I'll go ahead and call us to order then um fiscal special fiscal committee meeting on August 7th 2026.

Mopy Stoffswork district free and chair.

That is Bonnie Montsmith Tom.

Jeff McKim, City Controller.

Pauline Williamson, Deputy Clerk.

Thank you.

So perhaps this meeting can be relatively short today.

I it's unfortunate that I think last time we talked about this.

Council member Roth also wasn't here.

Um, because I was looking forward to being able to have more sense of conversation on this, but anyway, our agenda uh is an update from the controller.

Uh Jeff indicated that he had some things that he wanted to share with us this morning.

Um, and then just looking at the elected official salary stuff in terms of comparison speech progress, but also this kind of larger question of where we go from here in light of budget stuff and in light of like not being able to decrease salaries once they're increased and and what everybody's thoughts are on this entire process right now this year.

Um, Dave entered the lady in the case.

Maybe he's here.

Maybe this is the day that we don't let's really that's right, the real day Ralo as opposed to like a false day of Ralo or the AI avatar.

That's right, the AI avatar gave us.

Well, yeah, it's gonna be good videos too.

So hi Dave, good morning.

Hey folks.

I'm so glad that you um so I was just going over the agenda review and approval.

Um, we're gonna have an update from Jeff first.

Uh he just wanted a few minutes, and then we're gonna talk about elected official salary stuff.

And I think last time we talked about this, you weren't able to join us.

So I'm really glad that you managed to log on today.

Um, so as long as that looks fit to everybody.

Great.

Uh Jeff, why don't you go ahead and take it away with what it is that you want to share?

Thank you very much.

I have a couple of things, and the things keep keep getting added uh to the list of things I want to inform you about.

The first thing I just wanted to do was really give uh councilmember Stasberg applause for an exceptionally well done and informative report on the lid issues that we're facing that you did a great job of distilling the all the stuff from AIM and Reedy in a way that was, I think, really useful to everybody.

So thank you for that.

Um I did there was one realized just today, this morning came to me.

There was one comment I kind of wanted to add uh to the entire thing that I know Reedy mentioned, but um, it's just important to keep in mind as we move forward with all these numbers.

The city's ability to raise list depend or the amount of money that the city uh can raise depends on basically a guess of the adjusted gross income of the city.

Well, while for the full county, we know exactly what the AGI is.

We know you know, basically to the dollar uh of what uh or very close of what accounting rate will bring in.

The we really do not know what a city rate will bring in.

And I think both AIME and REEDE are using different ways of getting the numbers, but ultimately it comes down to just estimating based on census data.

So just kind of want to make make clear that there's a high uncertainty when we talk about the amount of money that specifically can be raised within the city.

Just and and I think the really important thing to uh to mention about that is that just shows how broken the system is in that you all are being or possibly be asked to make these decisions with really very uh based on a new law, a new structure without the state having released any specific numbers that you can base your decisions.

So I just kind of wanted to throw in that there is a big uncertainty factor there, bigger than uh for other uh layer related issues.

Um the budget process.

Uh just kind of wanted to put that in context a little as you know, the budget book and the raw data set have been released.

Um, I encourage you to use the raw data set if if you if you're uh a fan of Excel and can do pivot tables, it's a really good way of doing um uh of kind of pouring through the uh the the budget proposal if you want uh additional information from the past added.

I can do that.

I mean it's it's it may take some effort, but you know, I want to make it useful.

The budget presentations have been scheduled for August 17th, 19th, 24th, and 26th.

And the reason why I mentioned that is that all of this the budget proposal, the budget book, the raw data set, and those budget proposal or budget presentations in August are all essentially informal or non-binding pre-work that we do with the budget.

it's it's it may take some effort but you know I want to make it useful the budget presentations have been scheduled for August 17th 19th 24th and 26th and the reason why I mentioned that is that all of this the budget proposal the budget book the raw data set and those budget proposal or budget presentations in August are all essentially informal or non-binding pre-work that we do with the budget they're an opportunity for dialogue between the administration and the council on the budget and things really become official when the proposed budget is actually official officially advertised to the public uh it uh that will likely happen in early September it has to happen at least 10 days before the official budget hearing uh when the budget is advertised it becomes it becomes available on the state's gateway system and like I said that's kind of the the real first formal um action of the budget the official budget hearing for the budget is scheduled for Wednesday September 23rd at 630 p.m and again the budget has to be advertised at least 10 days before that so our advertisement will go out no later than September 13 um and then the final budget adoption is scheduled for Wednesday October 7th at 6 30 p.m so that's that's the budget process anybody having any kind of questions or anything you want to know about the sorry I just want my kind of fast so when you have to put the figure the proposal into gateway it would be 10 days but so September 13th is the latest okay it can be done earlier and it really 10 days before the official yes council Dave you have a your hand up yeah I do can you hear me?

Yeah.

So Jeff you referenced uh population uh having a bearing on revenue and there was an undercount in the last census because of COVID can is are we in any position to request a I know census are usually occur every 10 years but I think they can occur more frequently and I think that we've got a good case rather than waiting in another four years or whatever for another the next census is that is that relevant or you know could you address that it it it isn't first of all I mean it is relevant in some ways and that adjustment is actually already been made uh actually if you look at the census numbers they um and they they occur in these four uh four year blocks there's a term that's used um vintage four year vintage and the most recent vintage has actually been updated uh even for you know to essentially accommodate for the fact that it was under counted during the census but what's what with with respect to local income tax it's not really based on population it's based on income so what what really matters is how not how much income is earned by people who live in in the city and that's an actual figure not a not a census account so that really depends on how much money has been reported to the uh into Indiana Department of Revenue.

So that's where those numbers come from so that's the the population is important to a lot of things but not not specifically to this on the Dave I think you just froze we're not really hearing you you're frozen probably not here yeah you might not be here enough either um I have a question while we're waiting for Dave to unfreeze um think of other revenue wait Dave you are frozen there if you were frozen there can you start over uh I'm can I'm content thank you for answering okay I'm good um I think this is more of like a statement but one of the things you mentioned was the informal nature of the budget presentations and about that it's really this partly a dialogue thing and I just want to really emphasize that to the public too because last year if I recall correctly there was maybe one public comment through the entire like budget presentations and at every single one of these budget presentations there's an opportunity for the public to comment and we just got hardly any comments last year at all and so is there a plan for advertising those in any way to try to get more of the public or well maybe we think about doing that yeah I mean you you want the the the administration has sent out a press release and the city's budget site the website does have the the dates and the specific departments that are presenting on each day I mean I would encourage you as elected officials also to just use your channels to communicate and solicit right so yeah I'm not sure how many people are online right now um at this meeting there's actually 11 participants oh that's a bunch of AI first accounts too um not sure how many real people versus note takers but pass that around um all you folks that are here to uh come and look at that and comments as uh anybody goes led yeah and and then again there are also multiple opportunities so there are the opportunities in your budget in the budget presentations like the quote unquote informal part and then in the official budget hearing after the budget is advertised there's additional opportunities for public comment and then additional opportunities in the budget adoption process great

Um not sure how many real people versus note takers, but pass that around, um, all you folks that are here to uh come and look at that in comments as uh anybody goes led.

Yeah, and then again, there are also multiple opportunities.

So there are the opportunities in your budget in the budget presentations, like the quote unquote informal part, and then in the official budget hearing after the budget is advertised, there's additional opportunities for public comment, and then additional opportunities in the budget adoption process.

Great.

Um, so I think in my in the budget memo, one of the things that I mentioned is that particularly on the revenue side, there's just a lot of things we didn't know or we don't know at the time the memo was written.

And so we keep getting additional information, and I just wanted to give you a couple of uh kind of important points of additional revenue information that we received since the the memo.

The first one actually is about lit, and it actually came during the uh while I was writing the memo.

And so I kind of incorporated some really rough um estimates into my numbers, but there's there's still more to come that we don't know.