:34
To be honest, I. 00:50:36
I was taken out of town for something unexpected the last two days and I just made it back in town in time to be here tonight. 00:50:38
So I'm pleased to be here and kind of give you. 00:50:44
Some general overview of the resolution. 00:50:48
An interlocal agreement. I've got some copies over on the table there. We'll also have them on the website. 00:50:51
Where everybody can download them, I'm sure people. 00:50:57
Are excited to read the legalese. 00:51:00
Generally speaking. 00:51:04
The the draft of the resolution. 00:51:05
Because. 00:51:08
Has 2 units. 00:51:09
It just goes through the the legal requirements required by statute, which are #1. 00:51:11
To identify who would be participating. 00:51:16
You've already heard who the participating units are. It is the. 00:51:19
Georgetown Township Fire Protection District and it is the. 00:51:23
The New Albany Township Fire Protection District. 00:51:26
The name of the territory again would be the Floyd County Fire Territory. 00:51:29
The boundaries would be the respective boundaries of the existing fire territories together. 00:51:33
And the. 00:51:40
Excuse me? 00:51:43
Again, each of those would be the participating unit. 00:51:44
But Georgetown Township Fire Protection District would be the provider unit. 00:51:47
So one thing just to kind of clarify, to make sure people understand. 00:51:52
A fire district is a special district. 00:51:58
It's an entity that's created for kind of a singular purpose. 00:52:01
And that purpose is. 00:52:05
To provide Fire Protection within its boundaries. 00:52:08
What is a little bit different here from maybe 2 towns? 00:52:11
Or a Township or something else? 00:52:15
Is that the fire district's only purpose will be to participate in this territory. 00:52:17
So one might think that what's the overlap, right? Well. 00:52:22
The overlap will be really that the districts will still continue to exist. 00:52:25
But they won't won't really have a purpose. 00:52:30
That will be independent, so you will have Georgetown Township, which will continue to exist to operate the. 00:52:33
Fired the municipal fire department to service the territory. 00:52:40
And you will have the two participants. 00:52:45
Budgeting together. 00:52:47
To run as a single fire territory. 00:52:49
And the. 00:52:52
Upon the adoption of the resolution. 00:52:55
Again, the what's been discussed here, one of the things that has to be addressed is there will be a unified rate against. 00:52:58
All property within the new territory. 00:53:04
They would also create the a territory operating fund which has already been discussed and then they would create. 00:53:07
A equipment fund. 00:53:14
That equipment fund, you've already heard the numbers. The resolution kind of goes through and just establishes each of those 00:53:16
pieces. 00:53:19
The interlocal agreement would talk about. 00:53:22
The establishment of a joint board. 00:53:26
And the concept between the group. 00:53:29
To be discussed and ultimately determined. 00:53:32
Is is one of. 00:53:35
An attempt at simplicity. 00:53:38
In which to have a board? 00:53:40
Of equal representation for each. 00:53:41
For each fire district that's coming to the table. 00:53:45
And the thought was to have a joint board comprised of four members, 2 from each board. 00:53:48
And those members would be designated by each entity that year they would typically meet. 00:53:54
In order to go through the budgeting process. 00:54:00
And as the provider unit, you can expect that the chief of the provider unit would be there to help facilitate a discussion of the 00:54:04
budget necessary to meet the needs of the of the department. 00:54:09
But each year, the board would meet. 00:54:16
Because they are fire. 00:54:18
Districts. 00:54:20
Remember. 00:54:22
If there is any existing debt, which there is not any debt on the part of the Georgetown Township Fire District, but. 00:54:23
There is one, I think, outstanding debt obligation. 00:54:30
That debt obligation would remain the obligation. 00:54:33
Of the New Albany Township Fire Protection District and not become part of the territory. 00:54:36
But otherwise the contemplated. 00:54:40
Course of action here would be that each fire district. 00:54:43
Would contribute its monies. 00:54:47
That it has on hand. 00:54:49
To the new fire territory. 00:54:51
And the statute indicates that. 00:54:53
Once this was adopted, if it is adopted and if it's approved. 00:54:57
And it would take effect July 1st. 00:55:01
And So what would happen would be that you would have funds available for the existing fire districts that they would then need to 00:55:03
contribute into the fire territory. 00:55:08
And the funding that you've heard the presentation about would? 00:55:13
Would become available in 26. 00:55:17
And then? 00:55:21
There would be. 00:55:23
There's a place, there's a couple blanks in there where we've talked about. 00:55:24
What would a reserve amount be that would be required for the individual fire districts to just continue to have a little bit of 00:55:30
money for expenses contemplated by those districts? 00:55:34
And on the equipment, one of the other questions that might come up is what happens to the equipment? Well, it will remain. 00:55:40
In the name of the fire district that owns it now. 00:55:47
And it would be not contributed per se, but it would be. 00:55:51
Licensed or you would give permission to use it within the fire territory. 00:55:55
So you have both, you know both participants would then be able to. 00:56:00
We've got to workout some of the detail at the operational level, but. 00:56:05
The what would happen would be everybody would contribute their fire apparatus and the use of their stations and things like that. 00:56:09
And, umm. 00:56:16
And they would just and the monies here contributed and that would pretty much cover it. 00:56:18
The cumulative funds that would ambition would be contributed towards the new equipment fund. 00:56:22
And and. 00:56:27
As far as the what the interlocal agreement also in CUP encompasses would be. 00:56:29
The mechanism for withdrawal. 00:56:35
And what would happen if there were to be withdrawal? 00:56:37
The statutes actually cover quite a bit of. 00:56:40
How the operation occurs. And so those are not set out in you know, we don't, we didn't endeavor to set them out. 00:56:44
In detail, but that's. 00:56:50
If you read these documents. 00:56:53
You know, and the lawyer, I saw a typo immediately, but. 00:56:56
You know, it's it happens to the best of us, but we'll get that fixed. 00:57:00
The again, they'll be available on the website. 00:57:04
And if anyone has any questions, I'll take those later. 00:57:07
Thank you, Keith. 00:57:15
We're hot. 00:57:17
Excellent. So before we. 00:57:20
Go to public comment. 00:57:23
To sum it all up. 00:57:33
What we are proposing is an. 00:57:35
Just under 19% increase in funding. 00:57:37
But for that increase in funding, we're increasing from three fire stations to four fire stations, a 33% increase. 00:57:40
And we also are proposing staffing increase of over 50%. 00:57:48
And my slide got a little bit. 00:57:54
Mixed up? Sorry but. 00:57:56
And those are actual firefighters. 00:57:58
Protecting the community. 00:58:00
That's not administrative staff or anything else like that. 00:58:02
It's now just about 7:00. 00:58:07
Been very patient. I appreciate that and we'll open it up for public comments. 00:58:09
Just a reminder. 00:58:14
Please come up to the podium. Sign in. 00:58:16
I'll start the clock after you've signed in so you don't have to rush. 00:58:19
And I'll give you a heads up when you're getting close to the end of your time. So thank you very much. 00:58:23
Frank Loop. 00:58:39
Lafayette Township County Commissioner. 00:58:41
I had a question, I didn't have comments but. 00:58:45
Keith, you mentioned. 00:58:48
Like New Albany Township. 00:58:51
Would have they have some debt? 00:58:52
So. 00:58:55
There, I might have missed it or didn't get covered. So how did they pay their debt off? 00:58:56
If the money's going to the new. 00:59:02
If they still maintain their debt. 00:59:06
How's that debt get paid off if? 00:59:08
Where they get the money for that? 00:59:10
So I'll. 00:59:13
When uh. 00:59:14
When a special district or any municipality issues dead. 00:59:15
There is a separate debt fund. 00:59:19
And that fund would service that debt through its payment in full. 00:59:21
And that would not be included in any funds contributed. That will just continue to exist. It already exists outside of the. 00:59:27
What's generally called the general fund for each fire district. 00:59:34
They have a general operating fund. It's called a special fire fund. 00:59:38
That is something completely different than the debt. 00:59:41
Fund which? 00:59:44
There's a levee separate for the debt fund it's paid every year. 00:59:46
And that just gets paid to me, you know, towards the debt obligation. 00:59:49
So what we're talking about is being contributed. 00:59:52
Would be monies in that general fund? 00:59:55
Or monies potentially in the queue fund to go into the equipment fund. 00:59:58
So there would still be a debt service being paid every year, however long that bond was, maturity was. 01:00:03
Ten years, then that would continue until that. 01:00:10
10 year maturity is reached and it's been paid in full. 01:00:12
So new opening, can you tell me how much that debt was? 01:00:16
About. 01:00:20
Umm 800,000. 01:00:22
I think is where we were. 01:00:26
In all honesty though. 01:00:28
That's one of the things where. 01:00:29
Rectifying right now, we should enter this agreement with very little to no debt. 01:00:31
Yeah. OK. Thank you. 01:00:35
Dale Man, Georgetown. 01:00:48
Township. 01:00:52
Forgot to write my name last week. 01:00:58
I have the same question. 01:01:00
Lafayette Township, they took they maximize their tax levy. Georgetown Township turned it down. 01:01:02
Why was that if we need all these funds now? 01:01:09
Anybody answer that? 01:01:13
The reason why Georgetown did not previously. 01:01:17
File for what's called a 10 year population growth increase. 01:01:21
Was that we didn't need to take the extra money from the community. 01:01:24
Now we are filing that request now. 01:01:29
And it will go into effect in 2026. 01:01:32
So something to consider is that all of the calculations that you saw? 01:01:36
Don't take that into effect. 01:01:41
Baker Tilly has calculated that they believe we are eligible for that. 01:01:43
And it's about $440,000 additional revenue. 01:01:48
So the difference between us being a territory or a district? 01:01:52
It's actually a smaller number than what we presented. 01:01:57
OK, they could. They didn't take it then because. 01:02:00
We had money in the bank, You had money in the bank. 01:02:05
OK. And another question. 01:02:07
You know, I've always bagged on Georgetown, we were told when Georgetown. 01:02:11
Went to far district, our district and paid for our departments that we would have. 01:02:14
One of the best and best Fire Protection we could have. 01:02:18
And now you're telling us we don't? 01:02:21
Because we got now we got to have another Firehouse down in New Albany. 01:02:23
To give us better protection. 01:02:27
And I can't see. 01:02:29
Why Georgetown would even do that? It's it's. 01:02:31
And I know the question I have. 01:02:33
The new Firehouse on Bud Rd. How close is that to the annexation that New Albany is taking down there? 01:02:35
You might know that. 01:02:41
Pretty close. 01:02:43
City nominees annexing down in there. 01:02:44
And I I don't know how anybody on Georgetown board can actually. 01:02:47
Go look at your citizens. Tell us we need this. 01:02:50
It's going to New Albany. 01:02:53
It's not going to Georgia. It doesn't help Georgetown. 01:02:55
We've got the best, we've always had the best. 01:02:58
And now you're you're trying to drag new object and work at Georgetown's people to pay for George for New Albany. 01:03:01
And I can't see how anybody on the Georgetown board can look us taxpayers in the eye and tell us we're building a new Firehouse 01:03:07
and most of this increase as far as the supply of that Firehouse with supplies and personnel. 01:03:13
And I can't see. Anybody from Georgetown can look at us. And I tell us that's better for us. Thank you. 01:03:20
Do this and talk at the same time. 01:03:49
Ken Keithley, Georgetown, IN. 01:04:00
57 year. 01:04:03
Resident Lisa, the same born and raised. 01:04:04
Nine years ago, we broke ground in Georgetown. 01:04:09
50 feet out of the town. 01:04:13
Got our own septic system, not the town. We did all our homework, kept the house under 1500 square feet. 01:04:17
They said you want a rough in basement. 01:04:23
Toilet. No, that's where they get you. We tried everything in the world to keep it. 01:04:25
She came in at 1400 first year assessment. 01:04:29
Now it's. 01:04:33
Over 2800. 01:04:34
I don't know if over double. 01:04:36
Is normal or? 01:04:38
Should be expected. 01:04:40
Two years ago. 01:04:45
We bought an acre ground. 01:04:47
Off the Waynesville exit, 100 feet in Harrison County. 01:04:48
Because. 01:04:52
How much things are going up? 01:04:54
And it doesn't show any trajectory of changing. 01:04:56
And when we get out and ride around, we look at the. 01:05:00
100 houses off Henriette or the 200 off Alonzo Smith. 01:05:04
Five feet apart. 01:05:07
You know Floyd County is the second smallest county in the state. 01:05:09
And all we see is Georgetown just blowing up. 01:05:12
And what used to be the golf course? 01:05:15
All those houses up there. 01:05:17
And all those three story condos, every time one of them. 01:05:19
We think that's got to be the last one, and there's another one. 01:05:22
With a great view of that bridge to nowhere and it's like. 01:05:25
All these people coming in my question I guess is probably more of a planning zoning thing, but. 01:05:28
With all that revenue coming in? 01:05:33
From all those places that are tapped in. 01:05:36
That built a house. 01:05:39
And moved from Louisville or whatever. 01:05:40
Just in the last, say, three years. 01:05:42
I would just. 01:05:45
Think we'd be flush with cash? 01:05:46
I'm probably ignorant in that way, but it just. 01:05:49
And some people said, well, you got more people, you need more services. But it seems like we would just be. 01:05:51
Loaded. 01:05:56
In Floyd County. 01:05:57
Nothing against the fire department. 01:05:59
No firemen, no cops. 01:06:00
All that, but it's a. It's a. 01:06:03
It's just a money thing. 01:06:06
And to see it. 01:06:07
Jumping up when I think, you know, we're 57, we're going to start that and the house is getting older, we're getting older. We're 01:06:08
going to start. It'll start going down and then you find out it's just going up. 01:06:12
That's. 01:06:18
Bomb standing here. 01:06:19
Thank you. 01:06:21
Thank you. 01:06:22
David Rowley from Georgetown Township also. 01:06:29
This is really for Baker Tilly. 01:06:32
We've got two tiffs that are probably within eyesight of the Georgetown Station 2. 01:06:35
Innovation and the. 01:06:41
The Edwardsville School. 01:06:43
And it's my understanding that they can have Fire Protection. 01:06:45
Out of that paid out of that tip, they're both new tips, so it's probably you know, but that would be a. 01:06:49
Question for Baker that maybe we could answer tonight. 01:06:54
Also. 01:06:57
I guess out to the since all the commissioners are here. 01:06:59
That they go to the council and get a. 01:07:02
Set set idea on the public service. 01:07:06
And, you know, it's kind of like. 01:07:11
Yeah, we need the protection, you know, and if you're going to have it, you know, at least. 01:07:14
Use some of the other things that are out-of-the-box to get more help. 01:07:19
So that's all I got. 01:07:23
Thank you. 01:07:26
Hey, Michael, Is it OK if I. 01:07:38
And these short pieces of paper do you want? 01:07:39
I could, I could have handed them out for you. Sorry. 01:07:53
Thank you. 01:07:56
All right. 01:08:27
Good evening board members, hope you all are doing well tonight. 01:08:29
So as we close the first meeting or I guess the initial meeting. 01:08:33
Two weeks ago. 01:08:36
Listening to everything that you all presented and to the. 01:08:39
People that came up and spoke before me, I quickly just came up here and and highlighted 3. 01:08:43
Basically. 01:08:48
Other options to look into in between time? Now I understand it's been kind of a short amount of time, but. 01:08:50
The big thing that you guys brought up and a lot of people have talked about already today. 01:08:56
Is the local income tax that was passed last year and trying to figure out exactly what. 01:09:00
That amount will basically put towards this proposed fire territory. 01:09:06
Now again, I think you guys did. 01:09:12
Probably a much better job today about saying, hey, like these are estimated numbers. There's obviously some stuff in the 01:09:14
background. I didn't really get that kind of information the first time. It was not saying it was set in stone, but it seemed a 01:09:20
little bit more firm, like this is probably what it's going to look like, give or take just maybe 1% or something. 01:09:26
With that being said, I know you guys probably haven't had enough time to talk to Floyd County Council or maybe Mr. Sharp has 01:09:33
already done that already. 01:09:36
But nonetheless, I'm sure that will come to light here over the next couple meetings before voting. 01:09:41
Second, I brought up grants. I said hey, can you all please look into grants if you guys have not? 01:09:46
Just kind of something quick I put in there for you. 01:09:52
Obviously this is from FEMA. 01:09:55
And basically the grants are. 01:09:57
For fire station construction, grant form which is a. 01:09:59
I think oh Yep. 01:10:03
S4690 hundred and 17th. 01:10:07
For the Grant Act, you can kind of read through that, but obviously it's dedicated to building renovating. 01:10:11
Anything to do with EMS fire upgrading existing facilities? 01:10:17
But just to kind of give you and paint a picture. 01:10:23
This is actually. 01:10:25
You are able to file this every November through December, so we already missed last year and I know that this was proposed or 01:10:27
drawn up around that time. 01:10:31
And it was probably a little bit of a tight window and maybe nobody knew about this grant, or maybe they did. 01:10:35
But just to give you some figures from 2024 and Indiana alone. 01:10:40
They gave away $2.4 million. 01:10:44
To Indiana Fire departments 2020 three, $4.69 million. In 2022 they gave away $20.6 million, which Indianapolis received $15 01:10:46
million. This is all public record, it's easy to look at. 01:10:52
Totaling for 2020, three, $720 million. 01:10:58
That can go for a new building. That goes. That goes for salaries. 01:11:02
That goes for any. 01:11:05
Public, umm. 01:11:07
Service that's just general. 01:11:09
Information about what we're doing in our fire, so if you guys wanted to host an event. 01:11:11
Literally there's three sections on there, you can look at it. 01:11:17
I put the number on there so you guys can call and ask the help desk the links. Obviously you can't click the page but you can 01:11:20
copy and paste or find that. 01:11:24
Pretty easily. 01:11:28
For everyone, but that's behind me. 01:11:30
Just a little background, we grants have helped Georgetown in 1994. Some of this has to do with. 01:11:32
I believe it was the. 01:11:38
Water or sewage at the time. 01:11:41
Yeah, you're over 30. Sorry. Think it's OK. 01:11:44
You guys can continue to read on down TIF districts and again Mr. Riley kind of touched on that. So I just. 01:11:47
Kindly also just consider that. 01:11:54
Georgetown is also. 01:11:56
In a proposal for an annexation as well, which is also an increased 14% that was drafted last year around the same time that this 01:11:58
was as well. 01:12:02
Thank you. I'm sorry, could you say your name? 01:12:07
John Murray. 01:12:09
John Murray, Georgetown. 01:12:10
Thank you. 01:12:11
Dale man back again. 01:12:21
I just wanted to tell you there's a petition going around. 01:12:23
Now I have some copies here that are trying to give us impact fees for services. 01:12:26
In the state of Indiana, the only thing we can get impact fees is for roads. 01:12:31
Drainage. 01:12:35
In parks. 01:12:37
We're trying to get a petition into the state. I've got copies of it here. 01:12:38
To change impact fees, where we can get impact fees? 01:12:41
For services for schools. 01:12:45
For for anything. We're not limited, is what we're asking for. 01:12:47
I've got copies of that now. 01:12:53
That would help us out maybe if we had them back in 94 when impact fees first started. 01:12:56
Maybe we wouldn't be in the shape we are today. 01:13:01
And I very recommend that you guys get a copy and I've got copies and maybe pass them out, get them. 01:13:05
Sign in. Commissioners assigned them. 01:13:10
Local leaders have signed it. 01:13:13
And we need to get everybody on board because it needs to change or we if we had it like I said in 94. 01:13:15
We wouldn't be in the shape we are in today. Thank you. 01:13:21
Thank you. 01:13:24
Good evening. Jason Sharp, Floyd County Commissioner. Just have a few questions for you. 01:13:51
So I think there's a little bit of clarification needs to happen for. 01:13:55
For some of the members of our community. 01:14:00
For New Albany Township. 01:14:02
Under your current model, do you have the capability to staff the fire station at bedroom? 01:14:04
OK, no, OK. 01:14:10
So for those people who are currently paying that district rate. 01:14:13
Where is your agency coming from? 01:14:16
Sorry, where is your agency coming from this responding out there? 01:14:20
To make that run. 01:14:23
That'd be that'd be Charlestown Rd. Charlestown. 01:14:26
For the Georgetown Fire Board. 01:14:29
There's been a lot of talk that. 01:14:34
They don't see what the benefit for Georgetown is. 01:14:36
You all have said that. 01:14:39
You're currently using your reserves that you've had on hand to pay for staffing. 01:14:41
For the Legacy Georgetown station, which is downtown Georgetown. 01:14:46
So what happens if you don't? 01:14:51
This territory doesn't come through with you as your district model capable of staffing that fire station. 01:14:53
No. So you cannot staff the fire station. 01:14:57
In Georgetown. Not the way we're doing it today, If. If at all. 01:15:00
OK. So one of the other questions that I've received is the number of staffing that you have put on engines, ladders, so on and so 01:15:04
forth. And I agree with you that's in compliance with it FPA standards, which is NFPA 1710. 01:15:10
So NFPA 1710 states that you need to have a total of 14 firefighters. 01:15:18
And one district commander. 01:15:25
Our incident commander. 01:15:28
On the scene of a residential structure fire. 01:15:29
Correct. OK. 01:15:32
So with two ladders. 01:15:34
Two staffed engines every day, three on both engines. 01:15:36
Four on both ladders. 01:15:40
Where does that number put you at? 01:15:41
1414. 01:15:45
And you also have Battalion Chief? 01:15:47
Correct. Yep. So that covers your incident commander, which is. 01:15:50
A requirement by NFPA 1710. 01:15:54
It's one thing that. 01:15:57
Structure fire or working incident needs is an instant commander, so. 01:15:59
You're all not outside of. 01:16:04
NFPA standards, right? No. OK, Thank you. 01:16:05
Welcome. 01:16:09
Anybody else? 01:16:22
All right. 01:16:33
Take a motion to adjourn. 01:16:35
Close the public hearing. 01:16:38
I'd like to make a motion to close the public hearing at this time. 01:16:43
OK, so moved. 01:16:47
We'll need to vote on. 01:16:49
If anybody has a question, they didn't want to jump up on the mic. 01:16:52
Might not be happy to talk to you. 01:16:56
I'll be. 01:16:58
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