Welcome to day two of the budget workshops for the proposed 2026 City of Carmel budget.

We are starting off today with the city court.

And uh Judge Quindexter, take it away.

Uh good morning, Count.

Court's uh 2026 budget uh notable items, and I do apologize.

I tend to round up.

So when you look at the court's general budget, uh it shows a one percent increase.

That's probably not as accurate as it need be.

I round up to get good even numbers.

That way they're easier to discuss and two, it's easier to see if they've been changed.

Uh so I don't really believe that we're probably at a one percent increase, probably something slightly under that.

And you can look across items where there were ups and downs in terms of uh what we were requesting from the year prior.

Uh the rest of the court's budget is provided out of fees the courts collects from court cost and other items that the court is allowed to retain.

Uh judicial salaries fee fund uh was a ten percent increase.

Uh I can't control the cost of postage meters and some other office machines.

We've been taken by surprise in a year or two.

Our budget is small enough, so if you had two thousand dollars, it ticks it up by a percentage point or four.

Uh I think those were our two big items that we were allowing more money because we have been caught in surprise almost flat footed one year when they took a huge increase on the cost of the machines.

They'll send you a letter in the mail and says we're no longer gonna service that machine, you need to buy your new one, and you don't have much of a choice.

The public defender fund, as I've explained before, uh that refills the slowest.

So some years we don't request any money uh come out of that fund that that has recharged, and the court is asking to use the money in the fund that is accumulated in its entirety.

It shows a 100% increase in the request.

Well, that would be because now there's money there.

We'll spend that first before we spend any of the money out of fund 101.

So money is collected from other sources we spend first, try to save the city money.

With regards to the record perpetuation fund, uh that's the healthiest fund on the court's docket.

We've tried to uh attribute as many expenses into that fund as we can.

It also again this year it includes a $15,000, what we call other contractual services.

The court began the process last year.

We intend to continue it this year with your permission.

Uh essentially uh transferring fifteen thousand dollars from the court's budget to IT.

Uh we don't really have a cost allocation formula for services for IT to the court, so I looked at every machine and the enterprise that does work for the court.

That includes the clerk's office, and did essentially a thousand dollars per machine to attribute, like we did a basic maintenance contract with a third-party provider in the public sector to be close to that with your permission.

We'll do the same this year, and when we get an invoice, we'll transfer the money to them.

Uh, if we hadn't done that, they would have probably been a decrease in terms of the request out of that fund.

All the funds are healthy and currently funded.

Uh issues before the court, not uncommon.

Uh we've got a lot of new police officers.

Uh, once they come online, they write more tickets.

Uh we'll see what that means for the coming year.

Staffing goes up, businesses will go up, staffing goes down, business will go down.

We are losing, and I hate to hate to say this, but we had one of the finest public defenders that's ever served the city uh of Carmel and maybe the state of Indiana retired Judge Flaging uh did announce that uh at the end of this year, he will be retiring fully from the uh practice of law.

So we're losing a really fine public defender, so I'm in the market to find somebody hopefully equally as good, equally as skilled that we can provide the public with excellent public defender funds.

And aside from that commentary, I answer any of the questions that the the council might have.

All right, who's got questions?

I think that you're the first one that we didn't have any questions on.

Fine, I'm I'm open book by law, so I I will leave.

Thank you.

Have a good morning now.

Hey, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for your time.

I'll take it.

You do this 15, 16 times it gets a leisure of your I appreciate it.

Judge, thank you for changing your schedule.

Thank you, Judge.

Jackie Fayer.

Next up we have the city clerk.

We'll let uh Jacob get settled, and then you can just start speaking when you're ready, okay?

All right.

Yes.

Good morning, council.

Here with the 2026 budget for the city clerk's office.

Um I'll try to touch on some things that I think are relevant through the budget.

Um overall zero percent increase the amounts to two thousand dollars.

Um staffing levels are remaining level in my office at this time.

Um what we see here is COLA increases and step increases.

Um not much to report in the personal services.

Um so I will move down.

Another uh line item I wanted to touch on was ordinance codification.

So that number's not changing, but right now, um, as you may be aware, the city is in the process of moving our website to Civic Plus.

Um and uh they have an ordinance codification uh uh service that they offer.

Uh it's something that Indianapolis uses, it's something that Hamilton County uses.

So I'm looking at switching our city code to that, and I think it I think it'll be a good change.

Um one thing I really like is if we keep the ordinances within the system as they're passed, it will display on the city code page as pending.

So there a lot of times right now we have a lag.

Um so we've we actually had an issue come up maybe last year where an ordinance was written before there was codification done, and so the ordinance was written as if code had reverted back, and so it made things messy.

And so um switching that to Civic Plus, I think will um keep that, you know, you'll be able to see what's pending and what's happening.

So stay tuned on that one.

Very exciting in the codification world.

So um other contracted services is probably my next largest line item.

Um so that houses two things that houses open govern and that houses um streaming and recording for these meetings.

So uh the payment for our booth uh comes out of our budget as well as as well as open gov.

Um and that has I think been going well.

I've kind of uh touched base with departments um a little bit over the last month.

Um touch base with Sergey a little bit, see how it was going on his end, and and I think it's I think it's been good.

You know, from from our standpoint, it's good for um record keeping.

Um so we used to get a lot of calls in our office as soon as the bids were open.

Hey, what are the results?

Can we get these results?

So now they're just automatically there.

And so the departments we're not skating in paper, we're not having stacks of paper we have to deal with, and then security.

Um so a lot of times bids are delivered um just to city hall.

Well, I'm not in city hall anymore.

The clerk's office is in city hall, and so had an issue of bids not going where they needed to go all the time.

Um, and so that causes issues when we have a bid opening, and then we find a bid after the opening.

Um so we've uh and so that's been good.

Um, you know, we we have aim in there, we have the Indiana League of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers, and we have the International Institute of Municipal Clerks.

Um, and so those are the main things that we see with uh membership dues and a lot of our training are um online trainings, but also we have two conferences.

Well, one conference and one training, I guess is probably a better way to describe it for the Indiana League of Municipal Clerks and Treasurers.

Um I'm on the um legislative committee for that um for the the clerk statewide, and that's been good.

Um yeah, that's like I said, two thousand dollars.

Um couple closing thoughts.

Um last year I reduced my budget by ninety-one thousand three hundred and thirty dollars.

This year we see an increase of two thousand.

So I think over the course of you know two fiscal years, a little under 90,000 dollars that we've reduced.

As you guys have a lot of hard decisions to make, and as I heard last night at the meeting, no whining, right?

So no whining about the tough decisions you have to make.

But right now we have a visual and digital specialist that helps with streaming a lot of our public meetings.

Carmel.

And I understand the thought process, and I don't really have an opinion on Experience Carmel.

But I do have an opinion that we have a lot of meetings.

And at this point, meeting streaming anything that happens in this room needs to be live streamed.

And so it's it's required by law.

So I I would ask the council to take a look at retaining that that position as a full-time employee, whether it be in my department.

And I've I've run the numbers on that, and I have uh uh a baseline number what that would look like, or staying in marketing or communications or whatever that looks like next year.

Um that would be my final thought on that.

Would you share that with us, please?

Sure.

So as you'll recall from the last budget, it was an increase of about $2,000.

So you know it's not an insignificant number, right?

Um, this person, this position.

Wait, say that again, I'm sorry, you lost me there.

It's so the previous budget, so my budget as presented to council was a $2,000 increase, right?

And so adding this position as a visual and digital specialist to my budget, that is what the increase would be.

So it'd be a 12% increase in the city clerk's budget.

106,000 dollars.

Yes, that's okay, got it.

Okay, what's the salary?

Salary.

Um we'll say I would say it's around 70.

Okay.

And that's so that's benefits and all in, right?

Okay.

And um is there uh so is so he does, he actually manages the whole peg channel.

So give us a let me understand everything that that position does.

I hate to talk about people, so let's talk about the position.

Yes, yes.

Um right now that position does the streaming of our meetings, right?

And so um right now that position is currently you know, hoping this meeting get to YouTube and Facebook.

Um for other meetings um that we have in these chambers, he's doing all of it, streaming the meeting in the booth and uh making sure we get it to Facebook and YouTube.

Um managing the midtown TV is a big part of it.

Um, and making sure that's on schedule, managing Carmel TV and the streaming and scheduling that, and and that takes time.

Um so those are probably the three the three main things and and some editing, right?

This person is skilled at video editing, and um, you know, maybe we could have fireside chats in the clerk's office.

I don't know.

Um possibly no.

No, we won't be doing that.

I I I think as we and we're bringing out the new website, right?

And so one one of the things that I've thought about and how to best utilize this position if it comes into into my budget.

So the new website will have a public meetings web page, and so it it'll be robust and it will need monitored and it will need managed, and uh at the end of the day, that's probably gonna fall on my office, right?

And um I want it to be accurate, I want it to be up to date for the public.

Um and so I I think that's something they that position could manage for the city as a member of my office.

Um so that's that's sort of what we're looking at with this position.

So no, it's not an insignificant dollar amount, but I think um when you find a good employee um, you know, who who's reliable and who does a good job, I I think it's worth taking a look at um keeping that person.

So well, that employee came from the former contractor.

Yeah, and so that's a part, you know, and and again, I know tough decisions have to be made.

That's part of it.

And so that's another part that I don't love, right?

So we've you know, the flip-flop, uh flip-flopping, and so I don't not a fan of that.

So yeah.

Okay.

Um Nick is looking at we had pres we had proposed that Bethany stay within the four that stay within comms, and we can we're looking at switching those two.

Um TV at Midtown, he will manage the TV at Rose Plaza.

So some other digital audio stuff he does as well.

Yeah.

No, I think it's a great um did but did you say he has some editing capabilities?

Yes.

Okay, video that's really important, I think.

Um I can't do it.

Um I would like to see us expand the use of the Peg channel to include I know the mayor does regular shows.

Um you kind of made a joke, but I don't know why you wouldn't, if there was information that the public should have access to, I don't know why we wouldn't make room for the clerk or the council or you know some other entity that we don't even know about.

So um if I were to support this, that would be my goal would be to try and make that peg channel um more relevant.

And um and you know, when I know that stuff flows to midtown and all that, but to make it about the entire city um and and the different functions of the city.

So other questions or comments, Councillor Locke.

What what are you most excited about for next year?

I'm trying to add some positivity to our process today.

Yeah.

No, I I like uh what am I excited about?

So with the new website comes um IT has procured a an agenda management um portion to this website.

So I don't know how excited other departments have been as I brought in DOCS and uh the CRC, but I I think it'll be good.

And um I don't know what it'll look like exactly.

Um and there's different different things we can use with it.

So uh we'll create an agenda through the website.

Um there is a feature where you guys would have um something at the dais there where you literally would have the agenda that we have created and on a screen.

Um I don't know that that's gonna roll out at the very beginning um because we are just in the beginning stages of that, and we'll go to them for for streaming as well.

We'll make that switch.

It should be a cost savings for us for streaming.

Um yeah, I'm excited to see what that looks like, and and I'm hoping the public will will appreciate maybe being able to find things a little bit easier.

Um as you're looking at the year and you're trying to kind of set your agenda, let us know if there's anything that comes up or you're working towards anything to to make the clerk's office better.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Thank you.

The questions um Jacob have question.

So um tuition reimbursement.

Yes.

When I saw an increase and and just want to always ask.

You and then two, although you're part of the city like we all are, you don't have are you going to be following a similar policy that other departments, or do you have your own policy when it comes to approving that?

No, it's a good question.

So we got, you know, I was told we wouldn't be doing tuition reimbursement, right?

And I didn't want to have my authors be the only one with tuition reimbursement, so I cut it out.

And then I heard that HR was going to be housing tuition reimbursement or uh no, I I was told that if I wanted to put some back in, you know, the city is going to move forward with that.

So I put the um yearly max for an individual, and then kind of somewhere along the way we learned that HR would be housing it.

Well, at that point budgets were ready to be submitted.

So um no, we'll follow the same approval process.

And I also wasn't sure if they had accounted for this individual and and their $40,000 count.

So I wanted to make sure that there was enough money there.

So no, we will be, you know, everything will be run through HR approval for that.

Um and and next year, you know, assuming we move forward with the tuition reimbursement.

Next year my plan would be to house that money in HR.

So if if it's helpful just real quick to talk about what we've done with tuition reimbursement.

That's one where um I we've just tried to budget a little uh uh more smarter, if you will, than we have in the past.

Uh typically every department would kind of try to guess what their uh tuition reimbursement expenses would be for the following year.

And it it's fairly unpredictable.

I mean uh you you never know who's gonna pop up.

Uh but we were on average appropriating about 110,000 a year across departments, but only spending 40,000 a year across all departments.

So in this budget, um we've we've uh with with the exception that kind of uh Jacob was mentioning, we've we've budgeted for all departments at HR.

Um the HR director is kind of the last uh uh approver in the process, uh but that way we could reallocate that 70,000 elsewhere in the budget and only budget kind of for what what we typically need.

So while Jacob um is housing at HR, he's not you know required to do that because he's kind of his own.

Yeah, I I would say um the the law uh is is pretty explicit in terms of separation of no, actually I would say in terms of how it applies to all city employees.

Um but it it it's silent on who pays it.

So I mean in terms of uh if he's following the policy, great uh the law great, but in terms of him paying it out, law doesn't address who pays it out, so I don't I don't have any concerns with how he's added it to it.

Yeah we've this individual's gotten HR approval they're they're ready to go now they they kind of paused it right when it looked like we were gonna pull it back out and so now we're we're back in so um so yeah there's nothing this was more of a timing issue and so if uh there's an interest in decreasing my budget and increasing HRs for tuition reimbursement I don't have a problem with that so um so yeah we've done all the approvals for this individual and we'll continue everything will be run through HR so any other questions or comments well thank you Jacob thank you have a great day uh next up is city council and I'm gonna explain a little bit how we do this so um we don't have as much of a crowd today as yesterday so um so traditionally I know people are watching um traditionally while it's not guaranteed usually the vice president of council is in line to become president of the next year and we kind of do that intentionally so you kind of get some experience heading into your year as president um so similar to how counselor green kind of helped me uh work on the budget for this year for 2025 um I kind of delegated the 2026 budget to councillor Snyder so he will be presenting the proposed city council budget for 2026 good morning we've got about 55 slides to get through here's our budget you've all seen it up I've oh I don't I don't know how to go back to error back the error button I'd like it better if it's split in for the website all right here's our budget um check my math but it's a little over a seven percent increase everything above the first highlighted line if you can see that uh our numbers taken straight from finance and that's where the increases primarily are the cost of personal services um added new align item is the is the dental um that's that is what was provided to me um except for the deferred compensation I either spoke I either looked at historical data spoke with counselors um or made an educated guess to the best of my ability um reduced quite a bit in the stationary stuff I mean we're talking peanuts compared to the budget and then um kind of reorganize the everything beneath the highlighted line that fits with the current council's initiatives have been uh recently as far as having funds for reviews studies um those types of things um council initiatives but I'm happy to take any questions all right council questions I guess I would just make comment thank you for doing the work Matt and um giving it so much thought I know you reached out to everybody and I appreciate that I appreciate being involved absolutely and here's our new police dog one of the two all right well thank you so much and I know we don't have many questions but if someone from the public email us we can explain more but um we're all pretty caught up on this one.

All right thank you so much we have uh Michael before that before you we do have um and this will probably be quick we have Board of Public Works you can still start setting up because it's going to be not a and Zach you're presenting this one okay um I I do have a presentation it's almost as long as counselor Schneider's uh presentation for for counseling we're ahead of time so go ahead yeah it it it is well i essentially uh we we we've taken the the per diem multiplied that by the number of annual meetings uh by by the number of the members and it equals exactly nine thousand dollars so that's what we have have uh budgeted uh for next year happy to get in the weeds on that but there's there's not many there's not many weeds there so yeah yeah any any questions from anyone on PPW all right thank you I told you start setting up Michael so whenever you're ready you can start presenting okay oh I can do it yeah oh I know I know I know I know everybody rather much really excited she's contracts

Any any questions from anyone on PPW?

All right, thank you.

I told you to start setting up, Michael.

So whenever you're ready, you can start presenting.

Okay.

Oh, I can do it.

Oh, I know, I know.

I know, I know.

Of course, thank you.

I can't do it.

Uh Michael, just because we gave you extra time.

Well, I was thinking since everyone else yielded their time, I was glad to take it.

So it's good.

Yes.

This is absurd.

Is this coming out in paperback anytime soon?

No.

Can you autograph it?

Happy to do so.

Whenever you're ready.

President awesome members of the council.

I'm Michael Klitzing, Director of Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation.

I am pleased to present to you the proposed 2026 budget for your nationally accredited two-time gold medal award-winning park and recreation system.

Uh one stead I've been recently talking about recent and some conversations I've had, including testimony to the State House last week, is we are pleased to serve last year 5.7 million visits to the parks within the Carmel Clay Park system.

Uh to put that in perspective, um, that would make us the second most visited national park in the country, behind ahead of, excuse me, of uh Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks, which each had about five million visits.

Now, obviously, that's not individual people.

Someone might come to our parks 10, 20, 50 times, and each time is a visit, uh, but it demonstrates the tremendous impact that we have on our community.

Uh our budget as well as the performance uh appraisal system that we have for our full-time employees is based on our guiding principles, which comes directly out of our five-year comprehensive parks and recreation master plan, enhancing park and recreation opportunities within the community, providing exceptional customer experiences, and ensuring long-term sustainability of the park and recreation system.

And of course, for parks, sustainability means many things economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and ensuring that we have the social sustainability to have the support to continue the park system.

Uh talk a little bit about our budget process first.

Uh we do have four operating budgets, the general fund, which is funded by the city of Carmel, as through well as three enterprise funds that are funding the Monarch Community Center extended school enrichment as well as some of our uh other facilities.

We also have two capital uh budgets, the impact fee fund, uh which is obviously funded by the parking recreation impact fees, as well as a non-reverting parks capital fund, which is actually comprised of two cash accounts.

One is funding from the City of Carmel, which is actually a transfer that comes from the general fund.

Um but for this presentation I'm gonna identify them separately because they function a little bit separately.

And then the second component are remaining cash reserves that we have from local income tax dollars received from Clay Township.

Talk a little bit about our budget process.

Uh we actually started in March and April uh internally within the department preparing our budgets.

Uh each of the divisions is directly responsible for helping put together the budget proposals, um, and then it works our way up through our administration.

In July, we presented our budgets to the park board finance committee.

I do want to recognize that uh park board treasurer Mark Westmeyer is in attendance, so I want to thank him for uh his participation in this process.

And then in August, our budgets were presented to the park board for their adoption uh as well as recommendation for approval to the city council, especially as it pertains to the the budgets that are funded by the city.

Our largest personnel, our largest expense are personnel related uh we are out of the general fund, and this is general fund specific, uh, funding 34 full-time positions.

Uh there is a little bit of movement in there, but there is no net change in the number of employees that we were funding out of the general fund.

We moved two HR positions from the general fund into our enterprise funds.

We ultimately determined that those functions would not be needed without the Monon Community Center and extended school enrichment, and we felt that it was appropriate uh for those to be funded out of the general fund.

We also did move to part-time HR positions to our enterprise funds.

This allowed us to add two new park and natural resource custodial positions.

Our park system is continuing to grow, and we know that we need um staff to be able to maintain the parks at the level that our residents expect.

So this trading of positions to allow for the addition of two new employees out of the general fund actually resulted in that savings of a little over 121,000.

So providing more services but at less expense to the taxpayers.

Our total personnel budget is 4,145,292, which actually only represents just under a $30,000 increase from last year.

Talking a little bit big picture, Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation, the budget will include 83 full-time budgets, I should say, will include 83 full-time employees representing approximately 60% of our total operating budgets when you look at our four operating budgets together.

That's 34 out of the general fund, 29 out of extended school enrichments, the 108 fund, and 20 out of the Monon Community Center Fund 109.

It also supports between 450 and 650 part-time employees.

Obviously, we flex depending on the season, with the 650 part-timers being during the summer season when we have the water park open as well as all of our summer camps.

For all of our budgets, we are proposing a 4% merit increase for all of our part-time employees.

Merit increases means that you actually are given an annual performance and you have to meet certain standards to be able to be eligible for merit increase of between zero and four percent.

And those goals are directly established to those guiding principles that I established or mentioned at the beginning of the presentation.

So looking specifically at the general fund, we are requesting $6,740,000.

Again, this does not include the transfer to which is additional expenses that will be covered separately.

When you look at our top five expenses, it represents 88% of the budget.

Everything else, which is $829,000, is uh is covered there.

Looking specifically at our top five expenses, which is just under $5.9 million.

Uh number one, as always, we are a service-oriented organization, so personnel is our top, as I mentioned, a little over $4.1 million.

Ground maintenance, which covers our contractual mowing as well as landscape services, is just over $828,000.

Number three are utilities and utilities specifically for our parks, not for the Monon Community Center or the pavilions and program pavilions that we have in Founders and West Park.

These are specifically for the parks and non-revenue supporting operations is uh $331,000 and some change.

And then number five are other rentals and leases, which is $179,923.

And oh, I skipped contractual services, which is $331,000.

The vast majority of that are our park resource officers, and then the other rentals and leases, which is predominantly for our fleet.

Looking at a little bit more detail with regard to the general fund based on the city's formatting process, we have basically six programs plus uh training and travel, IT hardware and hardware IT software.

When you're looking at the general operations of the department, and this is basically everything within the park system, the the outlying parks except within the Central Corps, that's about $4.9 million between personnel and the services and supplies.

When you look at the Central Corps, and this is Midtown Plaza, Monon Boulevard, uh the Carmichael Restrooms and Japanese Garden, again looking at personnel associated to that plus the uh the services and supplies, it's a little over 1.1 million dollars.

To put that in perspective, our Central Corps properties represent about 3% of our total 700 acres of parkland, but represent approximately 13% of our operating budget.

Not saying that's a good thing, not saying that's a bad thing.

That's just the reality of people coming to our parks in a highly more concentrated area.

It's a higher level of service that's needed.

There's a lot more people in a lot less space, and that just requires a little bit more uh effort on our part.

But that is something that I do like to point out.

Our fleet vehicles, which are 14 existing vehicles which are leased through Enterprise are 109,390 dollars.

Our park resource officers, which have been an incredibly successful program that came on board in March, uh represent uh $327,000, and that's a program that we highly recommend continuing.

Um, our park resource officers when when we talk to them, they've received since March more positive feedback from the residents than that they've had their entire careers here in Carmel.

So I think that speaks uh very uh favorably to the impact that they're having, the appreciation that our residents have for that program.

Capital leases, which uh uh also are related to fleet, these are replacing two of our technical vehicles, plus one truck that was uh totaled not as a result of our staff, but uh uh was struck while in a roundabout, and uh two new trucks to support the the two new staff that are doing uh the services in the Central Corps that we are proposing adding.

Uh Midtown additional cleaning, this is a new function that we've recommended.

Uh again, with the events, with all the activity that we have uh within the Central Corps.

What we do find is that uh it becomes a little bit more challenging to provide the cleaning uh so that everything looks uh uh incredibly spotless uh in the morning as people are coming into work.

Uh we felt that yes, the addition of the two new custodial staff are going to help during the primary part of the day, but during the peak season, basically kind of April to September, October, um we we thought it was more economical, more cost efficient to be able to contract those services with the custodial service that we use at the Monon Community Center to be able to provide that overnight cleaning, especially in the midtown area.

So we are recommending that.

Um our travel and training, uh which includes uh the necessary training for our 11 certified staff, and these numbers are old.

We've had three more staff that have received their professional certifications uh since the budget process started.

That represents 54,000.

Uh IT hardware, and again, this is not hardware for the Monon Community Center or extended school enrichment, just for um uh uh general administration as well as parks and natural resources.

Uh we have 11,000 in the budget for that, and that's based on recommendations from ICS.

And then for uh software subscriptions, uh $85,700.

Um, and seven of our 11 subscriptions are actually shared, the expenses are shared with our enterprise funds, and everything is done proportionally.

So, like our HR software that we have that is predominantly paid out of the Monon Community Center and and extended school enrichment because that's where most of our staff are housed.

Uh so for those shared software, we're we're sharing the expenses proportionately.

Uh to compare this year's budget uh to last year, uh uh the current budget is 6.4 million and some change.

Uh this year we're proposing a little over 6.7 million, so a $324,314 increase or 5%.

Uh diving into what's actually driving that increase.

Uh the top five uh factors are representing all but about 3,000 of the of the uh increase.

Uh number one is 121,000 for uh Monon Boulevard Bar uh can't talk today, Monon Boulevard phase three, which includes a new playground, uh basically the areas between where the the boulevard currently ends to city center.

There's going to be a new destination playground, a new plaza, extensive landscaping in that area, um, as well as for the Japanese garden, which will be opening shortly, uh, which again is a highly landscaped area.

So these are based on actual quotes that we've received.

Uh health insurance, which is based on the the city's program.

Our employees receive the same medical and dental insurance that the city of employee city of Carmel employees receive.

So that's driving a little over 66,000 of our budget.

Um the additional cleaning uh in midtown is 60,000.

Uh water for the uh midtown splash pad, which we converted from a recirculating system to a non-recirculating system, which does actually reduce some of our staff time and chemicals, uh, but it did uh increase our water bill as well as the new trailhead restrooms that are opening uh soon on the White River Greenway North extension contributed 49,000 to the budget and general insurance, the insurance we need for the new assets uh increased the system by 25,000.

I'll break there to see if you have any questions specific to the general fund.

Any questions?

All right.

Just one quick, I mean, I know you've iterated these out pretty clearly at what's driving the increases.

The um additional cleaning in midtown, I know you hire janitorial staff, but uh is that in that's an addition to hiring the staff, and then your core maintenance functions for midtown that you sort of put in there.

Um is that also mostly driven by is it mostly trash pickup?

Is it mostly like leaf like what is the big I mean, I know you do a lot, so I'm just trying to figure out like what's driving it, and is there any possibility if events are driving this to actually help with volunteers who would be willing to do some more pickup after events or with events because I know we're trying to work on increasing that volunteerism in the city, and that might be a great resource place for you.

So just curiosity.

Thank you, uh Counselor.

The all of the above uh is what's driving it.

So uh just general usage of of those spaces and keeping it clean, um, definitely a lot of trash removal, uh cleaning of the restrooms at the at the Carmichael, those are all things that um are driving it.

Uh cleaning up the up the trail of blowing the leaves off of it uh during this time of the year uh are contributing towards that.

Uh yes, the events do do uh have a factor in that.

Um and I do think that there are opportunities to look at uh increased volunteers, but what we find, I think event specific, there might be some opportunities, uh, but the volume of people that are coming to some of those events uh creates uh a little bit of challenges and and our staff are are really great.

And and when the events are going, it would be our staff, not contractual.

Um I I think that it provides the the attention that's necessary.

Uh post event maybe there's some opportunity for increasing uh volunteers, and I think we can certainly uh investigate that.

Did I address your question?

Any other questions?

Or if you have more slides, keep going.

Um now we'll go on to the non-reverting park capital fund, which is also funded by the city.

Uh this one is a little bit simpler.

Uh total request is $338,190, just to talk about how this goes.

If you look at our actual general fund budget requests, these numbers are included in the general fund, 1125 budget as a transfer, and then they're brought into this non-reverting uh park capital fund.

Uh we have uh three basic items in here.

Uh a little over $90,000 for the Monon Greenway for uh improving some of the the gravel shoulders uh in key places, especially on the north and south ends, as well as uh some uh targeted asphalt repairs effectively.

We have 228,310 for other structure improvements.

Uh the lion's share of that is for hazard tree and invasive species removal.

We've had conversations as I go in operations or capital, uh talking with uh Zach, the chief financial officer.

We've you know, and looking at even what uh state parks does, you know.

You can make an argument in both.

Historically, we've had it in the capital fund.

So for historic tracking, we've kept it there.

Uh it also includes some uh targeted S fault repairs on the Hagen Burke, uh looking at automating a number of our trail counters, all of our trail counters with the exception of a few that are actually owned by the city on the Monon.

Uh you we have to send staff to actually download the data.

Uh so this would give us real-time information and and allow our maintenance staff to actually be functioning on maintenance as opposed to uh once a month downloading that data.

Uh it also includes uh uh some security infrastructure improvements at Central Park as well as Monon Greenway signage replacements, which is the continued replacement of uh intersection signs.

Uh those items were actually originally included in this year, but this year's budget, but because of uh austerity measures that were implemented, we deferred those and uh now looking to incorporate them uh in this year's budget as uh a capital lease.

And then uh furniture and fixtures, these are $19,000 for basically replacing some of the amenities within the Monon Boulevard, heavy again, heavy usage.

So this year we're planning on refurbishing the bacce ball and shuffleboard courts and then uh replacing uh the playground signs at the Mon Boulevard, which are looking tire.

Uh when you look at uh in summary, again $338,109, it's uh $74,000, $190, $74,190 increase from last year.

Percentage looks big, dollar amount not so.

Um happy to let me go ahead and just do the summary with city budgets.

Uh so this year, between the non-reverting parks capital fund as well as the general fund, we're requesting $7,078,223.

That is an increase of uh just slightly under $6.7 million in this year's approved budget, uh, but comparing it to our actuals in 24, uh it's actually still below that, which was just under 7.5 million dollars.

Um be happy to uh quite uh address any questions that you have on the non-reverting park capital fund.

I then have a couple more slides just simply to give you an overview of the the budgets that are not funded through the general fund.

Um but so uh for the sake of transparency, we want to make sure that the council is aware uh of how those other dollars are were approved to be spent by the park board.

Any questions at the moment?

All right.

So we still have some leftover reserves from the local income tax dollars that we received from Clay Township that were attributable to the Central Park Bond.

These are largely for capital repairs and replacements that are being driven by our life cycle asset management plan.

We have dollars 30,000 attributable to uh attributable to uh Kerry Grove.

This is some drainage infrastructure improvements as well as fencing around that drainage area, not the entire area because most of it is grassy area that is used by the public, but there's an area that has more stone, and we prefer that the kids not play on that.

We have $20,000 for bringing online the digital uh kiosk at the north trailhead.

We already have a digital kiosk in Central Park at our trailhead.

This allows us to get more information timely without having to send staff out to those.

We've not had any issues with Central Corso.

Uh we're now moving it to the North Trailhead.

Ultimately, we'll consider the South Trailhead, but we're sort of being strategic and we're replacing the digital kiosk.

In Low Park, uh there's some drainage issues there, so we've attributed 10,000 dollars to address those by the pickleball courts.

We have 112, excuse me, 122,550 for Central Park.

That includes some asphalt repairs at our administration and maintenance compound.

Uh the administrative office roof is also due for replacement, and uh we are going to add some digital speed signs along the East Drive, similar to what we have on the West Drive.

Uh, to just we we find that when people see how fast they're going, uh it does have a little bit of positive impact to to help keep people going a little bit slower.

In West Park, we have a little over $49,000 budgeted.

Um there's a small section right at the uh beginning of the main entrance into West Park that needs a little bit of mill and repaving.

Uh that wasn't included in the renovations that we did several years ago.

So this will bring uh the entire drive within West Park into uh good standards.

We are adding some additional playground fencing similar to what we've done at parks in Kerry Grove and and uh Westermeyer Commons and Inlow just to provide a little bit more protection between the playground and the parking area so that if you have some kids that get adventurous uh parents and guardians have a little bit more time to to grab them.

And then uh uh some uh targeted uh trail asphalt repairs in that park.

In Founders Park, uh we are budgeting $750,000 for floating boardwalk.

I believe I mentioned that at the uh last uh quarterly report to the council.

Um I actually will note we've included it here, but uh we were able to get the proposal from um uh from the contractor quicker.

Uh so we may actually ask you to de-appropriate or not include it in the 206 budget, but do an uh additional appropriation this year.

Again, these are dollars that are already in the bank.

So if we can can get it appropriated and moving quicker, uh there's really nothing to prevent us from doing so.

And it also ensures that we don't have price escalations as as we go into next year.

Uh we have 150,000 dollars uh for the White River Corridor, specifically targeted for uh repairs and and uh and work at the historic Moffitt Homestead, which is pictured here this year.

Uh Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation was able to purchase this house, which is located uh adjacent to our River Heritage Park.

It is not open to the public, uh, but it is an asset that will uh ultimately be available for the public to use.

Uh this is this house was constructed in 1827.

It is the second oldest brick house in Hamilton County, obviously the oldest brick house in Carmel, and I believe it is the oldest, if not one of the oldest existing structures, still existing structures within what is now the city of Carmel.

Uh the house the the Moffits were actually friends with the Connors, so the house is very similar to the historic Connor House within Connor Prairie.

We are working with uh the architectural program at Paul State University to do an assessment of this house.

We obviously did due diligence when we purchased the house, but we want to look at it from a uh historic factor.

So they're gonna help us sort of deconstruct the history of the house as well as help us prior prioritize the things that we need to do from a historic standpoint to make sure that we're properly preserving the house.

So we're allowing uh some dollars for that.

Uh for Bear Creek Park, we are proposing 225,000 for the Greenway Pond shoreline stabilization.

Across the street from the park, we have the beginning of the Bear Creek Greenway.

And then we have $1.4 million, which is predominantly for capital repairs and replacements within the Monon Community Center, including our continued phased trade out of fitness equipment at that moment at the Monon Community Center.

In total, the dollars from the 1103 cash account for the non-inverting parks capital fund.

Again, all reserve dollars from the lit from the township is just over $2.7 million.

Also in this year's budget, we have $2 million for phase two improvements at Bear Creek Park.

Again, the City Council and the Mayor were very generous in including $6.2 million for phase one development of Bear Creek Park, plus we had an additional about $1.5, $1.6 million in impact fees that we've dedicated this year for phase one.

This allows us to continue to bring this park in the underserved area of Northwest Carmel online.

These are impact dollars that are not related to any CRC related projects.

Looking at our capital budgets in total, we are proposing a budget of just over $4.7 million compared to about $5.2 million for this year's approved budget and about $5.7 million in actual expenditures last year.

Keep moving for I did want to highlight, you know, these are for actual dollars that are being appropriated for 2026.

But because of bonds that have been issued by the city and township, there are certainly more capital projects that are going on right now.

So you know, Bear Creek Park at $6.2 million as previously stated, $7.5 million each for the Ottoman Veterans Greenways, the Smoky Row and Iron Drive Park.

That's actually a joint project that includes the roundabout.

We're anticipating somewhere between one and 1.5 million dollars available for the park.

So I average that for for the sake of uh today's conversation.

Uh $750,000 for continued enhancements along the White River Greenway North extension.

Um those are all dollars that came from the city for the infrastructure bond, $23.2 million to be exact.

Uh we also have uh some dollars that we're just continuing to finish working uh from the township.

Uh the township contributed a little under $5.1 million for the White River Pedestrian Bridge, which will be opening up next month, as well as about $3.1 million for the Japanese garden renovation, which also will be opening up shortly.

And then jumping to our three enterprise funds, uh, this is really the extent of the detail for it, but uh about a six point four million dollars both in revenues and expenses for extended school enrichment in our summer camps, uh, about $7.9 million in revenues and expenses for the Monon Community Center, uh, as well as our recreation programming, and a little over uh $200,000 for the dog park, our shelters, and the two pavilions that program pavilions that we have and founders in West Park.

Looking at our budgets as a whole, uh, our operating and capital budgets being requested for this year, total about $26.3 million, which is an increase from $25.1.

Again, most of that increase is being driven by our enterprise funds, which are completely self-sufficient with the revenues that we generated.

Looking at how this breaks out from funding sources versus expenses, you know, about $14.6 million in earned income.

Those are the dollars that we're receiving from the users that are participating at the Monon Community Center within the extended school enrichment program as well as summer camps, about $7.1 million from the city's general fund, about $2.8 million in local income tax reserves from Clay Township, and $2 million from the park and recreation impact fee.

When you're looking totally at our expenses this year's or next year's proposed budget is $21.2 million in operations and about $5.1 million in capital.

And when you're just looking at these dollars, again, not taking in the significant amount of bond dollars that we receive, but just looking at what's in the 26 uh requested budget.

Uh the city is generously contributing 32% of our operating budget.

Again, those are for the non-revenue driving things within the department, and seven percent of the appropriations for this year, again, not factoring in the significant amount of bond dollars that we'll be using over the next several years.

With that, I'd be happy to address any questions the council has for the 26th budget.

Council, any questions for our Parks Department?

You're just so thorough that you don't leave any questions unanswered.

That's the goal.

Well, uh last call if anyone right.

Um Jacob, like what are you most excited about in this budget in the upcoming year?

So for next year, I am incredibly excited about us starting to to move forward on construction on Bear Creek Park.

Now, obviously, this year's budget is for the phase two, but it's gonna roll right off of what we're envisioning for right now.

Um this is gonna be an incredible park.

Uh, we gave a presentation to the park board last um last week, it seems like months ago already, um, as far as what we envision that phase one improvement to be.

Uh it's gonna be a unique park uh serving incredible needs for the community.

Um I'm excited that you know, I I feel that we have all the resources we need to be able to continue the services uh at the level that our residents expect.

Uh and I'm very appreciative of the mayor and the council uh to be able to continue to do that for our residents.

I think quality of life is one of the things that drives people to Carmel, and certainly parks are not the sole factor driving uh quality of life, but we are very significant factor in driving that.

Uh so excited that we're going to have those resources to be able to do things.

I'm excited that this budget includes necessary capital repairs and replacements.

You know, I think one of the things that has given our residents, which in turn gives you as elected officials confidence to invest in the park system, is that we have taken care of the assets that we do have.

If you don't take care of the parks and facilities that you have, you know, you're not going to want to invest in new things.

And this budget allows us to continue to keep our existing assets at a top-notch level so that you know people will continue to want to come to us.

And that's especially important for our enterprise funds, for the Monon Community Center.

If we don't continue to invest in that incredible facility, people will not want to ultimately spend their discretionary time and income there if the fitness equipment no longer is functioning.

If the tiles uh which like our restrooms uh in in the uh in the uh aquatic locker rooms at the community center, um the the budget includes dollars to replace that from a concrete, which has been difficult to keep clean to tiles.

It's not very sexy uh as far as capital projects, but it's incredibly important to create the experience that that uh our members and visitors to that facility expect.

So, you know, there's there's a lot of basics within our budget that the general public might not be super excited about, but it continues to provide the experiences that they want.

But it also still does allow us to do some pretty cool projects that that make our park system uh the park system that it is.

Councillor Rowe.

Thank you.

Um Director Klitzing, I I just wanted to make a couple of comments and then ask a question.

But when I look up at that picture up there, um that is a great example of why I have such confidence in your leadership.

Um certainly the leadership prior to you of Mr.

Westermeyer, but um what you have built sitting through this budget discussion is really super simple because I we're starting from a place of great trust.

And um, and and that's exhibited by not a whole lot of questions or angst or concern.

It just seems like you run a really great ship.

And so for that I want to say thank you, and then I want to say thank you to the people who are up there on that photo.

The the um comment that I'm gonna make is that um when there is an organization like yours that is extremely successful, the inclination might be to ask you to do more and more and more.

And I just want you to promise me that you will evaluate every time any entity, it could be us, it could be someone else comes to you and says, hey, you're so great, can you take this over?

Uh that you're very careful, very thoughtful, and I know you will be, but I'm just expressing that publicly that you will be very cautious about being allowing us to make you the end all be all, or the answer to every problem, the solution to every issue.

So I want to protect what you've built.

I want to protect the um excellence, and I just know from experience that that can be diminished if you start to serve other entities.

So that's that's just a comment.

Don't even need a I just want to promise.

How about that?

Thank you.

And I think one of the things that has made Cormaclay Parks and Recreation successful is we we understand what our core competencies are, and we focus on those core competencies and we evaluate everything against those core competencies.

And when we look to uh new adventures, we weigh, you know, how does it fit in with what we do well?

Uh is it a logical extension, or is it outside uh what we know we can do best?

And uh so but thank you for those comments.

Councillor Minard.

And then after no rush on comments, we're ahead of schedule, but I did um let corporation council know we were ahead of schedule and they can present early.

So when we're ready.

I just want to say thank you, Director Klitzing again.

I echo everything everyone says on the dais about you, so I don't need to go into that.

I just want to point out how important it is what you what you said about what I'll call unglamorous spending.

It's not sexy, it's not it's not wow, it's just whatever it takes to maintain what we have and continually inviting people back because that level of service is there.

So to the general public, that unglamorous spending is what keeps people coming back, and for that I thank you, and to your staff and to the board.

Thank you so very much.

Thank you.

We uh we simply would not be the organization we are without the tremendous team that I have uh all the way from our lifeguards and and and part-time uh maintenance team to you know uh to the top and not including me, and uh also our park board, but also our elected officials who have continued to trust us and to give us the resources we need to be successful and serve our residents, which is our number one goal.

So thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Actually, I think next up would be HR.

So, and then after that corporation council, and then we can discuss whether to try to call someone in, or we get a little longer break to in the middle.

Call them in.

Yeah.

I think all of them had this.

Can I make one?

Oh can I make one more introduction to the council?

Um I didn't see come in behind because we're so ahead of a schedule.

Uh we had a second park board member come, uh, Jim Garretsen.

So I want to thank him for being present.

Since we are we're ahead of schedule, uh, one of my park border members that I didn't see come in uh behind me is also here, so I want to recognize uh Jim Garretsen.

So Jeremy.

Thank you.

Yeah, I can't believe you're out of bed.

All right.

And uh why don't you get your slides up and you can start speaking when you're ready?

That's all right.

He's he's an expert at it.

I'm gonna use paper like Nick.

We're both old school, so Zach is running my slides for me.

Uh I just want to say thank you and good morning for the time today to go through the 2026 budget request for the HR department.

I'm Nicole Murphy.

I haven't had a chance to meet most of you at this point.

Uh it's been a very busy year.

So I think I think uh some of you have been to the HR office, and so I welcome visitors, come step in, chat.

Um, but it is nice to uh be in front of you this morning.

So I will I know we're ahead of schedule, but I'll just jump right in.

Unless there's anybody who wants to talk about this first slide, I think we can go right to the second slide because there is a few things I want to highlight on that next one.

Okay, this is just like a highlight reel.

I am incredibly proud of my HR team and all that we've accomplished in one year's time.

I started about this time last year.

I wasn't the one up here, but I was in the audience.

So it has been incredibly busy.

This is not in an entire list of things.

And from this list, I would just like to highlight a few of them.

One of the ones that you could probably consider low-hanging fruit, but has made a giant impact on the employee experience is that last one.

When I was hired a year ago, everything was still on paper.

On my first day, I received a binder with a paper handbook, and that was a really easy decision to make to change that.

We already use and pay for ADP, our HRIS system.

So we just used it to its full functionality, and now onboarding happens electronically through ADP.

It allows a new hire to fill out paperwork, make benefit elections prior to their first day.

I don't know if any of you have had a new job recently, but when you are a new hire your first day, there's a lot of information that comes at you, and so this has allowed time for us to pause and get have allowed the new candidate to ask questions before their first day.

It also allows for orientation to be more relational.

The employee experience is very important to me.

I this has been a theme of these budget hearings, right?

We care about our employees and the human part, and I do too.

And so for a new hire is pretty exciting to be a new employee at the city of Carmel.

And changing that has allowed us to focus less on administrative tasks and more on how cool it is to be a new employee for the city of Carmel.

In addition to that, we created three new videos starring the mayor in relation to onboarding and orientation.

So a new hire will receive two videos prior to their first day.

The first one is congratulating them on getting the offer.

Second one kind of keeps them excited about their start date.

And then we show the third one at orientation, welcoming them as a new employee of the City of Carmel.

So again, sort of low-hanging fruit, but big impact.

Secondly, I'm pretty proud of the third bullet there, our new employee mental health solution.

This was a long time coming and a project that started before I was here.

It is evident in these conversations that you all are having that mental health is very important to the city of Carmel, this administration, and you all.

It is important for our public safety, but also our the rest of our employees too.

So we're all familiar with the term EAP.

We have partnered with Lyra to be our new EAP provider.

It does have a very robust piece, specifically dedicated for police and fire public safety, but also it is very comprehensive for our employee base.

So that began September 1st.

We do have a couple employees already taking advantage of this service.

We are in the process of creating a communication plan for employees and supervisors, how to best utilize it and roll it out.

So more to come on that.

Okay, we get into the actual numbers part of today.

This is our request for our personal services.

We do currently have six full-time positions, one part-time position, and then we have budget dollars for one part-time position that's PRN, just as needed.

The most relevant example we have for that position was we all employee files were on paper.

In fact, when I started, I had a paper file.

We did digitize those, and we needed somebody to go through each employee record and make sure that those files uploaded properly.

So that was just a good use of an as-needed part-time person instead of dedicated, you know, full-time staff time.

We do not have any vacancies, and we are not asking for any new positions for 2026.

Okay, the HR department does house some citywide costs, and this is of the majority of those costs.

The biggest change on this list will be the appropriation for workmen's compensation.

Historically, the amount requested was much lower than the actual expenses for workmen's compensation.

I'm not sure how that number was derived in the past, but this number reflects more accurately what we actually spend on workmen's compensation.

We do also house the retiree health insurance, our wellness program, and that is comprised of several different things.

That is our city's contribution to Monon membership, YMCA membership, that is our personify wellness program, and then the uh EAP with Lyra that I just referenced is in that dollar amount.

We do have costs for new higher screenings, background checks, driving record checks, uh new higher drug screenings, and then the proposed change is to put the tuition reimbursement in the HR budget, so that number is new this year.

Okay, this is most of our costs are not actually HR.

I mean they are HR adjacent, but this is the actual cost to run the HR department.

We do have software support fees, that is ADP.

So our HRS, our payroll, uh ATS, except I think there's a few others.

I'm probably leaving out.

So that is ADP.

Travel training and membership dues.

We there are several of us that have certifications, that is the amount to maintain those.

There's two of us that are SHERM certified.

Um we have some FMLA certifications that are housed in our department.

Um also we have a subscription to an LMS to keep us all up to date on employment law changes.

Rent for our space is in this section, and then other operating costs, which Matt, I'm heard you really like that.

We do have one miscellaneous piece in the other, uh, but it's $500.

But I can I can walk you through what makes up that 17,000 if you would like me to our budget looks vastly different from 2024, 2025, 2026, and that is because there were just some structural changes that happened.

Uh in 2024, payroll was not housed in the HR department.

So between 2024 and 2025, we did take on some of those expenses.

Uh this the payroll administrator salary, the software fees, which that was 260, so those are big amounts.

Workmen's comp, which is now 420 was not in there, retiree health insurance wasn't in our budget previously, wellness programs, and then the tuition reimbursement was a new ask for this year.

And no one has any questions.

Right?

I didn't think I get off anything.

Counselor Bennard.

Just a quick question.

We've been talking about tuition reimbursement quite a bit, and now it's housed in your department.

So from I'd like to hear from your perspective how you are going to handle divvying, how it's brought to you and then how it's divvied to you.

So just to give an idea for thank you.

I don't foresee the anything with the process changing.

It is just where the dollars are housed.

So our process now, an employee who is interested in having tuition reimbursement will go directly to their supervisor or director.

It starts there.

The director has the first line of defense, whether it's yes or no.

There are some things already in the policy to qualifications, right?

They have to be here a year.

The program has to apply to either their current position or a future career path here at the city of Carmel.

There's some other stipulations in there.

We do approve it on a course by course.

So it's not just like, yep, this entire program is approved.

So once it is a you know approved that the program meets the qualifications, then we keep looking at it course by course.

I I work now with the director.

I, you know, I'm not gonna know if something makes sense for an employee in a field that I'm not really.

So, right, I'm gonna look to the director to really guide me.

Does this make sense for this employee?

After that, the course by course piece.

There is some discussion on we have turned we have said no once this year, it was for a theater program or as a theater class, it was part of an entire program.

So those those no's are you know pretty common sense.

Uh, but I don't foresee it changing.

It is really just where the money is housed.

So yeah, if I can also just clarify uh city code is is pretty specific on what's reimbursable and what's not, and it does say um, you know, regardless of the degree, uh uh and maybe even a degree isn't being sought, but but it is very course by course, and and so to to uh Nicole's point um, you know, we might support somebody overall getting a uh a bachelor's degree in business, but there are courses in there based on city code that we would not reimburse because that course itself does not add to the I I use the example of I took I took bowling in college, so questions.

Well, Zach, can you explain?

So maybe I'm the course by course, when you say it's course by course, is that so each time you apply for so if I'm taking 12 credit hours, so that's three core courses, so it's gonna be pretty heavy full time, but let's say I'm doing that.

I would submit, hey, these are the four courses, which ones would apply, and then or do I do I get to submit like if I'm taking two bowlings and two real advanced maths and business, yeah.

Do I get to apply individually for the each course?

So I think the way the code contemplates it is that um one it it it flat out states it can only be for two courses a semester.

Um so that alone might uh eliminate kind of half your question there.

Um I think it also contemplates if the prior to the start of each semester, you're kind of getting that that approval for this being a uh is this an acceptable course or not?

And then after the completion of that course, you're going back with your grades uh to to prove to uh uh HR or your director that you uh I think it's a B average or B.

The policy spells out what the equivalent, like if you get a B minus, it's 80% reimbursement.

It's it's in the policy and language.

I can pull that the exact, but yeah, it it isn't um full reimbursement for um you know a lower grade, but it it is all spelled out in there.

So it's it's two it's two courses per semester, correct?

And it's but I thought there's also a monetary cap.

Like I remember the monetary cap is uh six thousand five hundred okay.

So in theory you could get up to six hundred five hundred per semester.

So if you're I think that's a annual capital.

Yeah.

So if I'm going to rows as trimesters, I can do it three times.

Yeah.

Um can you explain the EAP?

Actually, I hadn't heard that term.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to assume that.

Yeah, so it stands for employee assistance program.

It's a very common benefit.

Um the gamut of offerings run from very minimal.

Um I've example personally have had an employer offer an EAP where if you're you need mental health assistance, uh you get three times with uh mental health provider.

They go all the way from very minimal offerings to very robust, very full service um a lot of benefit.

What we have currently is with IU and it is adequate, but it isn't geared specifically for public safety and the and the very specific things they experience in their roles, and also um it is limited on how many visits and it doesn't allow us to do continuity of care that feeds right into our medical benefits.

So with Lira, you you're allowed 10, the city will cover 10 visits, and then after that, should you need continuity of care, it will work hand in hand with our benefit plan so that an employee if they need more than 10 can continue on under our medical benefit coverage.

Uh one more question.

Can you explain the the process for the rent?

Like if Carmel Carmel owns the land, then why like how the how's that agreement structure?

Exactly.

Yeah, so uh it is the utilities department that that owns that condo space.

And there are kind of uh the deeded owner is city of Carmel.

Pardon me?

Deeded owner is city of Carmel.

Okay.

Uh as as they mean it's it's set up so that the uh utilities department is is the landlord.

Um there are kind of several places today where there are reimbursements between I'll say the the general fund and the uh uh you know utilities operations, and and this is kind of one of those, but for the most part it's it's utilities reimbursing the city.

Uh but this is one where where the the general fund is reimbursing utilities for that uh rent space at 36,000 a year.

I'm not saying there's a problem with that, I just want to understand it.

So we own a building.

Utilities is the master tenant, and then they're subleasing it to HR.

Is that the process?

And themselves, but I believe it was their bond that bought their bond that bought that.

Aqua required the land.

Yeah.

I think in 2019, something else, look back exactly.

Um which okay, so my other question about that location.

Is being there a good location for the employees?

I mean, it seems like maybe if they have something in confidence, it's not in City Hall.

Um but it's also exposed to the entire city.

Yeah.

So I didn't I see pros and cons to being there.

Um if if HR is housed in City Hall, there's benefit to that too.

We get a lot of employee traffic, people just stopping in, they they see our door and think, oh, I have a question, they can just pop in.

We don't have as much of that.

We don't have people, it's usually pretty intentional that they make their way over there.

Uh so I do prefer to be off site.

It does allow for those harder conversations to happen in a more confidential way.

That exact space, it works fine.

Um personally, we all hate the parking over there, but that's you know, neither here or there.

I see pros and cons of being you know in City Hall or out of City Hall, but you know, I'll be accommodating wherever we get moved to.

Thank you.

Um I had a few questions.

Um first off was that.

So the my right to understand.

So if you take out whatever the budget amount was, the actual amount that it was you know approved for tuition reimbursement, even going back years really hasn't changed much.

That's correct.

It's it's been in the ballpark of of 40,000 a year for the last few years.

So while the the policy may change, this is not a uh a benefit or investment employees that it's going away.

It is it is not.

We've we're we're we're centralizing how it's uh how it's being paid for.

And and I'll say we're uh I'm not sure that uh law has historically been followed by every department and and now kind of also um making sure that it's it's uh flowing through the uh HR department helps to make sure that we're all following the law.

But talking to you, it doesn't sound like this policy change was meant so we can start you know shooting this stuff down.

No, not at all.

Okay.

Great.

Um two things I want to ask about, and I know we are in a tight budget year, so it just maybe even some of this may be long-term plans.

Um, you know, how we develop our employees when we have uh really good employees who are doing a great job.

I know we've had to and understandably so cut back on you know conferences and some kind of those things.

So, what are our plans to invest employees that you know can be real leaders in the city one day to help them grow?

And do we have any sort of rewards and recognition employee program to reward employees for for doing good work?

Obviously, you can send an email and give a shout out in a meeting, but do we give out gift cards or are there do we have a budget for ad hoc bonuses?

Are there anything we do to reward employees who are saving the city money, going above and beyond, kind of doing those extra things?

Let me say it to your second question.

No, not at this time.

And all kinds of data around employee engagement and rewarding and acknowledgement and recognition recognition.

So totally agree we should do something even if we can't afford to with this tight budget, right?

We need to definitely get a system in place.

Well, let's keep talking if it's if I mean if an employee is saying through their hard work and ingenuity they save the taxpayers money, then what's the harmon maybe giving them a little bit of reward for doing so?

Yeah, I I agree.

I we just don't have anything in this current budget for that, but employee recognition is definitely important.

As to your first question, um leadership and development across the entire city is much needed.

We have great people and great leaders, and that is the thing that's just not happening consistently.

That is a passion point of mine, and based on my employee experience, I am capable of doing some of this.

So I'm trying to work that into my schedule.

We've done a few like group sessions to help bring in some with we lack of an official LMS or training position.

I'm trying to bring that into on my plate.

Also, um we do have some things that I like to call paid for once.

So we already have some of our insurance running through Highland.

They were paying for that in part of our premiums.

They have a an LMS system.

So we're looking at ways we can incorporate that.

It is geared for more safety, OSHA.

I've met with Matt at the street department to find out the way we can already use something that we already have.

And so that's where I'm at in this, you know, this tight budget structure.

What are we already paying for?

What do we already have that we can use to get some training and development in front of our people?

Council.

Um I've got kind of two data requests and then one just kind of comment, but first data requests, probably easy just to get it out of the way.

I wonder, can we get the historical data for the tuition reimbursement of how many people have been approved and how much like just the historical numbers for it?

I have right, I have this year in front of me.

Do you want that now?

If not, how far back?

Um just the last couple, just to kind of see where we are, just to show that trend and see what it is.

Um and then approvals and denials would be good there too.

Because I agree, like this is a better system to ensure that there's compliance with the rule.

But if there are changes needed or processes there that we can improve, let's have that conversation.

But would love just to see the historical data for that couple years.

Okay.

So and then the second kind of data request, just on retiree health insurance.

That's a big topic.

Um, and we've talked about it as a group and we've talked about it kind of strategically.

Obviously, it's a huge spend in it in a different kind of you know, budget addition to bring it back online.

But wondering, obviously, 2016 is the cutoff point, there are people before, so the 900,000 in the budget is paying for that benefit for people from before that date.

Is that number static?

Um, or does that move over time?

Will we see that come down?

And then any kind of recommendations process-wise to get us towards an end result where that is a benefit that we're thinking about, like looking at it strategically from an HR perspective of like how how are we in times where you know not increasing salaries or in a government role where increasing salaries is not really the thing that happens very often because it's public service and that's the world we live in.

Um, but how can we start to shape or or coalesce around something that allows people to feel like they're being taken care of for the service they're given to the city long term?

I think it gets to the broader questions that we'll have, and we're having a finance meeting coming up to talk about salary ordinance and all of those things, but that issue specifically is one that has a dramatic impact.

So just if there's any data on that, we'd love to kind of talk about that here if you've got any feedback too on that number.

Um Zach was to comment on that, and we'll go to Council Joshi.

Yeah, just a partial response there, uh Ryan.

Um in regards to the retiree health, um, and and I wish Tony was here because he can uh speak on on this more eloquently than than I can, but essentially um for for the for the retiree benefit that was turned off in 20 October of 2016, meaning that employees that started after that, and I think it was like October 4th, something like that.

Employees that started after that, this this benefit of if you work for the city for 20 years, you get retiree health insurance.

That that was discontinued, as you're pointing out.

There are people though that uh were already eligible at that point in time or started before that date and have reached an eligible uh you know, reached the 20 years in there in this.

We do not fund this in uh we did we did not do like an we do not fund the actual liability.

Uh ideally we would be putting aside dollars every year for future expenses because we we've guaranteed this benefit for these folks.

We don't do that.

We we we uh every year kind of say, oh what what's this worth for these people?

Oh, 900,000.

So that's how we we fund it.

Um currently the city's unfunded liability from an actual standpoint is about uh is about 30 million dollars.

I looked last year at just turning this benefit back on for everybody.

What what would that cost?

And it um if we continued the same model where we're not prepaying any part of it, um, yeah, there would not be an immediate cost of of turning it back on, because again, it'd be people that started after 20 six October 3rd of 2016, they wouldn't start to get this benefit until uh October 2036 at the earliest.

But by turning it back on without funding it, we increase our unfunded liability from 30 million up to 90 million.

Yeah.

And so we've got to find a strategy for turn it back on.

Yeah, so this is the third sec two and a half year, whatever we're at now, year and a half, but second we've been talking about this now for two and a half years.

I and we had this conversation probably at this meeting last year with the exact same process.

The idea here, now with kind of like HR being structured.

Can we can we start to work on a plan to do these things?

The idea of creating a fund for this, um after with now legislative process that we have all started to kind of build up as we get stronger and stronger as a community under the new administration, like maybe there's a pivot here for us to create some format where we can start to save up for this fund to create this this benefit that is very important for civil employees, um, specifically in like the public service space or spaces where you're using your body like streets or other things where you're you're giving up your youth, your ability to move, and then giving that service to a city for less than market rate in theory uh for your salary, um, and then you're not taken care of after.

But the the idea of let's get strategic on what that looks like to build an outcome where in the next couple of years this is something we're talking about, not again of an unfunded liability, which we all understand and that's the thing, but how we can create a system where that unfunded liability is not something that is a stopgap, that we're creative enough to get around it.

Um Tony Green is the preeminent expert probably in the country on stuff like this, and while we have him on council, it's make him work for our people to do these things.

Um he's not here, so I'm gonna say that and he can text me.

But um like the idea of let's figure out that creative source to be a leader in this space of taking care of our people the right way when other communities are fighting other things and you know having to turn off their fire departments or things that are they're facing or are more dire.

Can we do a uh a better job of taking the geniuses that we've gotten from the state to turn this into something that we can do for our people?

And I that's why I bring that up.

And then my comment on HR as a whole, um it comes to kind of that question of whether you're here or not, and the idea of having those hard conversations, which is great to carve that space out.

Um HR becomes the enemy of the people or the fear, it's a fear-based thing, and it's never that's not the case, right?

Like we know HR has to do those hard things, but all the other wonderful, super cool, happy, smart taking care of people things you do, um, which happen organically happen way more often when you're close.

Um so I do think there's something to that, but um the idea of knowing the pulse, feeling what people are feeling, and then being able to kind of respond to that in real time uh becomes something super effective to ensure that morale stays high, that HR doesn't become just a the secret arm of legal to defend the city from the people.

It it's uh it's truly a benefit in and of itself to make things easier, more rational to have benefits like an EAP that help you through hard times because we are just humans trying to do this together.

So I just say that like as you're looking and and thinking about your growth and what you're excited about with the the transition of HR to be more systemic and more institutionalized away from binders.

Um the idea of having those creative ideas to come first and and put those first.

Yeah, I would be very interested in exploring with you as well.

So we do have a lot of employees not at City Hall, so that has been an intention of mine to get out to those places.

Um of the success stories, and it's it's the easy stuff, right?

It's the stuff that's it's really easy to mess up but really easy to get right.

We have the employment law posters that need to go in every break room in all the buildings that we have.

And in this year, we we went around and delivered them, and there were some people that have never seen HR ever.

And so it's just easy to get out there and make contact with employees.

So when I have meetings, I often will go to their location because you know, not everybody is at City Hall either.

So I like to be in those spaces, and inevitably there's somebody that I bump into that says, hey, you have a minute, and then you know, it turns into a thing that I get to help with.

So I hear your point on that.

Yeah, for sure.

And just one closing there.

It's called human resources hasn't changed for a reason.

I mean, it is about the human beings that are in the roles, and you're advocating your role goal is to advocate for the human element of the people that are here.

And if you're doing a good job, we get to back it up.

If if and you're not doing a bad job, I'm not saying that.

But like there's just more to do to kind of improve the relationship between the department and the staff.

Um, it eliminates the need for us to advocate hard just from what pulpit we have as you're doing that on their behalf with them.

So thank you for what you do.

I know it's not easy.

Counselor Joshi.

Well, some of the comments actually um my esteemed counselor lock already made regarding where you're housed and and what that means with your connection to employees, but I understand your point, so I'm not gonna belabor that one.

The only other thing I was gonna request is that all the line items that kind of got moved into your budget from other line items would be easy to just sort of give us like where did those come from and how much were they, just so that we have an again an understanding of which other budgets may have you know moved their money over into another just my way of looking at the world.

Yeah, and and Dr.

Joshi, if I may, uh most of these, if not all of these, occurred in the 25 budget.

So for this year, these these functions on on this slide here.

So these are 24 to 25, these are not 25 to 26 changes.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure because I wasn't clear on that.

So okay, thank you.

Yeah, except for the tuition reimbursement.

Um for what's worth a lot of these uh were funded in the administration department, which is kind of the facilities management budget.

Uh so yeah, it just made more sense to move them over here.

All right.

If we have any other comments, I mean otherwise, um, we do have corporation council next, and then we were gonna go into a break early, but I asked fire department to come around 11:15, and so we can get them in before any kind of lunch break.

All right.

Any other questions for HR?

All right, corporation council.

All right, everyone.

We'll uh what you gotta get seated.

We'll go ahead and get started here.

You gotta use the if you want to get the slides pulled up and then you go ahead and get started.

Good morning, counsel.

Samantha Carn Corporation Council, thank you for having me today.

Um excited to go over our department's budget request for the year.

I think what you will largely see is that it is uh on par with last year.

I think ours went up around half a percent.

And most of that um, you'll see the numbers across the board are largely the same.

There are a few things that have moved here and there, but largely the same as last year.

Um so if we can move on to the slide on uh what our department does.

I think you all generally know what we do.

We're split um into, and I don't really mean like a divide there.

We have code enforcement and we have um the legal department, and so um you know both of those areas have their own distinct functions but also overlap in many ways.

Um, and so having them together, I think has been a really good uh way to align things uh from a legal and code uh standpoint.

From a legal standpoint, we are drafting ordinances, reviewing contracts, providing advice and counsel to the city and the council.

Um we represent the city in litigation and acquire land uh for city projects.

Our code enforcement officers, as you all know, work tirelessly out in the community to make sure that everyone is adhering to our local ordinances and they are responding to complaints also while they are out rounding in their various areas.

Excuse me.

Um for our 2025 accomplishments, uh it's a little bit difficult from a legal standpoint to put our accomplishments into a slide.

We are a support department, and so largely the things that we do are supporting things that are occurring in other departments that you would consider uh an accomplishment there, and we are providing support for those things.

So you might see that uh in the form of a contract that is negotiated down, for instance.

Um, but those are not super exciting things to talk about in the same manner that you might hear of accomplishments from police and fire, for instance.

Um we've also made consistent updates to the UDO.

Uh we've managed over 1,100 records requests at this point.

We're probably on track for at least 1,500 for the year, uh, which will be close to where we were at, a little more than last year.

Um from the code enforcement perspective, we've had a decrease in the number of right-of-way signs, and largely think that that's due to increased enforcement that our officers are out uh doing on a daily basis.

Uh also have had um increased compliance in our code enforcement cases.

So some of our sort of frequent flyers, if you will, have ticked down this year, also because of um some of the work that those code enforcement officers have been doing all along.

And I also wanted to make sure to um just point out that we do have Brent Liggett here who is running our code enforcement team, does a great job.

I know you all are very familiar with uh with him.

So moving on to our actual budget, then um roughly 75% of our budget comes from personnel.

So our team members, this is a very important part of what we do.

Um that would include uh me as corporation counsel, and then we have uh four attorneys.

Uh one of those is vacant right now.

We are not intending to fill that at least for this next year, probably for the next two years.

Um code enforcement includes four code enforcement officers.

We do have a vacancy here uh uh due to a recent unfortunate passing.

Uh we are planning to fill that vacancy, and we'll be posting for that uh somewhat soon.

We also do have a support staff of four and a half.

That includes our operations manager, paralegals, and then our deferral coordinator, who's also paralegal and part-time.

Our our personnel number, which you'll see down here at the bottom, the 2.3, that comes mostly from just the personnel line, but we also do have a deferral fund, and you'll see a slide on that later.

The deferral fund request is to fund only positions that actually work on deferral work.

And so a portion of that pays for my salary, my assistant's salary, and then the deferral coordinator's salary.

And this budget or this this particular bucket of money is to cover things like continuing education for our lawyers and also for our code enforcement officers.

That also does include payment for licensure fees.

And then the next slide then is on our professional services.

That particular bucket of money covers our lobbying fees and our outside counsel.

We generally use outside counsel as you know when we don't have the bandwidth to take something on, or we don't have the expertise in that particular area.

We have a very wide-ranging area of expertise among all of our lawyers, but it is very difficult to cover all areas of the law, and so we do end up uh needing to hire outside counsel on occasion.

Uh finally, our next slide then is fleet management.

This particular bucket of money covers our uh cars for our code enforcement officers.

Um that would be their leases, any maintenance, gas, etc.

Uh, and then finally, administrative overhead.

This is just essentially your supplies, postage, um, letterhead, things of of those natures.

Um, and then probably um the next one is deferral funds.

So this is the one I talked about earlier, where um we have a portion of my salary, our deferral coordinator's salary, and then my assistant's salary who are paid out of that particular fund.

That is not taxpayer money, that is money that we are collecting due to ordinance violations.

And then the next fund is our code enforcement fund that covers abatements.

So when we are um forced to have to abate, whether it's tall grass or anything else, um, we use that fund to pay for that and then uh end up getting reimbursed by the uh property owner that we're enforcing against.

And then I think the next slide, if I remember correctly, is a summary.

So this will show you the difference from 24 to 25 to 26, and obviously there was a significant increase in that 25 budget, and that was due to code enforcement being moved um into the legal department budget.

Um but as you can see from a bottom line dollar amount, we are uh very uh similar to where we were last year with our request.

Any questions?

Question.

It's all right, might if I go have some questions.

Okay.

So I'm trying to understand just so we can look at the this the slide that you're on right now.

Um Zach, can you let me know?

So this has budget for 25.

Where are we tracked for actual spend in some of these items in terms of year-to-date spending on 25 budget?

Year to date, or where we anticipate spend to land because you know that's that's the what we budgeted on 25, where you know, and then we have the spend for 24.

So I know they're kind of they're different, so I'd like to compare spend to spend, not budget to spend.

We'll we'll pull it.

Uh I don't have it at my fingertips.

We can pull it.

Okay.

Um from that, just help me understand some of this because I understand we did bring code enforcement in.

Is that the big reason for a lot of you know the increases we had from 24 to 25, such as administrative overhead, tripling, um the uh uh training, uh quadrupling personnel, I understand.

Um so we've got a couple of those things that went up quite a bit from 24 to 25.

If we spend all of the money, you'll get me that number.

Um but I'm also raising the question too, and I know you're you said you're down an attorney uh with city council kind of uh using kind of outside legal.

Does that help reduce some of the caseload, reduce some of the costs that your department might have?

Because I'm seeing either increasing or generally flat in most cases.

Uh so I would say uh the the work that that particular attorney was doing was not work that was related to council work.

It was a lot of records request work, which we are now um shifting and using our paralegals to do sort of a first cut on a number of those uh records requests, whether they're paper records or body cam.

Um the body cam requests take a significant amount of time to go through because generally uh when officers are called out, it's not one officer at a particular scene.

And so you're going through you know, three, maybe four or more officers body cam footage to see whether there are things that need to be redacted.

She spent a significant amount of time on that, and we are working with our paralegals to have them trained to work on those things first.

Um as far as the overall work that we're doing for council, our office does still support the council, and we are still doing a significant amount amount of work with you.

Uh so I would say no, that has not decreased by virtue of her departure.

Okay.

Um professional fees when you use um outside counsel for kind of specialty things.

Um how are those determinations made?

Obviously, I want you to have the best legal counsel in every decision because bad legal decisions can cost the city money.

Um but I want to make sure if it's something we can do in-house with competency that we're doing that.

Um then I know for uh 25 and into for 24 too on the professional fees.

Did we ever get a number on um how much we we kind of spent on the affiliate review and the Chris Kindle market legal consulting on that?

I know we've asked that question before and we didn't really get an answer.

So we provided um the remittance sheets as well as redacted invoices for Fagri.

Um I can provide those to you as well.

Uh off the top of my head, I don't know what the dollar amount was that was spent on uh the affiliate review committee.

I will tell you it was significant.

That was an area of expertise that our department does not have, and as you know, coming out of that review, um many times I think it was said in a number of those meetings that our office should not be supporting 501c3 work.

It's not an area of expertise that we have.

Okay, so ballpark was it?

We're talking hundreds of thousands, like how much I would not say hundreds, I would say probably a hundred.

A hundred thousand.

I I could see that.

I can look at it and get you a number, but but yes, not hundreds.

Questions from the council?

Counselor Snyder.

Hey, Sam.

Okay.

Some of those you're gonna hearing again.

So I apologize for that, but I've saved some overarching comments because I made them to you.

One is across the board, and and specifically in your department, engineering, um really about all of them.

The reduction on uh training and conferences is a sticking point for me.

Because why and I while they may not you may not always get anything out of them, the continuous attendance at these things is really the I believe the more important feature.

Um I mentioned this will be my 21st year of aim, maybe my 21st consecutive year of road school be my 21st consecutive APWA.

And once you're there, then you get asked to present.

And that's I those it's in those settings I think Carmel is shown in the most positive light because it gives us that air of authority that we are still the best and we know what we're talking about.

So that's just a general comment across the board on all conferences.

Like I sometimes they're not the most educational for the employee, but sometimes that's not the point.

Um so that's not 100% directed at you, but across the board, Zach, that's a general comment.

Um the $600,000 for outside services.

I I'd asked you about that, and I I just wanted to kind of bring that that number doesn't scare me.

To do that in-house would be my math was uh it was 235 plus 155 all in, so 400,000 to add another attorney paralegal.

Um that may or may not have the expertise needed.

So cool.

And that's split between my understanding, split between two lobbyists, one federal, one state, and I can't fathom cannot fathom paying a lobbyist less than one to two hundred thousand dollars.

And the absolute worst position anybody hiring a lobbyist can be in is to be the lowest paid client because then you're just being used.

Um so I don't know what we're getting out of that, especially at such a low dollar amount.

I don't know what I've never met a lobbyist that would do any work for 45,000.

So I I question if it's even worth throwing the money at, or if it's something that is critical path for the city of Carmel, then I think we need to be serious about who we're hiring and what we're paying them.

Um kind of you've got these software maintenance contracts.

Like why aren't those in IT?

Um IT's budget.

That's a general kind of seems like the IT should be the clearinghouse.

Um the copy machine, you've got $6,600, which is a sizable increase, and I assume you either needed to buy a new one or re-upping your lease.

And I would I would say is it is it appropriate for each attorney to have their own printer?

I mean, I I would think so, just for confidentiality, but is that what you're is that how it's set up currently?

No, that's not currently how it's set up.

And I and I understand your point on confidentiality.

Um I do think that our office is very good about making sure that you know we're looking at only the things that we need to look at.

Um so I would say from that standpoint, I don't think that it's necessary for everyone to have their own printer.

Um that's a nice to have, but I don't feel like we're in a nice to have land right now, unfortunately.

Um and if I could just take a moment, I think one of the software maintenance contracts that you were referencing is probably our subscription to Westlaw.

And so that is within our budget because it's simply something that that we are using.

Okay.

I could be wrong about that, but I I believe that that's probably uh why that is sitting in our budget, not ITEs.

If I could clarify there, uh big picture wise, if if it's a if it's a software tool that every department uses, or generally every department uses something like uh uh Office 360, Microsoft, like that is funded through IT's budget, but if it tends to be a more specific, yeah, it's it's only this department that that uses this software.

IT still reviews those contracts, make sure that there are any cybersecurity risks are are addressed.

Um but ultimately we fund those type of expenses out of the applicable department, not IT.

Thank you.

Um your library reference materials then at $20,000 is I thought West Law is a research subscription, so do you need the hardback as well?

I mean, I'm a hard I mean I'm I'm a paper pencil and paper thing.

We do not have hard back.

We have in my office you'll see an old set of books, but we are not updating those.

Um it used to be that there would be leaflets that came out each year as an update, and we do not then what is the 20,000 for for library reference materials?

Um I can look at that, and I could have misspoken on the um software contract.

I know we also have contracts for um uh like trucks with the state for um any of the fees that we're dealing with there, and so it it's possible that that was the IT uh cost.

I can double check that for you though.

Okay, thank you.

My general general thing is I I question whether we're getting anything for the amount of money we're paying lobbyists, um, and then as a general thing, because I have a microphone in front of me, um the county went to a paywall for records requests and uh property searches, and I think that is so asinine to the taxpayer.

Um and I just want to explain that what that means now is our attorneys or paralegals now have to drive to the courthouse or pay individual subscriptions, and I would still love for the city of Carmel to buy that prescription subscription and then put it on the Facebook page so that Carmel can have something they already paid for once, twice, probably ten times, have a login for it.

Council.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um to be respectful, do I call you corporate counselor carn?

I want to be respectful.

But I call everybody else director.

Okay, thank you, Sam.

Thanks.

That's a lot to get out there.

Sam.

Um thank you for meeting with us.

And I was able to go through all my questions.

But the one thing, and I've it's I don't think it's anybody's fault, but I did make a request for 2024 and 2025, if uh, which I think would also address um counselor Austin's request.

So I was looking at all the uh outside corporate counsel fees that have been paid and you know who it went to and as much information as you could give me without uh damaging attorney client privilege.

So um having said that, I haven't received it yet.

So I would like to get that, but if you could just go ahead and copy the whole council.

Sure.

And we are working on that, and I apologize that I haven't gotten it to you yet, but yes, we will get that after.

Okay, but thank you.

Councillor Locke.

Sure.

Um so been asking this question.

Um, what are you most excited about this budget year?

Obviously, we're going into a year where we're talking about kind of cuts and stuff, but this is your second year basically with the code enforcement underneath.

I'm your process, what are the things you and your team are looking forward to?

Then I do have a couple more questions from there, but we'd love to hear your take.

Well, we're lawyers, so nobody gets that excited about the work that we do other than us, right?

Um but I would say the thing that I'm probably uh most excited about is we are a support function, that's what we do, and the work that we do varies based on the work that other departments are doing.

And so I look at the um the things that police and fire are working on, or um the things that co that code enforcement is working on.

Those are the things that I think are interesting.

Um, and like I said, it drives our work.

So I I continue to be excited about being a support function.

That's the role that we play, and it's the role we'll always play.

Um from a code enforcement perspective, I think um, you know, they are continuing to work on their uh timing with cases, they're tracking those things.

Um, Brent has sent me significant information about the types of cases that they are working on, the impact that has had on the community, and so you know, probably from an outward perspective, the more interesting and exciting part of that would be code enforcement because I think those are direct things that you will see in the community where maybe there was an ISOR property that now um has been cleaned up, maybe it's been sold, has a new owner.

Those are the more important and interesting parts, I guess I would say.

Yeah, for sure.

And then um from a team perspective, obviously you're a small and mighty team.

There are support to support, like from a legal perspective, having that kind of back office and those people helping manage the trains and keeping lawyers on the rails is super super important.

Um do you feel like your team has the resources it needs to accomplish its work?

And then this will filter into questions I have about outside counsel too, but I want to make sure they're okay.

Um kind of this process that they've got the resources they need to support everybody in the city.

I do think that they are okay.

I wish that there were awards given out like the parks department for lawyers because I would give them out for my team.

They are incredible.

Um they do very, very good work, and um they they love the city and are very uh you know focused on the work that they do and how that affects the city on a day-to-day basis.

So I think they're doing well.

Um obviously when you have a position that's open and you're not filling it, you're having to figure out where that work goes.

But I think that they have all been willing to step up, and it's not that it's all fallen on one person, it's been sort of divvied across um several people.

So I think from that standpoint, they're they're all doing well and um feel that they have what they need uh to succeed in their roles.

Okay, and I yeah, I share that.

I know it's you're not new new to the team, but new to the leadership of the team.

So like that idea of being an attorney leader in a group of attorneys, I just echo concept of having you present and you there for them and supporting them, knowing full well that you are another set of billable hours that can help them through super super important.

So I say that.

And then on the outside council, while the number on its face doesn't seem high, um, how many relationships outside attorneys do we have?

Um, and then there's a management of those relationships that goes into that.

So when I when I look at that and I think about kind of how that plays with four attorneys on your team, having to manage the relationship, I think it's nine.

I don't know what the exact you can tell me after I finish my diatribe, but like the the idea of of managing those relationships and those issues uh becomes kind of your your like filter point on how that goes.

So wondering how you're doing on that front, if we have too many, or if we're getting to a point where it becomes unsustainable, the idea of adding another like stable attorney on our team that is the cheapest uh labor hour you'll get from legal work as an internal government attorney may make sense to kind of look at just to help manage that stable of outside attorneys and help you got going.

So I guess the question there is how many outside relationships do we have?

How are we managing that?

Do you see that winding down as work comes off, or do you see there being ramp up?

Um because I I do get to a point where for me sometimes you have to hire the expertise that you need, but you also do it to kind of give external coverage for process that allows another veil of kind of attorney client privilege that gives attorney-client privilege to the attorney client privilege.

And I'm trying to avoid that.

Would love for us to avoid that as a group as we work together uh to kind of get through the issues we have where we're not hiring attorneys to be our attorneys for things that are protecting us from the city.

Um and I just say that as a matter of statement.

But the idea of managing that many outside relationships is my just baseline concern when I see that number creeping up year to year.

So would love your thoughts on that.

So I would say at any given time, there are probably five main um relationships that we've got with other firms that are doing any work for us.

Um that varies depending on the type of work that we're working on.

Uh, but I would say that's probably the core is four to five um firms that do the majority of the work that we are not doing in-house.

Um you are correct, it does take time to uh manage those relationships.

That's part of my job.

Um I take that very seriously.

I do not hire outside counsel for a veil of protection.

Um we are hiring outside counsel, like I said, when we don't have the bandwidth internally because people are just too busy, or we don't have that area of expertise.

And as you know, as a lawyer, there are just so many areas of extra of expertise out there, you cannot fill that.

And and it may be something where it this year we need a particular area of expertise, and it doesn't come up for five years.

And so it doesn't make sense to hire somebody in that area.

Okay.

And then topic de sure yesterday, um, just the legal relationship if we're going to explore, we'd love your feedback as we get into further conversations on the experience, Carmel.

Obviously, knowing that 501c3 law is something that we have been told we are not capable of being capable of doing, and we have hired outside counsel to do it.

Um, the idea that we are thinking about outsourcing an entire division of city government to a nonprofit and the relationship between us and your office specifically, I think is going to be very, very important if that's gonna have any opportunity to move.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sam, thank you so much.

I I just want to say thank you to our wonderful attorneys.

You guys take my calls anytime, day or night, so I'm just so appreciative of that.

But I do really want to focus on code enforcement.

And we haven't talked a lot about them and their their important role that they play in the city.

So I want to give kudos to Brent and his team and all of the hard work that they do around the city to keep keep us for a lack of better terms, looking nice and people following the rules.

So I just wanted to throw it out there.

They had a devastating loss this year.

And um my heart goes out to that entire department.

And just want to say thank you to Brent and his crew.

So that was it.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

It has been a very difficult loss.

That team, as you know, has worked together for a very long time.

Um Deeran was an integral part of it.

So thank you for that.

Any other questions?

Counselor Schneider?

Um speaking of code enforcement, when the that move first happened, I had fairly strong reservations about it because I was I was concerned that they may not be as quick to do things because now they've got legal hovering right over them.

Um I haven't seen that.

I I don't know if that's happened, but more importantly, even if it were happening, I guess the positive spin would be you say no because we can't enforce X because of Y, then I would think you would bring Y to the council's attention so we can fix that so that they can enforce it.

That hasn't happened, or maybe maybe it has just been buried in other areas.

But is that something that's happening?

Is Brent coming to you with things or anybody saying, hey, we we thought we could enforce this, and then you guys say, well, probably not, and then is there something we need, are there things we need to be fixing to help them do what they need to do?

So I wouldn't say that uh there are a lot of questions about can we enforce X, Y, or Z.

Um, you know, as I just mentioned, Brent and his team have been here for so long, and they are experts in what they do.

Um I would say that the things that I have seen instead are hey, we're seeing this, this, and this, and there are conversations between either um Brent and Benjamin, Brent and me about enforcement and how we're going to handle that when we move to filing a case um for enforcement, that type of conversation more than uh a question about whether something can or can't be enforced.

Okay.

That's great to hear.

Um, and then one final question without any details, but working on at least two larger cases currently, I believe.

Do you have enough money in this year's budget to get through there to get through those plus your day-to-day stuff that you use outside council for, or is there any possibility that I want to be ready if there's gonna be some sort of additional appropriation?

Sure.

So um I will give you what I believe just off the top of my head right now.

My uh feeling is that we're probably about three quarters of the way through our um professional services budget for this year, which aligns basically with where we're at right now.

So I would I would say I think we'll be fine.

Um, but if I could leave that door open just in case, um, you know, like I said, I think we should be okay, and a lot of that work is handled in-house.

Um, but I appreciate your concern.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Well, thank you so much.

And uh, I do want to side note like your attorneys that we work with, Sarah Gay and Benjamin, uh, they've been fantastic.

So an Allie.

I don't work with her as much, but I'm you have you got a great team.

So thank you.

They're incredible.

All right.

Uh and I also want to thank the uh fire department for being ready early.

Does anyone need another restroom break or you just want to jump into it?

All right, let's jump into it.

Although after this, we'll probably do a lunch break.

So if you want to order some food, maybe we'll message somebody.

Two-hour break.

Probably I'd love to get done earlier today.

I think that's I think that was the will of the council, right?

Instead of having a long break, we could end the day earlier.

Is that what you would prefer?

I know when I'm ending my day.

Yes.

So however you want to schedule it, I know when I'm walking out of the street.

When are you walking out?

Three o'clock.

We could end before that, is what I'm saying.

I'll wag my finger at you.

Um, yeah, after this, we'll probably do a lunch break.

So if you want to order food, let us know.

Thanks, Mark.

And Chief, whenever you've got all settled, you can start talking.

All right.

Well, good morning, Mr.

President, members of the council.

Joel Thacker, honored to serve as fire chief for the city of Carmel.

Um here with me today is uh Chief Luke Ray, Denise Snyder, Erica Reinhardt, and Jesse Baker.

And uh we also have our uh local 4444 president Sean Sutton and Vice President Um Mark Deitch.

And so total team effort here.

I know the this morning we Denise uh was looking through, we've had 85 revisions to our documents here.

So we are really doing uh due diligence uh to ensure that um we've got the proper number of personnel and funding to carry out our mission.

So we can advance some slides.

So I want to have our mission statement.

I I think uh the majority of the fire department know any time I'm presenting in front of them.

I always have our mission, vision, and core values in front of us, right?

So every decision we're making, every conversation we're having is related back to why we are here, and that is to be courteous, be courageous, and safe.

And that is internal and external.

Our men and women do an incredible job of this in 2024, over 9500 incidents, uh, which probably equates to over 20,000 responses.

Um at some of our statistics so far this year, we're about 540 incidents ahead of where we were this time in 2024.

So we're on pace to see 600 to 800 additional incidents uh by the end of 2025.

Uh our vision statement, I just want to make a quick point about this.

Uh, provide the highest quality of customer service of any fire department in the state of Indiana.

Over my 34 years now, I've had the opportunity to travel around the state country quite a bit.

And that's a lofty goal.

Um, but I tell you again, our men and women do an incredible job of this.

I brought a card.

It's rarely uh a week goes by that I'm not receiving a text message, a phone call, or mail.

And you know, this individual that sent this card had to call 911, was embarrassed to do it, called 911, and our personnel showed up.

And in that card, she makes the comments, I felt cared for.

And that is what we do each and every day.

And I think that is reflective in the slides that we have going forward.

Some of our accomplishments.

Certainly, with Mayor Fincom, I can't thank her enough for her support of me and the fire department over the last year, just celebrating a year here.

And of course, all of you.

And we're staffing that fifth ambulance, station 42, adding two firefighters to the West Side.

You know, our folks that work at station uh 42 in that area really appreciate not only the transporting service, but the two additional firefighters that are out there.

You drive out on the west side, we have a lot of projects underway out there.

We have some incredible homes.

We toured one the other day, it's unlike any that I've ever seen.

And it's in excess of 25,000 square feet.

You know, it's set back from the road, could present challenges, and just the technology within this home is incredible.

So having two additional staff out there, very important.

Uh we've uh recently partnered with uh Carmel High School and their EMT class.

So now their EMT students are riding out on Carmel ambulances.

This is a great way for us to work with them and maybe see some potential recruits of the future, and to help them achieve their EMT certification.

Additionally, uh we have an intern, they have a new graduate pathways program.

We have an intern that's uh working with us the school year who was in the MT class last year.

Maybe she has some interest in fire service, uh, but she's working to help us through different programs.

Some other accomplishments, starting the fire station remodel, uh starting the fire train uh training ground updates, um update on our EMS equipment, which again, if we look at some of our statistics, uh they're they're very high.

Our excuse me.

Our uh cardiac arrest responses and our return of spontaneous circulation is extremely high, nearly 50 percent.

And I would attribute, as we looked historically, since we've started to put some of the CMS equipment into place, we see the return on investment there, and it's in life saved.

Uh updating firefighting nozzles, which we haven't really done holistically in 20 years, and it kicked off a two-year personnel development.

You'll see some of that in our training costs, and a new tactical support unit, replacing a fire truck that was nearly 30 years old.

Personal services.

Um currently we are at 170 sworn, 12 professional staff, five part-time.

We are down 12 currently.

Uh, so that is through some retirements, some medical retirements.

Does incorporate adding the fifth ambulance out on the west side?

As you recall, we appropriated some dollars this year uh to make that happen.

We didn't add any additional staff.

And really, we need to be uh around 182 for minimum staffing.

And you see, I'm I'm talking about adding 18 positions there, and and the breakdown of that, I really feel by the end of 2026, we need 40 additional firefighters.

We have 13 laterals that started yesterday.

We're down 12.

I have at least 12 retirements in 2026 that I know of that have declared.

So there could be some others that wake up and say, you know, I'm done, right?

So there's the concern about that, and those are really front-loaded in the first half of the year, those 12.

We have one that's leaving in the end of the year.

So with that, really equates um, and then we allow 10 off per shift.

We're averaging about four off sick per day.

And so to ensure that we have proper staffing, because honestly, we've we've had some struggles here throughout this year, keeping all of our units fully staffed and in service.

And that's something that weighs on me heavily.

And I've been out a couple times.

I still am licensed paramedic.

However, there's probably a few other folks in the queue you want with initial treatment instead of me.

But I've jumped out there, we've had some admin jump out there.

It's not a place I want to be.

And so the staffing is what we need to help with to ensure that our staffing levels are maintained, all of our trucks are in service.

Hey Chief, you just take a minute to talk about the first time we've done the lateral process.

Sure.

So I talked a little bit about the the lateral process.

The police department utilizes this to a great deal.

Carmel Fire Department hasn't.

We've typically, you know, our process takes about 12 months to get someone into the academy, and then six months from there.

So we're looking a year and a half before we get people on the street.

And looking at our vacancies and the number of folks retiring, there was no way we were going to be able to keep up.

So looking to do some type of lateral process.

First time we ever did it, we all came together.

That started in May with the application process, had about 70 apply.

And really, we have individuals in class again started yesterday.

Minimum of two years in the pension fund.

So they had to be in at minimum of two years in the 77 pension fund.

But we have some that are 16, 18, 19 year veterans.

And to talk to them about why they want to come to Carmel, right?

They know what Carmel's going to provide them.

But also they're bringing so we can do an accelerated program.

They're going to be in class for about six weeks.

We call that an orientation.

I kind of call that an indoctrination to the way that we do things here in the city.

And now we'll be able to get those individuals right on the street and help with staffing through the end of the year, into the first quarter of next year, and then we'll start to see a significant amount of retirements at that point.

And hope to bring those folks to you later in October to meet them.

So Ben Zach and I and our team have been working closely here on figuring out our overtime costs.

You'll see 2026 overtime 570,000.

Could be a little shocking to see that when we're on pace for 5.2 million.

Again, that is the reason why we need to hire additional staffing.

So we're seeing, I think, a reduction in the number of individuals that are interested in taking overtime.

We have some folks that are working 72, 96 hours straight.

At some point, that's going to break them.

We cannot continue to do that to put people on trucks.

So we think that the additional staffing, we know in the first quarter of the year, we're going to be having some significant overtime costs, but we're looking at moving 1.5 million from our 2025 dollars, and as that could explain that a little bit more.

We're gonna have about 1.5 million and 25 dollars that we want to move into 26.

So ultimately we'll be funding our 26 overtime costs around 2 million dollars.

What I feel is once we have our recruits, because we're looking to have 25 recruits starting in in January, once they are able to graduate and hit the street, I think the second half of our year, barring any unforeseen medical retirements or other individuals that decide to retire, we should be in pretty good shape to cover vacation days and sick time.

Next slide.

Community risk reduction program.

This is our safe house program.

This is Mr.

Carmel, John Moriorty out around at every event.

And but we have made a little bit of a reduction here.

We've created foundation, we're working on funding to make certainly the Safe House program sustainable with smaller or eventually no tax dollars, right?

So that that is funding itself through solid programs, and we have uh a number of individuals that are excited about that and contributing to the success.

That is we have we're finishing up the install of our lift there, which was kind of the last piece in order to make that handicap accessible for our schools, and I believe we're gonna start seeing those programs later this fall, our uh Carmel schools.

Next is emergency response.

Um, this is what we do every day, and uh, this is the supplies needed to through uh fire hazardous materials and water rescue, um property loss, and what we're seeing is really a reduction in federal dollars.

We're seeing a reduction in state grant funds, we're seeing a reduction in state personnel support, and so we're going to see a need for increased local community incident support.

So when bad things are happening in Carmel, we're going to have to be stepping up to take care of that.

And and our street department does an excellent job.

I said our our school kids are probably really disappointed in the street department because we had a significant snow late, you know, in the winter time, seven or eight inches.

My friends up in South Bend laugh when we shut things down over seven or eight inches.

We had that, and school went on the next day, right?

Because our street department was out there taking care of business.

And then the tornado coming through.

We have a tornado that impacts our city to the degree that it did.

Again, the work of the street department, uh, fantastic job.

The kids were back in school the next day, right?

So we're gonna have to take care of ourselves uh moving forward.

I'd also like to point out uh St.

Vincent hospital recently did a study, they kind of looked county wide, uh, but some caramel specific information is that we are from 2025 to 2030.

We're looking at an increase, so the age group 65 and over.

We're looking at a population growth rate of nearly 22 percent to our city.

So we're already seeing runs increase, uh incidence recrease from 25 to 26, and over the next five years looking at this population growth in this age bracket that will likely present uh some additional responses for us.

Next slide.

Special programs.

This is uh our honor guard.

They had a busy week last week with 9-11.

We had uh public safety medical, Dr.

Stephen Moffat, who founded that in 1990, no doubt has saved lives of countless police officers and firefighters around the state.

He passed away.

His daughter lives in Carmel, uh, asked our team to help support her and her family during his funeral services.

So our honor guard stepped up, which is we had Carmel Police Department involved in that as well, and then uh we had a retiree pass away, and so we had a funeral on Saturday.

You know, they don't just show up the day of the event, you know, like the 9-11 memorial, a beautiful event, uh a way to remember uh the the lives lost and the men and women that stepped in the gap that day.

It takes a lot of time to put that together.

Uh any funeral request, and then not only do they help at the local level, but they represent well at the state level and federal level, and in fact, this week uh members of our team are gonna be in Colorado Springs at the IAF Memorial out there representing the city of Carmel.

Next is hiring recruits and promotions.

This is all about getting our folks ready to hit the streets after that six-month recruit program.

Again, 2025, we saw recruit class of 13, 2026.

We're pushing for a recruit class of 25.

And so we have some increased expenses with their PPE, uh, the training and equipment that goes to outfit and onboard these individuals.

Next slide.

Health and safety program.

We do have increased dollars for mental health.

Uh, in the year that I've been here, we have had as I came in, we had an individual uh medically retire, and then we've had three additional folks medically retire from PTSD in this job.

And so we have taken you know, one of the line items from 10,000 to 30,000, now we're taking it to 60,000 in this.

Uh it's not just available for our firefighters, all of our personnel uh are available for this service.

You heard our HR director talk about uh a new program that may be forthcoming that we're excited about as we continue to work out the details there.

I'm wearing a wristband for one of our firefighters that is battling with stage four colon cancer.

We have another firefighter currently that has bladder cancer and prostate cancer.

And cannot I cannot underestimate the impact of these programs, right?

We're doing things like ultrasounds, which we've had some success stories of cancer found so early that some doctors are shocked at how early we found it, right?

So our firefighters can uh get treated early and get back as soon as possible.

And so this is very important part of our budget program and ticked up a little bit, but again, working with public safety medical, they realize the impact that all municipalities are facing.

They've worked with us on those costs.

Next slide.

Vehicles and buildings.

Yeah, our buildings are aging, they're in use 24-7, 365.

Uh our apparatus are aging.

Uh we do have multiple trucks on order, currently three engines and one ladder on order.

Um, you know, depending on how well I do here.

I may or may not see those trucks ever delivered.

Right?

Uh we need uh two additional engines and another ladder to be ordered in 26.

It's a three to four year bill time, and the costs are continuing to skyrocket.

I will say, uh Mayor Finkham and uh and her work and Senator Banks, there was a Senate hearing on September 10th, on the eve of September 11th.

Uh Senator Hawley from Missouri had a Senate hearing which he had a fire chief, he had the president of the IAF on there, and two apparatus manufacturing companies.

And they grilled them pretty hard on, you know, while their revenues are growing exponentially in the billions of dollars.

Uh while one of the CEOs of an apparatus company is making six million dollars a year.

They can't get trucks to fire departments.

And it's not just a local problem, it's a national problem.

And not trying to be overly dramatic, but I think it's a national security problem.

So it is being addressed.

Um so we didn't we do see cost increase here.

Engine 346 has been out of service for nearly four months as we have struggled to work with uh an engine company to get an engine to replace that truck.

It's ridiculous what we're dealing with there, and that was fifty thousand dollars uh for that repair.

So we've had one company, engine 346, which is very busy.

Um I think you know, Lieutenant Sutton in the back will tell you he's trying to find time to for downtime uh occasionally there, but out of service for for nearly four months.

And uh so we're trying to figure out you know how we can be better around the country with this, but we know there's going to be increased costs.

Uh so currently, you know, we have six fire stations, a training center, and a headquarters.

We have six pumpers, two ladder trucks, five ambulances, primary equipment, and we're blessed to have three pumpers, a ladder, and two ambulances in reserve, thank goodness.

You know, if that were to happen in some other organization, they're down a truck, and they're gonna have to beg borrow and steal from someone else.

So this is another line item that uh we're taking very seriously and uh and looking at.

Next slide, please.

Uh some building projects.

Um President Awesome, you may ask uh a little bit later about you know where we made some cuts.

Uh some of our capital projects we've had to kick down the road, although some high priority items, um generator repair, for instance.

Uh we're looking at uh and and Zach can talk a little bit more about this.

Um 158,000 and maybe uh some type of capital lease, five-year capital lease to fund some high priority projects uh in 2026 there.

Next slide.

Uh risk management, and this is really coming in and again working with the mayor and other uh city departments is really taking a holistic look at our at our OSHA practices and principles, our general hygiene uh around the city, and so I think maybe this is spread over a couple of different budgets, but really to come in and take a closer look, working with uh utilities, working with streets, um, and making sure that we are up to date on the required trainings and making sure that all of our employees are safe and operating in a safe manner.

And so we've added some some dollars in there.

I don't know that that's happened here to the best of my knowledge, and so it's just probably time for a good audit review of those practices.

Um next is our training and travel costs.

Again, you'll see an increase here.

I think over the last couple of years we've seen a decrease in this.

And a quote that I've heard before and I've used, I'm gonna use it here again today.

It says, let no firefighters go say that their training failed them.

So really three pillars here today is our medical surveillance, is our station and equipment maintenance, and our training.

These are vital to maintaining firefighter wellness and overall department success.

And these are the three areas I've you know, as I've put out messages to our department that we cannot compromise on, and that we have to ensure that we're doing everything we can for all of our staff to ensure that they are well to do their jobs and create overall department success.

Administrative overhead.

These are our equipment costs to maintain some of our daily operations.

I think the police chief pointed out in working with the county.

Uh there was a little bit of change in uh some software costs and some cell phone costs to where we're paying for that upfront, and we'll work with the county on some reimbursement there.

So this was about a $70,000 increase from last year to this year, uh paying that up front.

So we'll continue to work with the county.

I think we have a meeting with them coming up.

We're working well with them to make sure that's taken care of moving forward.

Couple other items here, Mr.

President, if you let me finish up IT software and subscriptions.

I know working with IT Kevin Cusamano, I can't say uh enough about him and his team, as we have looked at software across the spectrum, right?

And really doing a review, and I and we'll continue to do that.

What programs that we have that could is something shared across all departments, right, where we can get more bang for our buck and and do a better job there.

So continued work there, uh refinement.

We do have some new software opening up, some some new programs opening up that we're pretty excited about, but the fire reporting nationally is changing January 1, 26.

So we've had to update our fire reporting software.

So that's a big change.

Looking at some of our staffing, our fire reporting software, um, our incident response software.

Uh so we're adding some modules uh from a particular company there.

But it Kevin is doing great work from a cyber standpoint, which is very important to me and where I came from.

You know, they're reviewing all of our programs to make sure that we're not taking on a program that could be a risk to the city as well.

Are these companies doing their due diligence to ensure that they're doing things on the back end?

Uh finally, a couple other funds here, uh, currently renamed to I think the paramedic emergency ambulance and fire service capital fund.

For the sake of this, we'll continue to call it the ambulance fund.

Uh lease bond obligations, uh, miscellaneous equipment and supplies, uh, our total expenses there, our fire pension fund.

So this is our 19.

What is it?

33.

37 funds, sorry.

We have the 77 fund and the 37 fund.

We have individuals still in the 37 fund.

Uh we pay for up front, we get reimbursed back.

Um similar to uh CPD.

And I think other funds we're using for the first time here is our opioid dollars, at least the first time in the fire department.

Zach and correct me if I'm wrong.

But there was an appropriation, uh similar appropriation was assumed for current year, but I don't think we ended up paying for that employee out of the opioid dollars this year.

So we moved our mobile integrated health paramedic to uh the uh opioid fund there.

Additionally, a one part-time member to help with MIH duties, and uh it's it's a mental health, it's a part-time mental health.

Uh, the police have a really strong mental health program.

We um work with Hannah and some of the team over there.

Um I want to collaborate, but I also want to provide additional support for our team there, so we have a part-time position we're gonna fund out of the opioid dollars as well there, and then our hazard materials fund for uh some uh to update some of our hazardous materials uh detectors.

Um general fund summary.

We are up, I think uh increase of 10% overall, so it's a 9% in our personnel services from last year to this year.

And uh with that, Mr.

President, yield back and happy to take any questions.

All right, thank you for a thorough presentation.

You want to start off?

You'd like to start off sometimes.

Who would like to questions for our fire department?

All right, well, I'm getting ready.

So I asked the same question to our um police department for um this year appreciate everything you've done.

I don't see things that really need to be cut, but 27 is going to be even tougher.

So looking ahead, what are the things that how are we going to handle that?

You know, we don't I know it's a year away, but what are the items that we do need but could be looked at for 27?

Well, I you know, I think some tough decisions uh if if there are not some significant changes made, and I don't know that that there are gonna be because you know we are we're 90 percent people, and people is our product that we deliver each and every day.

So while we could look at you know office supplies and and really shredding no pen intended, uh a lot of other um aspects, right?

Um there's gonna be difficult decisions I think made you know citywide.

Uh but we'll look at um some other uh benefits, look at um some fringe things may need to be uh discussed there.

I think um community relation, I think we have and again I've talked to uh a number of individuals.

I have meetings set up with folks that as they come through and see some of the things they say, how can I contribute to the fire department?

What are areas that through my company personal donations?

And it's really you know, going into our community relations program, our safe house and our education programs.

Um additionally, then we're getting into equipment and and people.

And I think that's you know, frankly, something that we can't get into.

Um as I said, our buildings are aging, our our apparatus are aging, and uh with additional, so really we're looking at 24 retirements over the next 18 months.

And so it's gonna be tough, but um certainly um reducing um you know, look at really what is critical to the mission and having those difficult conversations about you know certain programs.

Um, we have um we are outsourcing our our EMS billing in in 2026 as something that I've discussed with our billing department throughout the year.

Uh difficult conversations to have.

Um you know, and um so there's you know three positions that's that's out of our budget in in 26, going with the third a third party company there.

Uh so not um fun decisions, very difficult involving people that are doing their very best.

Um so hopefully can find something else there.

I don't have a great answer other than you know, continuing to chip off some of the some of the things that really when we get down to our mission, um we're gonna have to reduce.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, keep us.

I know you don't have all the answers to that, but keep us updated even before then, because I'm sure our hope is as the legislative session um starts next year that you know, while they may make no changes to the bill, I'm sure we want to make our pitch to um legislators to let them know hey, you know, we've cut so much, and if there aren't changes being made, you know, here would be the consequences and real consequences that a city like ours would see.

Maybe they'll listen.

We'll we'll see.

Uh councillor Minar and then Councillor World and Counselor Snyder.

Um thank you, Chief.

Um, one of the things that you touched on when you talked about education, and I know you weren't saying you were going to cut it, but I mean, clearly one of the biggest components of what you do within your fire department is your education piece of it for the not just the little ones, but for our elderly and um young young people who have never owned a home before and had to change a filter and doesn't they don't know where their filter is or you know that type of thing.

So I know it's it's a really tough job and a difficult position to be in.

And um I have more questions, but I just wanted to throw that out there to you that I think it is critical for our education piece.

Yeah, and and what was reduced was some of the things that we pass out.

I I joke, I think every citizen in Carmel has three red fire helmets in their house, right?

You know, but when I go to all of our events, our community loves that.

They come up to find out what kind of new uh chapstick flavors do you have.

You know, do you have new what new products do you have there, right?

And a lot of that is publications that we push out, right?

As we're getting into our fall season and we're seeing uh campfires and and uh fires outside, we know the risk with that.

And so not cutting any programs of some of that equipment.

How can we be better?

You know, instead of handing out all the paper, can we use some QR codes that people could scan that takes them directly to safety messages on their phones, right?

In a safe manner that can't get hacked from from cyber perspective.

But we we need to be smarter from from that aspect.

Um but our programs, uh what we're gonna be doing with kids, seniors, you know, looking at our demographics, um the safe house program is incredible.

Um we're so excited about the the future of that and continuing to grow that.

Um and people get excited just coming in there to see it.

And so uh I feel like we're gonna be strong there, um, but it's just how to be how can we do that in the most efficient manner possible.

And then may I ask, have you had any kind of feedback on the EMS fire lit through the new legislation that will possibly be able to implement in how how long?

A year and some change?

Anybody know?

If a county path as it stands today, 28.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I I and roll I have some influence and in uh having discussions with other state legislators or around the state this year, and what are gonna be some hot topics there and and also with fire chiefs, and and that is something you know, uh continue dialogue with the county to what that point four looks like from the county level.

Obviously, you'll have to make decisions on what that may look like lit here.

But my concern is there's two legislative sessions before you could even get to a potential vote.

What changes are gonna be in store?

Um so I I think I can't even look down the road that far, you know, because some things may change before that decision even gets to us.

But it's something that we'll have to consider.

Uh Counselor Warral.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um, Chief, uh well done, and um thank you to the men and women who serve us.

It is amazing.

You know, Carmel has a rich history of the fire department being um just overly active in caring about our community, not just putting out the fire, but so many other things, and I've personally experienced that.

I'm grateful.

Um if we're talking about um the chapstick, I would like to put in a request for more fire blankets.

Um and maybe you have them, but I thought that was a tremendous that was so useful.

And I was gonna ask if you've ever heard of anyone say they used it and it saved their house from catching on fire.

But you know, uh to me that was wow, what a thing for the fire department to hand out was a fire blanket.

I I think we have heard success stories, you know.

Certainly uh John could could share that.

We do have those available.

Oh, you do.

And so when people request that, John takes down their information and then ensures that they get that.

Okay, yeah.

And I know it's not easy to handle, it's probably not an inexpensive thing.

So uh so I wanted to maybe just I hope I didn't miss this, but can you s give us a little bit of um insight on how the safe house is going, how it's being manned, are kids using it?

Is that still gearing up?

Where where are we on all of that?

We have uh a lot of different uh programs that have come through there.

We were continuing to do some some renovations, some additional work with Blockhouse, um and the lift has been the big challenge.

Okay.

We were trying to get that installed last year.

Chief Ray, a lot of work, the company that we had selected never came through with um there was a lot of excuses around why they couldn't get it installed.

We finally cut ties with them and went with another company, and they were fantastic.

It's nearly complete.

I think they're trimming it out right now.

Um and that was really the last piece for the schools to start coming.

So were we then filling it or backfilling with the old way we used to do it, or were those kids just not getting that screening?

They they've been there uh the summer we've had bucket brigades, we've had through the historical society, we've had programs and and kids coming through.

Um we've had hosted a number of events where we've talked about again with um our younger kids, but uh we recently met with the schools to talk about, and I know you're discussing this, but e-bikes and um you know a teaming up with the schools on some e-bike safety for our kids.

Um so our our folks uh so we have um full-time and two part-time in there that are um working out, and then as we have light duty staff help out with so you have what you need.

Or getting there.

We're we're there.

I mean, I think we'll as we continue to grow that program, we'll have to convert some part-time to full-time because it's going to continue to grow.

Every fire department that comes through, uh you know, we've had uh others visit our fire headquarters as they're looking to build one and they see that and they're amazed, and other school districts want to bring their kids, so we'll have to add staffing and and work through some type of public-private partnership.

And I want to give um kudos to Councillor Snyder, who is extremely involved in that.

Could you just give a sentence or two?

I'm told it's very unique facility, it's maybe nothing else like it in Indiana.

I but I don't want to over-exaggerate as my own.

I don't think you are.

Again, uh I've been able to travel extensively.

Indianapolis has a um a program, but uh the what we have is really second to none.

Uh the interactivity there, um, all the different aspects of fire safety, and then uh working with I think um our senior community on we have a lot of falls, right?

And how can we reduce the falls and working on some of the public education aspects through the safety?

Good for you as well.

Good for you.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Counselor Schneider.

Thank you.

Hey, Chief.

Okay.

The first thing I like out of the way is I I just keep saying this over and over to anybody that'll listen.

I do not want to see safe house without the course and name in front of it.

We are contractually obligated.

They made that donation.

I just pulled up the letter.

It needs to say Corson Safe House.

They donated a ridiculous amount of money for that, plus millions over the years to our fire department, our fire service, Jeff Owens with the dogs, volunteers, Corson's Capital, constantly.

It needs to say Corson Safe House.

Not only is it the right thing to do, it is the contractual thing to do in the agreement we gave to the Corson family.

And that's my apologies, I misspoke.

No, I'm sure that I no, it's just every there's nowhere on the stickers on I see on computers there, like all the branding, nothing says coursing.

And that family has done more for Carmel than I'd put them in the top ten.

Um anyway.

Uh the ambulance fund, what is so what uh the debt that consumes most of it?

Uh what's that paying off?

Okay, let me pull some of that up here.

Uh yeah, let's go one more slide.

Kirston, can you go one more slide?

It's in the very last slide.

And is this in your packet as well?

Or it's the last page of the deck.

Thank you.

Yeah, so those are the lease obligations there.

And and I could also point out again um the time to purchase ambulances have has increased dramatically, and so you'll see we're starting to re-chassy.

We can turn that around uh quicker and at a at reduced cost.

I think one just finished up or getting ready to be finished, and uh we'll be sending another one for that.

What is A V package?

Uh I think that is through uh digital package for the all of our audio visual for fire headquarters.

The techno computer technology and uh and furniture.

Again for a fire headquarters, yeah.

This fund has drifted so far, so far from its original intent.

And I know I've told the story before.

I remember when Chief Callahan talked about creating this when I was in high school.

Um we never had a problem buying these fire trucks you needed when the ambulance fund was needed, was used for its intended purpose.

And I'm I'm just so disappointed.

And this isn't you, Chief.

Like this is been going on for a while.

But the I mean, Zach, is this when you look at paying off leases or whatever?

I mean, we got to get the debt cleared so that the ambulance fund can pay for what it's supposed to pay for.

Yeah, I great points.

I I would say um the issues as far as purchasing ambulances is not at all, I believe, due to our lack of resources.

I I think we have plenty of dollars to purchase ambulances.

It's just the lead time and the cost continue to go up.

Uh a piece of equipment that was two million dollars before uh COVID and you could order within maybe a year or something, is is now twice as much and takes uh three to four times as long to order.

What you're seeing here though is is um you know every department's budget is essentially sliced into four major categories personal services, supplies, um other uh services and charges, and then capital outlays for the fire department, all capital outlays have been funded through the the ambulance fund.

And I I'm sure that you're probably looking at this and saying, you know, I we we never intended for furniture uh maybe to be purchased out of here.

Um but frankly, just where we're at with the general fund right now, we we don't have the flexibility to push some of these expenses there.

I I do think there is room to go through these capital leases, and I was focused mainly.

The the ambulance fund for years and years since the 90s was to resupply ambulances and to buy emergency vehicles.

That was it.

It was the only thing it was set up for because that's where its money comes from.

It and I would just uh counter that we're doing all those things, and there's still money left over to purchase.

But there's not enough money to pay cash for a fire truck, which is what we've always done.

We are capital, we we are capitalizing leasing those whenever we don't need to.

We never needed to.

When we wanted to buy, I remember signing off on them.

It was a million dollars cash, fire truck, million dollars cash, fire truck.

It was never complicated.

You need a fire truck, Chief Cumms?

Yeah, to at the time.

Six month lead time, cash.

Like it doesn't need it.

I'm so disappointed in this.

And again, that's this is not the doing of anybody here.

It's just over time it has just drifted and drifted and drifted.

And I'd love to see it get back on track to what it was intended to be.

I mean, I I I it and I'll I'll just one more comment there is that we um with capital leases, we we we get a flexibility that we don't have with with cash, and that is to spread the uh payments over the useful life of that apparatus.

So we're not making kind of this year's taxpayers, if you will, pay for uh you know, a piece of equipment that's gonna last for for 10 years by by capital leasing it, we're making you know the people that benefit from it that year make make the payments.

I won't debate that, I disagree, but I'm sure there are plenty of opinions.

Um the I want to give it oh, have you have you asked Chief Callahan to buy you the truck yet?

Have you asked the township?

We have uh we have a meeting later this week uh with the trustee and looking at some other projects that we could maybe partner with them on.

Have you asked them to buy the fire truck?

No, I have not specifically asked him to buy the fire truck.

Um and and then finally, and and I'm sure you got a heads up from police chief, but I mean you say that the people is our product.

At what point do you separate CFD between the sworn officers and the civilians?

Because uh I'll admit probably should have looked at every single employee's salary when we did this salaries um increase last year, but I didn't because I was told that the CFD was getting this these raises, and they didn't.

I mean the the civilians didn't.

So as we look at the CFD as a whole, who are you advocating for your civilian people that do that may not be putting their lives in in a fire or responding to the horrible train wreck or car wreck or whatever danger puts in front of them, but are seeing the worst side of humanity.

Um as far as where they are benefit package-wise.

Yeah, and I I would argue that I am.

I think ten dollars an hour.

Um, and I I think it's it's a tough conversation to have because every single person is important.

We can look at it is apples to oranges, you know.

I I don't think you're saying everyone should be paid the same, right?

Because the risk is so much greater on the sworn side uh with illness and injury.

Um but I also think it's market and you know we're we don't have a retention problem in the caramel fire department, but we are looking at how do we really ensure that we're recruiting the best of the brightest.

Um the market on the the support side isn't the same, you know.

We've seen a decrease in people interested in wanting to be firefighters and police officers, and so you have to be more competitive.

You know, my peers called me are like Carmel is doing a lateral process.

Are you kidding me?

How many of how many people am I gonna lose from my department?

You know, how many are you gonna hire?

Because they're concerned about they know what Carmel, the the the benefits and and the salary, right?

And um, so they were concerned because it's tough out there, and so it's it's it's a difficult topic.

Um I would hope that our team would feel like I support them.

You know, I certainly couldn't do it.

We certainly couldn't do without our support staff, and and it is one team.

I do recognize the challenges there, and I've had conversations with some one-off conversations with a few of our staff about that.

And um I don't think we'll ever tire from ensuring our people have the right salary benefits.

Um civilians, excuse me, civilians have vehicles, take home vehicles.

Yes.

And are they keeping their take-home vehicles?

As of right now, yes.

Okay.

So the you'll follow whatever the policy that the city comes up with.

Oh, well, and and you know, I uh again appreciate all the support uh for the mayor and Zach and Kirsten on this.

But and we'll look at what we think, because again, we're we're 24-7 operation and making sure that our folks have the tools they need to respond.

But you're trying your your proposed budget include since there is no policy, your budget includes those vehicles remaining with those individuals.

Yeah, and those are some of the cuts, I think back to President Alson's, you know, we've cut um, we did cut vehicles because we're gonna repurpose some.

Um and looking at if there are some other vehicles, again, citywide that could be repurposed, so we reduced the ones that we were going to purchase with the exception of uh mobile iterated health as well, but we haven't um taken um any away.

Perfect.

On the um on the lateral moves, so that's a question I've got.

I assume you wouldn't have done this without talking with the union.

Um is there gonna be a cap though?

I mean, one of the most special things about CFD is that every firefighter can look at the person next to them and say, we came up through we came up the exact same way, and what I'd hate to lose is that caramel culture where everybody came up the same way.

So while it's a need, right?

It's not maybe not the most desirable path, but you have to do it to to protect the community.

Will there be a cap on the number of laterals so that we're still forcing the majority of people to come up through the through the if I would put a cap on it, but certainly it's a it's a stop gap measure.

It's not something that I anticipate having to do every year.

Certainly, if we can get ahead of the retirements and our open positions, and we need to shrink our uh the time to process through and to get to our academy.

We need to shrink that by half at least.

That's gonna help.

So if we can if we start a process in July, in January, they're in academy and out in six months, we've reduced six months, right?

And so we can continue that turn to stay in front of it.

So it's it's something that that we've all discussed, and not something like okay, every year we're gonna budget for X number of spots.

I hope we're able to get ahead of it.

Um, and it may not be necessary in the future, but it may be.

I think this would be the largest pride that we would ever do, but I don't want to put myself in a box and I have one more question and I'll and I'll end on that, but first I want to say really appreciate your budget, really appreciate what you do.

And I'll and I'll end on that, but first I want to say really appreciate your budget, really appreciate what you do.

Thank you very much.

A lot of my frustrations have nothing to do with anybody in this room right now.

So but I am frustrated.

And I want to help you work through that.

So can you explain the relationship from my own re-education?

And maybe Lucas could help with this, but the the relationship between the fire marshal and the fire chief, because when the fire marshal learns of new updates to various fire safety things, are they always in the best interest of the community?

I only say that because I'm I read through notes on most of our projects, capital improvement projects, and I'm starting to see comments from fire department, which I assume is the fire marshal, that I've never seen before, and they seem stout.

I mean, from an engineering perspective, they seem stout.

So what is that relationship?

And thank you.

It's a strong relationship.

Um again, I would argue that I I have some experiences in education that other fire chiefs may not have around the state.

And probably some of those comments you're seeing is because of my relationship with the fire marshal and our plan reviewer doing to include that, uh, those comments in there to make sure that those buildings are safe, not only for uh the tenants, and a lot of times when you talk to the architects and engineers, they're they are building that or their the drawings assume that their occupants are that fire protection is working as it should, and occupants are leaving.

And we say, well, we're putting potentially 50 individuals into that.

Okay.

That's where that changes for them.

And so this is the discussion point to have with um architects and engineers.

And I know our team has done a really good job with that.

And we know that that there's a code, which is basically you know, law that we have to abide by.

There's things that I would like to see that are not in code, can't enforce them.

Can't make someone do that.

But it's a discussion point to have.

And so, you know, just today working with uh still one of our companies injured from the tornado.

They have completely vacated their building as they work to do some renovations there.

And we've been with them every step of the way and helping them as they look to terminate some of their fire protection while they you know restore that entire building.

And so at a impromptu meeting with our fire marshal this morning.

But we're on the same page, uh reading from the same sheet of music there.

Uh Counselor Choshin and Councillor Locke.

Thank you so much, Chief, for being here.

And uh you know how much I appreciate everything you do from fire and from EMS and all the services that we get for the city.

I just had a question on one of our line items.

Um the uh subscriptions, which I know you did touch on.

Can you just kind of break that down for me?

The 244,000 in subscription software.

How much of that is required fire reporting that you sort of referenced, and how much of that is other stuff, if you could help me to understand that.

Yeah, let me get to those uh sheets here.

Um those are five.

You know, uh I I can kind of break down.

So we're moving, we're consolidating a lot of our fire reporting, fire response programs into one software that has multiple modules.

So that's a big chunk of that.

Um then our EMS reporting software is separate.

We have something called gelata that we use in partnership with the police department for mobile integrated health.

So is their team's going out to way of sharing protected information.

Um but these are all you know, part of our um we're looking to move to an online EMS certification program in 26 EMS quality assurance um program, our target target safety training.

Check it is a program that we use, I think possibly in some of your other discussions, Zach.

You guys have talked about um what's the new program with um the streets street department?

Geotab.

So maybe um collaboration there that we'll you know look at with our maintenance department, and they have already that we might be able to move back to uh more of a citywide perspective.

But umerous programs that we use every day that are specific to our department.

I hope that answers your question.

Well, sort of, I was just looking for a little bit more of an uh a breakdown, just so I can understand it, not for any other reason.

But yeah, uh it's uh hand heavy uh which is a pediatric program that we utilize um multiple financial breakdown is what you're looking for.

Okay.

The dollar amount of need to actually do that right this minute.

If you could just send that to me, I would love to see it.

That's all.

Counselor Locke.

Yep.

Um so I've been asking everybody what they're excited about.

Um and I would love to hear what you're excited about, and then I've got some things that I am excited about about our fire department and the future we need to go into, which I'm not super excited about based on this budget, but I've still very excited about.

Um but would love to hear what you're excited about.

Well, I think uh certainly our building projects, you know, um uh kicked off a little slower than I would have liked.

Um but I think we're we're in a phase again the build out at station 45, individual bunks, you know, getting those uh alerted separately for engine ladder, um safety chief, um ambulance there.

Uh I'm excited for our training ground improvements.

I know we have countywide training ground um and that that is kicked off.

Um but you know what we need here, you know, uh we're seeing a lot more buildings, four plus, five plus stories, right?

Parking garages wrapped in condominiums, townhomes, apartments.

It's complex response for our for our team.

So I think what we're trying to accomplish there is to be able to recreate that at the training ground.

Uh the police department will be able to use it as well for uh responses and then some collaboration between both of us for some of our new equipment, and uh we have some some exciting training opportunities uh coming up as well.

So that I think are gonna just take our department to the next level.

Yep, love it.

Um love, I think the the tenor of the rest of my comments and questions will be kind of related to that, setting the foundation for this department to serve the city the way that it has to.

And obviously, with the changes downtown and the pivots, the beautiful thing is Councillor Sneiner said that we've always done is ensure that our people are trained to serve this city and doing it in a way that they're all part of that team, um, which I I love that that's the excitement that you've got that we're we're continuing to continue to build that culture that matters for what we're doing.

It it gets to the overarching threshold question of the last two years and probably last 20 of the seventh fire station.

Um the idea that we need to be in a position to be able to serve our city based on its growth and based on where we are, and that your people, whether they're sworn or not sworn, are in a position to be able to do that in a safe, secure way, so they stay employed, they stay at the top of their game, they don't get hurt, we don't lose them as they try to save people from getting lost.

Um and that gets to kind of the personnel issue.

And if we go back to the personnel slide, I think that's a good place to start kind of on my question as we look at this budget.

Um in baseline uh for the public watching too.

This is the budget that I think has the most increase on personnel.

Um part of that is obviously we passed the um or negotiated contracts with the police and fire unions, which is increasing the pay.

Um, whereas police kind of adds as they need to the fire department is tied to the operations and the centers and the and the devices we can put into duty to kind of do the things that we have to do, right?

And ensuring that we have the right coverage on those devices to keep our firefighters safe is one of the top goals.

But the other side is that we have enough of those devices and apparatuses and um institutions in play to ensure that they're not having to drive seven and a half minutes if they can get there in three and then back and taking that kind of out and about so that we can get to all the things that need to be protected are there.

So I I would love to kind of talk about this expansion and and first clarification.

We have 170 sworn now, 12 vacancies, and we're looking to add 18, which adds up to 200.

What's the 212 versus the 200?

The 212, because uh we have 12 that are retiring throughout the year.

And we have uh again worked with the mayor, Zach and Kirsten, our team did a great job of really breaking down, so we've got like one in January, right?

So when that falls off, how much do we need to be budgeting, right?

So we're not budgeting for those 12 over the course of the entire year.

Okay, which would have been much more.

So we're being very deliberate about budgeting month to month as we see that.

So those 12 are going to fall off this year, right?

So we'll be at 200.

And that's why, really, over given the number that we're down already, um, with um the additional retirements and the number that we have on vacation and and sick a day.

That's why I I feel we need to have 40 additional at the end of 26.

And I think talking to the police chief, I think the police department went through this a few years ago where they had a number of retirements, right?

And so maybe they're not adding as much now because they're fairly close to their number.

And they're adding, I think maybe there were a couple at the council last night.

But this does not account for another station.

Well, that's yeah, that's what I'm getting at here.

So I'm I'm trying to figure out as we're building this strategic plan for this department.

Um where are we moving towards that?

And and the I you know everybody knows I love to rail about the evils of capitalism occasionally into the microphone.

The concept that we've got private corporations and then Senate holding hostage, the entire process of buying new apparatus to put into orders a massive problem.

We need to figure that out.

Um Senator Banks, if you can do that, do that immediately be the hero that we deserve in the Senate.

Um but conceptually, like, how do we how do we start to put the things into motion?

To your point, like we may none of us may be here when these things start, but we need to start them, regardless of if we're gonna get the win or not for them happening because they matter to the future of our institution as a city as a whole, because if we don't take care of these needs, um then everything else goes on hold.

So when we talk about austerity, obviously this budget is not one that sees a lot and never would be, but we take away from all of the other things that are happening when we have not prepared or planned, and any year that gets harder and harder.

Um if we get to a point where we have to add that fire station or we lose insurance coverage for homes on the west side uh because we've gone down another bucket and we have to pay more.

Um we're we're just paying private companies then a tax that we could have started and started implementing now.

So I I want to make the plea again like if we need a seventh fire station, we need one for 20 years, and we need an eighth fire station, we need one for 11 years, we're 30 years behind that planning process, which is none nobody's fault here, but let's not be that problem anymore.

Let's do the right thing the right way now.

Let's start the process.

If it's gonna take three years to get a building build and a truck, um, let's add it to that flow of doing it.

But to your point, it's not built into what we're doing here.

The goal here seems to be to set up so that we're not at a position where we're taking the apparatuses we have offline because we're not meeting those the safety standards for our employees.

And if that's the case, love that.

But I want to go back to the overtime issue, and this is the second year we've talked about it.

Um overtime, probably used on the extreme on the other end, where it's cheaper to have overtime to cover those apparatus than it is to hire somebody new, get them up to speed, um, is a tool that is necessary and it's a benefit for our sworn who want to take it, who don't necessarily have to, um, to show up and work extra to get more money for their families to provide more service to our city.

But I I want to ensure that we're balancing the two of the additional staff necessary to help fill the need, the use of overtime to do that in the right way, which is fiscally responsible, um, and again, a benefit to those employees.

Um, but that any expansion we're having is putting us in a position to be able to do those things that we have to do next.

Because if we don't do that, then we're gonna have a hit where we're gonna say we need 20 million dollars one year to add 30 new employees to add the seventh station.

We already know it's hard to hire.

Um, if we're not already building up to that or starting that process of building up to it, it's gonna be very, very hard for us to do it without cutting a ton of other stuff elsewhere, even in good financial times.

So I say that like this is my call to action, my annual call to action, or every time you're in front of the microphone, I do it.

But like, how can we start that process now?

How can we start looking at that and how can we build that in?

Um that this is a very complex issue because we're talking about you know 170 up to 200 firefighters, some of which are cool with overtime, some of which are not, some of which are now behind a desk and are not as you know, ready and able to go hit the road and take care of people in an ambulance, which may not good or bad, that's just the way humans work.

Um how do we ensure that we've got the right personnel the right spot to take care of that baseline need to make sure our trucks are getting out and can get out now, plus have enough trucks in places moving forward.

And I say that like Kroger, north of 146th Street, town road is coming.

Like that build out of that infrastructure north of the road is happening regardless of what we do here.

Um that's a global trend here, is as long as all we're doing is kind of setting our baseline and sticking to it, the rest of the world will change around us, and we need to be prepared to kind of apply our process to that.

And I could see that becoming a major draw on those resources in the northwest part of the city already.

What Westfield is doing is happening.

And we are still from this budget a year away from having a budget that has any implication on adding a several fire station.

So I say that I would love to know kind of what you think, and this is where I say I'm excited.

I I know that that is not the case.

I know that that is something we have all talked about.

It's something that we need to implement a strategy to get ahead, even if it's five years from now.

We need to talk about it because these things are going to happen, and then we're going to be reactive, and then we're going to be in a worse spot than we are today.

So that being said, like I don't want to throw the concept of overtime out as a whole.

I think that that is something that is necessary.

I don't care what the transparency portal says about firefighters.

I I'm actually grateful for those firefighters that are the highest paid employees in our city because they put extra work in to do that.

Um that's badass.

Um that's a super amazing thing.

It is confrontational and people get upset about it when you look at transparency portals, but like that is not an issue that should stop us from using that tool to ensure not only that we're covering all our trucks and that we don't have to take them offline now, but that we have a future where we've got the right apparatuses, the right stations, and the right stuff in place to take care of the city as it grows.

I want to address one thing and then let Chief answer some of the things you addressed.

Is if you recall we did propose that we bind for a small amount that would cover the design for station seven.

So that is a step forward in this budget for 2026.

Just want to address that.

Now, how much we can bond uh perhaps is a little bit up in the air right now based on the changes to our certified net assessed value that's just happened from the county and not uh doing their numbers right, so but that is the anticipated first use, as well as if there's any dollars there to help with the chiller.

Yeah, you you you're spot on.

Um you're preaching to the choir, and that's all of us up here.

We know it's needed.

Um I concerned about that.

I look at uh incidents, we had a fire the other night, arguably would have been station seven first due.

It's kind of halfway between six and two.

Um folks did incredible job of knockdown.

Um but I worry about that incident happening a little further northwest, right?

Um station six is busy, you know, they're coming all the way down to to the point about a station eight.

Um again, our discussions with um some other landowners to maybe donate some some property to us for for a station eight.

Um or you know, are are the stations in in the right place?

To your point, Westfield's getting busier.

So they we provide a significant amount of mutual aid out of the city to this to Fishers and the city of Indianapolis.

Westfield is the one that comes into Carmel quite a bit.

But they're getting busier.

Um I think you know, looking at Chad's uh Chad Dilly's document, you know, I think Westfield um is now ranked the sixth sixth fastest growing city in the United States.

So they're gonna have and they do have their own challenges to where we're not gonna be able to rely on them to be there sometimes, second they're the second truck there on our incidents.

So it's not um trying to spread fear or anything, it's just a fact that we have to do something.

We have the we have the property there.

Uh we have a design ready to go, um, so that could reduce time and costs.

Um shell, basically, right?

Um, and then it's it's a matter of 12 to 14 additional people there.

Now we have applied for a safer grant, we haven't heard from that yet.

Uh I know as soon as that news comes in to our admin, someone's gonna be coming down the hall.

Hopefully, they're running down the hall to share some some good news.

It's a long shot because back to my comments earlier, some of the federal dollars are going down, right?

So it's uh it's the plan of of just needing to execute and get it done.

Yeah, I agree.

Well, and that's the I guess my frustration on this topic specifically is just we don't we're just the legislative body of people that get to speak into the microphone and say things out loud that we have heard from people.

Um yeah, we get to do some things, but I don't have any authority or power to make you guys do anything if you don't want to do it.

Um that being said, like I know you want to do this.

Um we just gotta figure out how, and I would love to see pen to paper on how we move towards getting this done in the near term because it's only gonna get more expensive and harder.

Um if they change the rule and we can buy a truck in six minutes, that'll be a joy, we'll do that then and we'll figure it out.

But like we should we should do what we need to do now for our city, and it's I always put it it it's city need, it's people need, um, and then it's uh whatever else comes after that.

Um this feels like it's so important to the city that we move towards kind of that end result of putting us in a position to take care of this.

Because if we again, if we don't, um it's gonna be catastrophic.

It's not gonna be a it's it it'll be a cascade of failures in a budget um and in a city administration that eliminates many, many other things to get to a point where they're there, or like other places that just got so behind the eight ball, we just won't worry about it, we won't deal with it.

We'll wait till something comes through and we'll do a little bit of incremental, but we'll just be in a different position where we've got boroughs of the city uh that have good support and boroughs that do not, and that's not appropriate for Carmel Indiana, specifically in the in the residential area of our city, which is the core setup of what we are.

Um and it's not that Westfield is coming, Westfield is happening because that's the way the world is going.

We are going to be in the center of many things.

It's probably our trucks that will go to Westfield to support them in the future because of the way that they're building out their infrastructure.

Or there'll be gas stations and parking lots and there will be calls north of the border that will take our time and our effort up there as now it's kind of you know farm country.

But like I just I would love to see a plan on the overtime on the hiring of people that is looking to not just support and structure the thing now to hunker down, but to expand it to where we are moving in a direction to fully support and fully ensure that our firefighters are taken care of so that those apparatuses are put online safely or taken offline if they need to be.

If we need to do that more often, just to make a statement of why, then we do that.

Um that we bring in the right staff to start that path towards the growth that's necessary to get to a point where we're putting the right things in place to make a seventh and eighth and ninth fire station, whatever those things are on that trajectory correctly.

Um I say that like the thing I'm still very, very excited about is we're we're it's we're still in a yes and spot.

Like we're doing such a good job with this department, with what we do on this front, that we can still continue that growth regardless of the narrative coming in from other places.

So I that's what I would love to see.

Um I I do know that we have the bond recommendation with the two things on it.

Um but design is great, that's a great first step.

Uh that still puts us a year out from any conversation about a build or a structure, but know that we're ready to undertake that.

Um I'm ready to lobby the rest of these people to make sure that this happens in the correct timeline if that's faster than next year's budget cycle again to have a conversation about it.

But I think this is I'm sorry, so Councillor Locke, I know we had a a meeting at the you know, towards the beginning of the year with uh fire chief to go over the needs now.

I know things have changed, and now we're actually gonna design space.

I can get another meeting scheduled for council so we can have more than an hour just to talk about this issue.

And I can I can work with you to get that scheduled.

And I was just gonna say this is kind of the step towards that, right?

To where, you know, you see, oh my gosh, 18 additional positions.

Well, that's really the kind of overstaff because yes, we have some we have some men and women that can work 96 hours and see the most difficult things and provide the highest level of care, but at some point that's not sustainable either.

And it's not right to do without compromising our incredible staffing.

And again, uh one of the few places in the state that have the staffing that we do.

And others will probably charge you to say, you shouldn't do that, right?

But don't allow them to influence you in that manner because every individual makes a difference.

One person on a truck, one player, you know, the the ambulance of staffed, and one person on a pumper.

And so these additional positions are starting to get there, um, helping us get there, I think probably in a long time that we've overstaffed in an attempt to manage that that overtime.

But when people see those those numbers of those salaries of those men and women, they are working a lot.

Right.

And I I what I cannot stress that enough.

Yeah.

And it's a flip sacrifice that they're that's a flip in the narrative shift here, too, I think.

Like that I I personally, and anybody that wants to talk about it who's not cool with it from the public, call me and we can talk why, but like the idea of overtime salary being something that we're trying to mitigate because of the messaging of a transparency portal, which I don't think is what we are doing here, is something that is not appropriate.

Really, the idea of overtime, if people are willing to serve extra and it's safe.

That's the key here.

Like they're not killing themselves to do that or to make extra money.

Like extra money is great, but this is something that your life is on the line and you're putting yourself in harm's way, we shouldn't be having to force a small bucket of people to work overtime to the point that they are unsafe.

But overtime is great for this because you've got the right person on the right truck doing the right thing when that is occurring.

But the flip is if we're hiring people to start to build up and ensure that we're in a good spot on that coverage of those apparatuses to get to a point where we're gonna add more.

Um that is okay.

But if we're gonna just hire people to have them working 40 hours a week, now we've got over coverage during a shift, and we necessarily didn't need that because we could have used overtime to do it to beat that narrative, that's a problem.

So I I I say that this is a again, very ultra complex issue.

Um at the heart of it is the safety of the city and then the safety of our men and women on those fire and ambulances that are taking care of us.

Um anything secondary to that, tertiary to that is is unnecessary from the back end.

But when you look at this budget, to add these 18 new positions, we're seeing a four million dollar increase to the budget line item with a two million dollar decrease to the overtime line item.

Um the flip there is without the new positions, we're net positive two million dollars without the addition of the positions to hold steady if we're not gonna add a six fire station on the amount of workload we need to cover the trucks because we didn't take any out.

So I say that, like while we're we're beating a narrative on a transparency portal in some capacity on the overtime.

Um if that is part of that analysis, that needs to go away.

And again, happy to talk to anybody about why I feel that way offline.

But like conceptually here, we're we're trying to build that structure to get to the point that we've got that in result of the right coverage we need for the city.

And that's my not I'm gonna not to stifle any conversation, but I think we're gonna um call a break um for lunch, um, be back.

We'll stay exactly at one, so that gives everyone knows exactly when they need to be back here.

We'll put us 15 minutes ahead, and we'll start, we'll go through finance, Berkshire, facilities management, redevelopment.

And just so people know, Counselor Snyder's gonna be leading the first part.

I have a quick obligation at one o'clock for about 20 minutes.

Okay, we're gonna restart our budget workshop.

Finance is uh Zach, take it away.

Thank you, counselor.

Um I'm gonna be talking about the finance department's uh uh budget this afternoon.

So uh just again, like what the finance department is all about is is uh ensuring accountability, integrity, transparency, and sustainability uh in managing the City of Carmel's finances.

Uh one thing of note uh our our budget for the finance department uh is down significantly year over year.

Um that's not necessarily due to my uh abilities to get our numbers down.

It's really um as we were no longer able to put the food and beverage tax dollars in the general fund.

I was trying to identify a few sources that uh we could move over to pay for from that funding source uh without making some other department split their uh you know, half their departments paid from the general fund, the other half's paid from the food and beverage tax fund.

We ended up moving uh about two and a half million of recurring annual expenses out of the finance department's budget over to the food and beverage tax related to the property casualty uh auto insurance, all of that for the city.

And the 2.5 uh represents both uh the cost of the city is premiums as well as uh a little bit set aside for uh deductibles that will uh get paid throughout the year.

Um in terms of our successes, you know, we last year we we went with zero-based budgeting, uh continued that this year.

What I would really like to tell people is yeah, it's zero based, but but I'm really trying to get to like program-based budgeting as well.

five uh represents both uh the cost of the city's premiums as well as uh a a little bit set aside for uh deductibles that will will uh get paid throughout the year um in terms of our successes you know we last year we we went with zero based budgeting uh continued that this year what I would really like to tell people is yeah it's zero based but but I'm really trying to get to like program based budgeting as well and so if you if you notice all the slides that departments are presenting they're talking about not just individual expenses but they've uh they've grouped expenses together into programs and so that as we talk about uh how well an apartment's doing and and whether we can afford something or not um you know hey here here's this program we can talk about it it's it's finite it's describable um and and uh we can talk about the merits of of that program and if the cost is worth it uh this year we've also introduced the uh quarter fine quarterly financial updates where we're coming to council talking about uh how we're uh hitting or missing our spending monthly spending targets as well as our revenue targets we've we've uh that carries forward from uh the implementation of the speed system that we designed and implemented speed stands for spending plan expense and encumbrance dashboard and the idea is just having a very quick way to tease out where there are issues in terms of you thought you were going to spend this much this month but you actually spent this much what what's that mean?

Is it is it a timing issue?

Is it true savings?

Are you really on track to overspend?

But it teases those things out on a monthly basis we've launched the new EP procurement software remind me of you open gov.

And then somewhat similar to how HR was describing earlier we've spent a lot of time updating financial policies as well as the the city's purchasing manual procurement manual re we reissued this year as well.

And again that was with a lot of help from the corporation council's office our personal services summary for for next year we're requesting a little over 1.6 million that's funding for seven full-time staff and two part-time staff I do believe this is this represents a slight increase uh one of the as we've been talking about how Mac currently has 16 positions eight would potentially go to experience uh Carmel four would be retained as the the smaller comms team and then four would uh have homes at at different departments we would be picking up one uh under this scenario that primarily serves as the uh financial liaison for uh MAC today as well the the mayor's office and the thought would also be um uh since we're not filling the the kind of the admin position at docs that this person would would handle docs uh uh finances as well and then uh there's also an addition of a part-time staff we currently have one part-time admin uh we're contemplating adding another part-time staff but that's only because we have somebody retiring next year and I'm trying to provide um the opportunity for her to continually train uh uh her um uh uh her replacement so we built in a little bit of part-time dollars I I wouldn't see that necessarily as an ongoing uh thing with that that second part-time position in terms of consulting contracts uh uh or accounting and consulting contracts uh we we contract out the creation uh putting together assembly of our of our AC for uh the annual comprehensive financial report uh we also uh get assistance from that same vendor in terms of some of our long-term and and even short term financial planning we we leaned very heavily on um uh on on Ben Rager this year to to assist with as things were moving throughout the legislative session help us get real time uh understanding and estimates on on what that uh what those changes are going to do to our our uh property tax revenues as well as uh lit revenues um there's also some dollars uh in there as we have to as we put together some of these statements um we have to have an actuary review some of the pension and perfect things um and then also dollars in there for uh continuing disclosure and and uh arbitrage regulations starting this current year 2025 uh you might recall that the the bond payments that were made out of the general fund had been made out of the Board of Public Works uh in the creation of the budget for 2025 we move that to the finance department uh we make bond payments uh semi annually and uh this represents the the general fund bond payments that are in the budget are off appropriate to finance department uh you know most of the other bond payments that are uh property tax backed or or some specific like revenue uh like uh storm water are paid directly from those funds but the general fund ones are all uh are all here our overhead

We make bond payments semi-annually, and this represents the general fund bond payments that are in the budget are off appropriate to finance department.

Most of the other bond payments that are property tax backed or some specific like revenue like stormwater are paid directly from those funds, but the general fund ones are all here.

Overhead, I believe, is the cost of our contract for our existing counting system, and then we have a little bit in there hardware wise, just in terms of there are uh it's time to replace some of the uh IT equipment in our office.

So in total uh uh our our the spend was significantly lower in 2024, but again, that's because the bond payments weren't being uh made out of our department.

2025 uh the budget is 17.5 million.

Again, major addition there is the bond payments next year uh for 2026 that goes down to 15.2 million, a reduction of 13.6%, and again, it's not like that's really or organic an organic reduction, most of that is is moving uh the dollars out that we use to pay for the the insurance premiums and deductibles, moving that over to another funding source.

That's the end of my huge presentation.

Thank you, Zach.

Uh appreciate your budget presentation.

Couple of questions.

You said that you're having two questions and you can answer them after I asked them.

Uh you're you're taking a liaison from the Mac department, who will then also work with DOCS.

Is it so is does this mean that this person would be doing some of the office management that they since they lost Lisa?

Will this person be filling in that gap?

Are you sharing that that cost?

Yeah, that's the intent.

Uh I wouldn't say sharing that cost.

The the the should this plan go through the uh the entire salary is built into the finance department's budget, but that person would be the point person for uh the reduced comms team budget, kind of the the day-to-day office manager expenses, keeping track of their spending.

Um she currently does that for the mayor's office, and then we also would add docs to that portfolio again, mix of office managerslash uh uh kind of uh controller, accounting supervisor, something like that.

So this person would then um be she's not doing them or he it's a she.

Okay, she, thank you.

Um she would be doing still the mayor's office, finance, and DOCS.

She she it's it's there's probably not much work for her to do at finance necessarily.

I mean, I I should say I I want to make sure those other three departments needs are met first before I see if she has any capacity to do other finance department things, but again, most of her role is financial in nature.

Okay.

And so it would be the she would be the point person for those uh two two of the departments that she that she currently has, just a reduced role probably for comms, but then that capacity that gets freed up.

And she also does work on some pro other projects outside of finance for for um outside of financial for um Mac today.

So I think uh taking uh should the experienced carmel plan go through that lightens her load to take on more of the the docs needs as far as office manager and and and financial manager there.

Yeah, they they could use the help, there's no doubt about it.

Um so uh we talked a little bit about the ERP.

Yeah.

And I don't see did I miss it in the budget somewhere or no, and I'm glad you I'm glad you brought it up.

Um so uh the the ERP, and I I have a white paper that I'll send out to the entire group that that goes through this, but but big picture wise uh an ERP solution is likely to cost um up to two million dollars for uh the implementation.

That cost would include not only the vendor kind of being here doing the installation over the course of uh implementation over the course of the year, uh, but that includes extra in there.

I'm not sure how ready we are.

Um so for example, in our accounting system today, uh, some point in the past, whenever we were making um making payments, rather than kind of uh saying, hey, that vendor is already in the system, let's let's pay that vendor.

Uh there was uh nope, we would just put the same vendor in again.

And so you can find some vendors out there listed multiple times, and so it's kind of as we as we convert that old data into the new system, there's got to be some scrubbing involved in terms of nope, but this needs to be collapsed into one vendor before it gets shifted over.

Uh there are probably hundreds of examples of like that where just something needs to be cleaned up first before we we we put it into the new system.

Uh payroll type things are examples as well.

Uh also there's got to be some sort of documentation of processes based upon what our processes are, what city code says, what uh state law says, um, so that we can set up our approval processes to mirror uh the right things, but we've got to document those first.

So again, two million dollars.

Um I think the ongoing cost is approximately three million, but let's talk for kind of the the benefits that we would get.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

300,000 a year.

Yeah, yep, sorry.

Three 300,000 to 400,000 it's it's around in here.

Uh yeah, 300,000 to 400,000 a year for the ongoing licensing costs.

Okay, so let me stop you there.

Just so the two million would be the implementation and/or creation, and then the $300,000 would then be a yearly cost, possibly.

So again, where in the where in this budget does it sit?

Yeah, so it it's it's not in there as of this point in time.

Um let me get there in just a just a moment.

So in terms of the the benefits and and why this is necessary.

So today take our our purchasing program as an example.

Um our purchasing program is referred to as one of Gary's apps.

Gary was an employee that I'm not even sure when retired, but he built a Microsoft access database that we use for our purchasing.

It it generates a uh a PDF that that looks like a um a claim form or a purchase order form.

Ultimately, though, that system does not talk to any other system, and so our purchasing program at the end of the day uh spits out a piece of paper that then has to be manually delivered over to the finance department or or emailed to the finance department, but regardless, then it's manually entered again into the accounting system because the purchasing program does not talk to the accounting system.

Same way with payroll basically.

Uh as payroll gets processed, there's nothing that says, okay, uh this of all the payroll what that went out, this is the part that ought to be subtracted out of this department's budget, this line specific, uh, this line, all of that.

That has to be a file created by uh by the payroll team after every payroll gets processed.

They have to complete a reconciliation, and then that gets emailed over, I I think in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, where then our department manually enters that in the system.

I I can give you more examples like that where this system has data that does not talk to this system.

And so with the ERP, we're we're using all of our data to make better decisions to reduce inefficiencies, to remove paper processes, getting real-time data for decisions.

Um I have not built a number specifically into this because I really wanted to more have the conversation.

Should council uh want to fund this I would since since the two million is not an ongoing cost, I would see that as a one-time use of our healthy general fund balances.

And so that would be something that council uh could appropriate two million for the use of this project.

I've prepared a draft um ordinance.

Wanted to talk to you guys about it, see what you thought first before I even went anywhere with it.

But it would create an ERP implementation fund.

And my request would be would you guys uh uh appropriate two million out of the general fund to this fund so that everybody has complete transparency about how much is being spent and on what related to the ERP.

It doesn't in any way get commingled with you know finance departments spending and operations, doesn't get commingled or anything with uh IT departments operations and spending.

Um the way I've drafted this would have it uh uh basically whatever's still remaining in there after two years automatically reverts back to the general fund.

Uh but again, two million to do the implementation.

In in kind of my dream scenario, uh we would have a vendor kind of ready to go on January 1st of 2026, uh be working on this implementation and have it uh in effect January 1st.

So basically for the next fiscal year, we would go live uh January 1st of 2027.

There's a number of different modules that we would consider here.

Everything from I mean uh to me the the central focus of any of this is the accounting system, and then it's kind of what else do you build on to that that that uh that sends data that communicates.

Um there are some things like we might say, hey, our we're happy with our existing ADP system.

We don't need to replace that.

Whatever product we choose uh as an ERP would be something that implements very well with ADP so that we can uh send data back and forth that way without having to replace it.

Uh there's other modules though that we might say no, we we we like this vendor's solution better for uh things like uh uh learning management, uh budgeting, uh absence management, timekeeping.

I mean, all in all, there's probably about 10 to 12 different modules components.

I don't I don't think we need them all.

I I know we don't need them all.

I don't want to get them all um, but I would kind of see probably wanting to implement about half of those and maybe over uh uh two-year phased approach.

Okay, sorry to bring something in from actually I'm not gonna apologize.

I just was very curious about it.

Even though it's not, I just didn't know.

Yeah, not seeing it in here, and it had been a discuss a topic of discussion.

I appreciate you.

I'm glad you brought it up.

Yeah, thank you for filling in the blanks.

Um that everybody just wanted to, I mean, if if that's something we want to think about and and talk about, is that how much conversation has gone on with IT and coming up with the solution?

Because it seems to me that if you're trying to integrate multiple systems, the IT department would be best suited.

I mean, not the finance department to sort of manage that process, vet these vendors, figure out who's going to work best between all the different systems that you are discussing, because that is complex.

So I just want to make sure that we're having some of those really open conversations.

Yeah, you no, you're you're you're spot on, Dr.

Joshi.

We've created uh kind of an ERP steering committee that's co-chaired by basically me and the IT director, and then have uh other representatives uh from out the city who who have are kind of the primary owners of some of our current systems so that they can bring their perspective.

So this is the steering committee that IT was referencing when they spoke to us.

Uh actually we we've created a couple different steering committees.

This one is very focused on the ER on just ERP.

I I'm not sure if that was the one that Kevin referenced.

He's also got kind of a slide.

Okay, that's why I wanted to clarify that because that's what I was not understanding because if these are you're talking about another steering committee, which is fine.

I'm just trying to understand, make sure we're clear on that.

Yep.

Great report.

Zach, thank you.

Um just a couple of questions.

Um maybe you could pull this up, the um transparency portal.

Um if you could pull that up, put it on the screen.

But who maintains that site?

Do you is your department handling that?

Yeah, it's it's primarily uh uh uh Stone Municipal Group.

Um Adam Stone is the owner of this company.

Um I I believe he was previously with um OpenGov and has created a project or a program called um open checkbook.

Uh we feed data to the portal, but it's ultimately and and and we we feed the content, but it's but it's his portal.

But it's ultimate and and and we we feed the content, but it's but it's his portal.

So um if there's a concern or question about the content, that's on that's on me to Okay.

So I do, yeah, if you can pull it up.

Um so is uh and where is that contract?

Is that in your department or is that somewhere else?

Yes, uh so if you go to the contracting services tab of uh or of the form you have in front of you and on the PowerPoint, it's the consulting fee, so it's budgeted for 25,900 and 2026.

Okay, great.

Okay.

So I mean, I'm not gonna get in the weeds on this, but um this is for the citizens.

And so I'm trying to think how a citizen would look at this.

And the one thing, uh, and then I'm gonna ask the mayor a question about a gentleman that you meet with.

I'm not gonna uh say who it is, but you meet with who um periodically or routinely I should say writes about Carmel's finances.

Yeah, thank you.

And um, you know, I'd I get frustrated when I see an accurate information.

Do you still meet with him?

Okay.

So I'm going here to try and understand.

And when I look under general fund, um, which is what we're talking about, and then I just look at expenditures.

The one thing that um that I see immediately when I look at this as a citizen, is that in 2024 we spent X, and then um so I'm over at General Fund, and I'm looking at debt service, which is a big thing I read about all the time.

Um keep going, keep going.

Expenditures by type.

And I'm just wondering if there's a way to be clearer that so I have finally figured out that debt service in 2024 was 15 million, but in 2025 it's five million.

I go back, I look at your budget, yeah, it really was 13 million to make the 17 or whatever.

And so um obviously I finally figured out this is probably full year 24 and year-to-date 25.

Is that fair?

That is, and and uh I'm not I need to double check the timing of uh I I believe this gets updated, the data is at least.

Well, it says August 26th.

So I I'm good with that.

You update it monthly, I get it.

You can't spend all your time on this, but I think this is really misleading.

Um that's just I'm not an accountant, that's just me as a as a layperson saying, well, why would I look at this when I'm com why would I compare 24 to you know it's probably even worse when it's half a year or a quarter?

Um it doesn't really tell me anything.

So is there a way to make 24 match the same time period as 25?

Is that how a CPA would look at this?

Or or do I just you know it this has no value to me?

Because I'm going, yeah, wow, okay, we're doing great.

We're only spending 84 million dollars.

Yeah, I I think we could either relabel that 25 actual as as year to date.

Um it's not year to date.

Or you're saying 25 is actually is year to date?

Yes.

Yeah, okay, I get that, yeah.

Yeah.

I I um for me I'd rather compare like number to like number.

That's just me.

Year to date at that point in the year compared to this one, I got you.

And it says in the title, but yeah, it says year to date, so I get it, 24 is a full year.

I'm just making the point that if we're trying to spend money on informing the citizens this has no value or less value, I shouldn't say.

Can you clarify?

You said 2024 is whole is whole year, or is it okay?

Well, it must be, or we're in big trouble.

Yeah.

And the whole reason that I went here was to try and assess, like any citizen would do, is what I'm reading the truth.

Um, and it's not.

And so, you know, I just if we're investing money, I would like to have this mean something to me.

So anyway.

Okay, thank you.

So Zach on the ERP, first of all.

I really like the way you've introduced this softly.

Um because it is a tremendous amount of money, and it's something that probably very few of us up here have a much understanding of.

Um it sounds like the request is not so much a budget request, but just uh an appropriation.

So it is there and I just I mean it looks like there are hundreds and hundreds of different ERP softwares.

And I'm sure you've got something in mind, I'm sure IT might have something in my sure y'all probably narrowed it down to a few.

Is there a cost to bring them out and have them just look at all of our stuff and see I guess an assessment of what we have and how what some dollar savings could be if they did take over some of the other stuff or what the efficiencies are.

Um and then I know there's a couple people have expressed some philosophical issues on why some things probably shouldn't talk to other things.

Is there a is there a scenario where you can bring your short list vendors out?

They can assess all of our stuff, and maybe they find things or have things that we we haven't even considered that could make us a more efficient thing.

Is that a is that a thing?

It it is.

We and we've had meeting, we've had product demos with with several companies, but in terms and and they've been on site, several of them, uh, but in terms of kind of having them getting into the weeds of our existing systems, that that part has not occurred yet.

But but if there's a cost to that, which I mean that's a probably a heavy ask just to for a sale, I mean that would be something I would advocate for first.

Yep, just to get a full kind of better understanding of because there are I mean, and we've learned more in this process.

There's just so many programs out there.

Um and then when you kind of pick who it is really helping them explain, and I would I might even advocate on your steering committee, maybe well, I don't know what I would say a counselor, but Ryan is probably the only one that knows anything about this both computers and this.

Um just to kind of keep them in the technological loop of where you're thinking, because I I do think you have a tall long road to plow for two million dollars.

Yep.

But I think if anybody can make the case, and it would be you, but I think you're gonna need that support of I I can't even pretend to make up a name because I don't know what these vendors are called, but the ERP store people.

Is that something you could do and then make it maybe in the next month or six weeks, and then see if we if there's any chance of hitting your deadline?

Absolutely.

And I'll say, you know, there's two just to clarify, there's kind of two steps there.

One is selecting which system we think is is the best for for our needs.

Um again, best combination of uh usability uh uh customer experience as well as uh uh price, picking the the system, but then also just as critical is picking who's going to implement that system for us.

That's that's the part where I think uh some people uh pick a great system but uh poorly choose their partner who's going to do the implementation.

Um and and so that to me is is just as important, if not more, than the system we're choosing is who's gonna help implement.

But but yeah, your point's well taken and uh I'm certainly I hope I'm not coming across as critical or I just think that for two million dollars there'd probably I think you I think a lot more information would be helpful to lean people one way or another.

Yeah, and and I'm also whenever we have that uh happy to talk through some we might have some other options for paying for it, and so I'll happy to go through those as as well.

Okay.

Just in closing on that, happy to help steer.

Um and would love to be a part of a committee if you've got one pulled together.

Um the idea of an ERP, you and I know probably better than anybody is not a ch it's a massive change in undertaking.

We went through it at the state.

Um we're still going through it.

I don't know if I'm the only person in the room who lives in people soft every day still, but it's a real joy.

Um but yeah, like the idea of modernizing these systems to get us to a point where the outputs of the system are beneficial from this side of the bench too would be a really cool piece to weave into that conversation.

So happy to support it any way I can.

And if I can make one other comment.

Just whether we're talking about the ERP, whether we're talking about um updating HR policies or financial policies, that there's just a lot of stuff that uh uh you know, kind of back office type stuff that really has not been looked at, examined, scaled, probably since the the 90s, frankly.

There's there's just we're behind the times.

Um I I I remember having a conversation with um uh Michael Klitzing when we first met uh he was giving me a tour around the parks last year, and you know, we were talking having that, you know.

What do you think will happen down the road as far as parks becoming part of the city or or or not?

And his uh the the main thing that stood out for me on that conversation was yeah, if it I'm fine if we end up joining the city, I just hope the city catches up with us before that happens in terms of processes, policies, technology, things like that.

I would like to be a part of that steering committee just as an observer, observer, if I may, because I would really would like to learn more about it.

So I will I don't have to be a part of the committee, but I'd like to be an observer if I may.

And I'll send out my my white paper to counsel today that goes into more detail about thanks.

Thank you, Zach.

Good afternoon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh basically the golf course is a is a very important amenity operated by the city of Carmel.

Um we try to offer affordable leisure activity, place for recreation, uh we promote physical activity and social interaction and contribute to the overall well-being of the community.

Our uh our personnel numbers, as you can see up there, we do five full-time employees.

Uh have 50 to 60 part-time, depending on time of year, off season, obviously a lot less than that.

But our total budget for that number is slightly over a million, one million seventy-nine thousand and forty, which is slightly up due to the 3% increase in any added costs associated with that.

We also asked for a little bit more in part-time help for next year.

Uh, this year we purposely cut that down and saw what we would consider to be a uh reduction in services due to that.

First program is we tried to simplify it this year and and just go with the way we look at it.

And our first program is our uh ProShop program, which would include everything that it takes to operate the Pro Shop, the cart area, the POS system, GPS systems, hard and soft goods, all those, all those aspects.

Um I just spoke to Zach a little bit about there's some numbers that are transposed on my 2024 and 2025 numbers that uh so that they don't add up exactly right from the last couple years.

Um but overall we're staying pretty steady in that number that we're uh requesting for 2026, just a couple of slight increases.

One number on there that uh you may look at and think is rather high as an organizational membership dues.

That is actually not an organization or membership that any of us have as our team.

That is something that we pay to the handicap office with the state.

And if everybody who comes out and has a season pass or plays in a league or whatever has to have a handicap.

We then charge them for that handicap, and then we are charged for that handicap by that association.

So that's uh that's a number there that seems high, but that is the reason why.

Um our next program would be maintenance, pre-self-explanatory.

Uh this is where I know a couple of them look like numbers were transposed.

We did not spend 25,000 on computer equipment last year, it was 2500.

Um, so I guess a zero was added in there someplace in the the back and forth activity.

Um and the the total numbers down there at the bottom, I believe, still included labor for some of that.

Oh no, it didn't.

Nope, that's right.

This one is the uh the big number that we are taking out as the grounds maintenance equipment.

So I've always thought uh that is our capital leases, and I've always thought that once we kind of got rid of some of those capital leases to where we took our capital expenditures out of our operating budget, that was going to be the key to us being self-sustaining.

We have finally kind of gotten to that point for next year.

And if I could clarify that that point, some something that came up uh during last year's uh budget workshops, and I and I think Bob uh I think his presentation was like shortly after parks uh last year as well.

And and we kind of talked about how parks uh you know they do get a general fund appropriation, but in many other aspects they they cover their costs.

Uh for whatever reason, whenever the new uh cart path and bridges were installed at Brookshire.

What year was that, Bob?

Uh 2021.

In instead of that being rolled into some sort of bond uh that was paid for via capital lease.

Uh frankly, our like our our current capital lease equipment lease provider would not lend towards something like that.

They they want something that's tangible that they could go up and you know, if we didn't make payment that that that there's collateral there that they could uh seize.

I'm not sure in this situation if they would come back and roll up the cart path or or take a bridge back.

Um but again it it was paid for as an operating expense when it really was not an operating expense.

And so this is one of those capital leases that we've uh now set aside dollars in the budget to to pay off all future payments, but it has the impact of uh pulling that expense out of uh out of Bob's recurring budget uh and gets them to a point where their uh revenues and expenses on an annual basis are are much more closer to being equal.

Thank you, Zach.

Um and as you can see, uh 2024 it was 341, 2025.

We budgeted 282, and that's probably about where it's gonna be.

And for next year, we're looking at less than 50,000.

So that's a pretty good size drop over over three years.

Um our last program is clubhouse, basically kind of an administrative cost is the way we look at this.

Um again, a couple numbers in there got a zero added uh cable service did not cost us 44,000, it was about 4400.

Uh natural gas was about 4900 instead of 49,000 in 2024.

So there were there's some transposed numbers in there, but uh basically that number again is staying uh pretty steady.

I'm guessing this year to next year, it's uh you know gonna be a thousand dollars difference, fifteen hundred dollars difference at most.

And on the budget summary page, you can see I uh went with what we spent in 2024, 2025, and revenue.

Um if you take, like I said, if you take those capital numbers out, that puts us pretty darn close to, if not above breaking even.

2026, we're requesting 1.8 million.

Chances of us spending that are not very high.

We always stay under.

And my guesstimate is as you can see right now in 2025, our spend year to date and revenue year to date are pretty close to even, and that already has the 200,000 dollars for the cart path payment that Zach was talking about in there.

It's already got our biggest expenses in there.

Our fertilizer and chemicals all been purchased for the year, that kind of thing.

So we are headed in the right direction, I believe.

Question questions for the council from the council.

So go ahead.

Kind of a more why did overtime get moved from where it has been to a different line.

So our overtime is we don't really have any overtime at the golf course.

What we have is one-exempt employee who, when he works more than 40 hours, he gets time compensated for when he then uses that time, it comes out of that overtime line item.

That's a little high.

We're not gonna go that high, not even close.

Are you looking at this one?

Yeah.

So I think this is going to go back to how there were different account codes created this past budgeting year.

So where things were historically budgeted, now we have more granular level of overtime details.

So I can pull a little bit more data to see you know which account codes we used, but we definitely still have overtime budgeted for Brookshire for this year.

Okay.

So it looks like last year it was 24, excuse me.

16,000, and now it's moved to a different line item, and it's 40,000.

And I don't know what the scheduled overtime of 38,000.

I don't know what that means.

And 2600 for unscheduled overtime moved into a completely different lineup.

I'm not questioning its merit necessarily.

I just don't understand.

Yeah, but we'll look into that and get you a better explanation.

I have a few questions.

First of all, I apologize.

I walked a little late.

So if I asked something you've already mentioned, just forgive me.

First, we have some projects that I know have been approved in the past.

Expanding our parking and then in our bonds we had to finally get some some shade uh for the back patio.

Kind of how are those going?

So I've got pretty close to 100% of a spec done for the patio, and we'll get that to Andrew for open gov here in the next couple weeks so that we get that done before the end of the year.

Um we kind of looked at it early, and I was dealing with uh CIO at the time, and that kind of got obviously sidetracked a little bit.

Um so we restarted that up again about a month ago, and I'd still like to get that before the end of the year.

They told me I I had everybody that I talked to before come back out and kind of give me a requote, and I'm taking all of their information and combining them into what actually we are looking for.

Um and the you you mentioned to me in the past the parking expansion.

Where's that at?

Um again, we're looking at doing the my guess is it's gonna end up being a fall and spring to get gravel on it this fall and the grading done and then it get it paved in the spring.

And then you mentioned here what your revenue is just to kind of break that down, like um event side, how you know how are we looking for the revenue you generated there compared to you know pro shop concessions fees?

What what how does the revenue break down?

So we don't uh really make any revenue off of the event side.

We get paid a rent from the contractor, um, and that's $4,500 a month from them.

Um membership last I look or season pass last I looked was about $240,000.

Um hardened soft goods is about $120,000, and the rest is going to be daily play.

That $4,500.

We recently um redid or re-upped their contract, right?

We did, yeah.

Was the rent stayed the same or was there any adjustment?

It went up, and it was before we had a rent plus a percent of utilities plus a percent of anything that they made over a certain amount of revenue, and we just simplified that um and just made it rent.

We were getting about 3,500 a month last year.

3200.

So, yeah, so it went up, but then you also simplified it, so it's maybe not as big of an increase for them.

So, but it's still an increase.

That's probably correct.

And questions for the council?

Councillor Manar.

When you were talking about the Matt was talking about the overtime, Bob it was up for um the maintenance.

What's his name?

Oh my gosh.

Russell Russell.

That was for Russell, I'm assuming.

Yeah, we have one non-exempt employee, and again, he's the only one that is treated that way.

Anytime he takes off time in the off-season, let's say, it comes out of his compensatory time, and that's then taken out of our full-time salary line item and put into the overtime line item.

And he does most of all of your maintenance and all the correct equipment.

He's our equipment technician, he takes care of all the equipment.

And just to clarify for the overtime, so previously it was accounted for in 41120 overtime, and this year it's budgeted as two separate line items.

So there's unscheduled overtime and scheduled overtime for a total of 40,000 651, and then we also added roughly 25,000 to part-time just because there's some uncertainty of exactly how much part-time wages would be utilized in workers.

So that's where you should see it in this budget, but it showed up in a different account code last year.

So, but you're saying there's no overtime, so do we need 40,000 dollars budgeted?

No.

Council Cheshire?

Uh, just in general, um, how do you think Brookshire is doing as far as membership increases?

How do you think we're doing as far as increase in play time or decrease in play?

Like just kind of an overall estimate from your aspect on the health of the golf course.

Uh I believe the health is still strong.

I um as of right now, we're expecting to do over 40,000 rounds again, probably in the 42,000 round area, depending on the fall.

There's a limit to how many people we can put on that golf course without having a deterioration effect.

So any time we look at the numbers, we don't think, hey, let's get to 50,000 rounds.

We think how can we make a little bit more revenue off of the 40,000 that we have?

And we've had some steady increases lately.

And when you compare that with our rack rate, that's not appropriate.

So we need to make some adjustments on that.

Councilman?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Course seems to be in pretty good shape.

Looks like it could use some more some more work.

Where are you guys on improvements for the course?

Like whole green 17.

Um green 17.

Some of the T boxes were that's that's what you're gonna run into on the PAR3s with that much play, they get extremely beat up.

Um so what we do this time of year is we'll almost close them.

We'll keep people locked in one area to try to recover everything else on that on that area.

Um and we try to do uh anything that a lot of times would be considered a capital project, small capital projects, we do them in-house a lot of times.

We'll we've we rebuild bunkers, we take down trees, we um we'll rebuild a T if we think it needs to be bigger.

That kind of thing, obviously, there's a huge cost saving to that.

Um, and that's gonna be one of our projects this this off season is to make a couple T's bigger and to improve some drainage in areas.

But I also I have a team member who got uh an email from somebody that they know last week, said he came out and played, course was great.

Uh he thought the greens were better than any country club in the area.

So counselor Schneider.

So how are the conversations ongoing or how are we going to implement the um business plan recommendations from the consultant?

Yeah, so yeah, you're right.

We we uh with the help of the parks department, we we got a uh a business plan uh maybe about two months ago, something like that now.

Um we're we're looking through the recommendations there, considering whether this should be uh kind of stay as is, become part of the parks department, really just considering what our options are there, but no no decisions have been made.

The recommendations um primarily coming out of this, out of the um out of the uh the business plan as as Bob was alluding to earlier, uh we are losing uh I won't say we're losing money, but we're we're we're missing out on dollars with our current um our current uh uh annual pass system uh as compared to the normal rate for a round of golf, uh people are able to get around for probably 10% of that cost.

So I can interrupt you.

So um I think some of us had meetings with them about some of those recommendations and that thing.

I don't know if we ever got a copy of that.

Could you could they send a copy out to the council?

Yeah, of the uh of the business plan.

Yeah.

Some of us did, you know, they offered us meetings, some of us did that, but I don't think we ever got a copy.

Okay, yep.

Well just my understanding was they met with uh they met with everyone, I think every single person met with them.

Yeah, well one-on-one opinions based on data presented and then they were gonna build a business plan.

And it sounds like you've gotten I have our that just to clarify that's what we'd like.

Any other questions in the council?

Um, I want to keep moving on, but keep us update of any um uh big capital expenditures that may come in the future, whether it's you know the uh um golf simulators or you know, kind of equipment that beyond which your smaller things you try to take on yourself, just so we can know um what's coming down the road.

But we'll do thank you.

All right, well, thank you so much.

And I think we got two departments left.

Zachy have been present young facilities management.

Have you?

All right, we'll do that and then redevelopment, and then we'll wrap up the day.

Thanks.

Shall I go ahead and jump in?

Yeah.

Okay.

First of all, before I get into the details here, I just want to remind the group.

This is a department in our accounting system, but I would not necessarily think about this as functionally a department as we as we think about our our real departments, but but for accounting purposes, it shows up as a department.

This was previously referred to as the administration department, which was kind of under the purview of the director of administration who then became the chief of staff.

Or maybe we just didn't want to increase that other department's budget, so we paid for it out of here.

And again, we paid for health insurance for retirees out of this as opposed to out of the HR department.

A lot of things just could have had better better homes.

So that's what we did for uh from 24 into 25.

What this department is now basically facilities management is the cost of maintaining City Hall.

And so it's the employees, the uh their equipment, the uh uh other supplies, all that.

So again, it's it's the operations, cleaning, and ongoing maintenance of City Hall.

Uh this year, the put two big things we are we've been working on here are the uh mainly the the dumpster enclosure uh and then also the the generator installation.

As you know, when we lost power uh uh back in I believe it was April with the uh with the tornado, uh City Hall was without power for for uh a lengthy time there.

We don't have a generator today.

We we had ordered one back last year and are expecting uh the installation of that this fall, and we are building the dumpster enclosure to uh uh frankly get get in compliance with our own uh uh laws on on closing dumpsters.

The the staff paid out of this department.

There are two uh two folks today.

Technically there are they're beginning of this year, there were five people paid out of this fund.

Um you had the head of the department, Clayton.

You had a maintenance person that uh worked for Clayton but was assigned to the fire department for their maintenance needs, uh and then you had three uh city hall uh custodians slash maintenance personnel.

Going forward, that's that's been reduced to three as or to two as three of those are now paid for by other departments.

So with uh Clayton now overseeing the uh facilities and quartermaster function uh for uh for public safety, uh he is no longer being paid out of this department.

Uh he is now being paid out of CPD's budget uh going forward.

The uh uh also one of the uh obviously the the the gentleman that's responsible for uh uh fire is moving over to uh the fire department and and then one of the three uh custodial folks is moving over to this other team as well uh to kind of be the the uh at the end of the day we'll have uh a custodian in the CPD building, a custodian in fire headquarters, and then a float person uh between the two, and then also helping out with City Hall.

Um I I think when when you're looking about the fire headquarters or CPD, uh one person alone doing that is probably not enough.

Two is probably too much, and so we've got to this kind of one plus a float model.

That's a goofy slide.

Um in terms of other costs we have in here, we have the uh uh utility cost and other uh uh overhead.

Essentially we've got electric bills, water and sewer, uh, uh trash, uh fuel for the the fleet, and then uh uh this is where there are uh uh and I think it's relative to council chambers where we have to pay for cable service uh for the Carmel TV.

We've budgeted uh 364,000 in change uh for uh repair and maintenance costs for next year.

Um just to mention this this uh we we have moved out the food and beverage to the food and beverage tax, the the cost of the energy center.

Uh that is the uh uh the the maintenance for that and does that also include the the bond payment?

The the the uh it it's kind of a bond payment in lieu of paying uh an energy bill.

Uh we pay to the CRC for uh for the energy center cost.

Any questions?

Budget's down 400,000.

Uh do you have a question?

You just brought up the um the energy center there, which used to be under this line item.

Wondering, trying to find you said a move to the yeah, the sorry, to the food and beverage tax funds.

Food and beverage, yeah.

Yeah, just as a uh quick overview there, that's a revenue source that we had been putting in the general fund.

Can't anymore.

Um brings in uh probably 3.6 to 3.7 million of ongoing revenue every year.

Uh and we've moved uh uh a few of our recurring expenses that were primarily managed by the finance department uh over to be paid from out of this revenue source.

Yep.

So on that fund, um there are now six payment items that will come out of that fund.

One of them is the capital lease equipment, which we talked about earlier, kind of drawing down some of those capital leases, putting those in that side pot.

Will these be reoccurring funds under the food and beverage line item now?

Moving forward, so like energy center general insurance.

Yes.

Okay.

That that's the way it's it's set up, and and I I think we would be open to if like if there's different expenses that make more sense there and put these back into pay for the out of the general fund.

It was just a I don't want to make it harder for other departments that oh crap, I should I pay this bill out of my general fund appropriation or out of my food and beverage tax appropriation.

Some of these are just the departments and funds are owned by the finance department.

It was just easier for us to pick up some of our expenses that have to be paid and shipped there.

And I I asked that just from a matter, and it goes kind of back to the beginning of the day yesterday.

Just the idea some of these funds that are finance derived that you guys oversee that are not specifically the general funds are not necessarily a discussion point for these two meetings because we're appropriating the general fund are all related to that budget line.

So I I do think if there's a list of other places where funding or reoccurring items have gone, it would be great to see those just so we've got the full picture.

Um and then this goes to the conversation we had with the ambulance fund with the fire department, like the idea of ensuring that these funds are set up and are being used the way they're intended to be under the code.

I think it's just a compliance question.

I I love the idea, like we've got it, it's there, let's put these there now, but like the idea of moving food and beverage related expenses or things to these moving forward, even if they're general fund expenses from another line item, just ensuring we align those things to the code and the intent that was there to begin with is gonna be important because I would hate for us to kind of do too many things creatively without kind of tracking them and then ensuring that we get them then back right.

So 12 years from now, they're like, why is that there?

And it's like, well, because we had this time in 2025-26 where we had to put it there and it made perfect sense, but they just don't understand why.

So a review of that from the finance perspective would be great.

Yeah.

Uh I I have a um uh a short slide deck that I'll send the group.

It's like 90% done, but it it's holistic on food and beverage tax fund, kind of where we were, where we are now, and what we're recommending budget-wise, but I'll I'll try to get that out today.

And again, one final thing on that, if you recall, that's any legal use.

So that's just super broad, which is good for uh all of us.

All right, well, thank you.

And we'll move on to the last presentation of the day, redevelopment.

Adam.

Yes.

While Henry's getting ready, I've seen some of you whispering to each other, and I see Jeff leaving the room.

I really don't need the award for greatest PowerPoint presentation ever at a budget program.

Henry's usually pretty good.

Are you gonna did you do some extra magic to try to compete with uh engineering this time?

No extra magic, just doing my job.

Okay.

That's magical.

Thank you.

Whenever you get started whenever you're ready.

Are you clicking my buttons?

Great.

Uh hello, Henry Mustatsky, Carmel's redevelopment director.

Thank you for this opportunity to present a budget that has gone down compared to last year.

Let's skip this mission statement.

We do redevelopment stuff.

Um next, please.

A lot of successes through the last year and a half in redevelopment.

Um allow um whoever wants to to read this, but I'm not gonna read each each one of these because um most of my successes require council approval.

So this is all of our together successes.

Next, please.

I have five people in my department, me and four other wonderful people, and that's the majority of my budget, and thank you for allowing us to uh all continue to work here.

Uh no vacancies, no one nothing new.

40 grand of administrative budget.

Um this covers everything.

Most categories decrease from 2025.

Uh training and travel specifically uh reduced by 70 percent from the previous year.

Next next IT costs, now we're in the weed seven thousand dollars, we need some new laptops, we have some specific software we use.

Next.

This is probably the the biggest non-personnel item.

So uh at times the redevelopment department holds on to um buildings that are part of future redevelopment projects, and in the meantime we pay utility and other carrying costs, and so those usually sit here.

Um like two new projects, two new properties compared to last year.

Um one is the Prescanium 3 uh uh current the former old town headquarters, that's that corner where the Prescinium 3 project would go.

For now, we're still paying utilities because once you turn them off, it gets really bad and you got a demo, so we try not to turn off the utilities until it's time to demo.

Hopefully, this project moves forward this year, so then that will stop.

Same with the IT building.

For now, we're paying some of the costs like utilities in there just to keep it from getting all moldy and gross.

But the second that a project is brought before this council, that stops being an expense.

Um probably the largest uh of these uh properties that we still have is the uh laser flash slash winter farmers market building.

So, like we carry the utility charges for that.

Our deal with the farmers market, uh, counselor Locke, a couple um months ago you asked this question, and I didn't perfectly answer it, so I'm just gonna perfectly answer it now.

Our deal with the farmers market is the redevelopment commission pays for $1,300 of utilities a month, and anything above that the farmers market pays.

Which really means that they just turn the light off when they're done and are held to that, but otherwise we cover it.

So that's the kind of property management uh expenses that usually uh exist.

So if we want to have a laser tag party, is that still something that uh my daughter had a laser tag party last weekend for her birthday?

Uh and just like it wasn't at the laser tag, it was at laser tag, and I paid full price, and you will too.

Support your carmal businesses.

Okay.

Um uh so highlights.

Look, we took eighty-eight thousand dollars of professional services out of our budget and stuck them into the CRC.

That's how we excluding.

I'm just gonna go to the end.

Excluding personnel, we have a budget decrease of 41%.

I'm out of money.

That's just that's that's that's what we got.

Um, and you can see how our our budget is actually uh decrease overall compared to the previous year.

So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

You say you've moved it to CRC, so you just moved it out of city budget into the commission's budget.

Because it seems to me that your bread and butter is design and legal, and that's what you've removed.

Yeah, so you usually the way it works is that um both the redevelopment commission carried professional services and the department has long for a long time, for as long as I've been here carried a substantial professional services line item.

But we understand the environment we're in.

And let me know your math says 80, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but 88,000.

And I'm my my advocacy is telling me it's more like 108,000.

Actually, 118,000.

Um I mean, I'm can I consider professional fees, professional services, which is legal consulting design.

So you've really cut 100 and whatever I just said, 128,000 out.

Yep, we've shifted that to the to the commission.

And you know, and you're no longer traveling anymore.

I mean which seems like another bread and butter piece of what you do.

We have substantially reduced the travel budget, but there's still about I want to say 14 grand or so.

10.

10,000 in the travel budget.

Um so my team is a very unique team where everyone is kind of very high level and everyone has uh a different discipline.

I have a architect, I have an urban planner, and I have a finance person.

So back in the day, each one of my people got to go to one related to their professional discipline trip a year.

That has been cut out.

I also often spoke at several trips a year.

So our budget has been the travel budget essentially has been decreased just for me to go to my one legal conference and one urban planning conference, whether it's ULI, CNU, making cities livable, one of those.

So we've cut it to just two work relevant conferences for me, but happy to take any further direction, but that's how we get such a substantial decrease in travel and training.

You know, I I've already explained when legal was up here about my philosophy on conferences, but I almost think that if you haven't budgeted for it, budget if it's not budgeted, but an employee is asked to speak at a conference.

Like that's a legitimate reason to come ask for the appropriation.

I would never want someone not to speak if they're asked is is an opinion.

Uh counselor Lau.

Yep.

So we had kind of a long and robust discussion yesterday about economic development um in the city of Carmel and how redevelopment is kind of at the core of what we're doing to build out the environment and connect to the ecosystem that makes sense for businesses and people to move in in our central core, the places that are being redeveloped, right?

So wondering too, as we talk about travels, we talk about kind of that shared mission vision of finding the right things and building the right things here moving forward.

Um there was $10,000 in that economic development budget that we talked about, potentially moving to the mayor's budget.

Mayor has a $29,000 travel budget for doing things related to kind of this process.

I see these all being the shared mission of the going out and about and connecting to the city.

Um just want to make sure we're allocating the resources the right way, but knowing full well that those things are shared kind of up and through the mayor on that mission.

I don't to Counselor Snyder's point on this, like the idea that we're not at the table or at events when we're leaning on the edge of building out a community with this as a strategic forefront seems to be a big miss that we should continue to kind of be a part of.

So I I say that as we look at kind of what those things look like as we figure out and hone in on where that understanding of how travel on its face appears to be a perk, uh, but is actually the worst part of most government jobs, uh, but a necessary part of it to be a part of those communities to be a part of the data flow, I think becomes kind of a a very interesting thing to kind of hone in on and make sure we're aligned as we're kind of getting to the end point that makes the most sense for the team for the direction for the information gathering we need as a city.

Echo that a little bit to say that you know, in the end of 2026, if there is a big economic development opportunity, and I don't want us to miss out on something because well, we couldn't fly out there to to meet with the company and to look into it.

And um so I know we're I appreciate you've always been responsible cutting your budget down, but if these things do come up, please come to us.

And for anyone in the public knows, like, yeah, Henry's working, and he's not partying on these trips.

So thank you.

And what are you most excited about in this budget?

This is the last time we're going to ask it so what are you most excited about?

What are you excited about in this upcoming year goals, ideas, 2026, the year of master developing I don't know what what do you see and what gets you up in the morning and excited about 2026.

I am most excited about the fact that the team stays intact and we continue doing what we can for another year.

I think we have um the state has presented us with challenges the nature of redevelopment is changing.

There are certain projects where I mean the same a multifamily building that generated some amount of TIFF a year ago is going to generate 66% of that TIFF in two years.

So where before a conversation was about filling a gap in a garage for a garage in a proforma well all those performers are busted.

It's so we just we have to um we have to be innovative in how we continue to do redevelopment this city has been on the forefront of all of that from the very beginning and I don't see that changing.

But it's going to be an interesting year.

Well I can't I can't impress upon you enough how important I think your team what you've done your your knowledge of where we have gotten to from where we came from will be that creative force and I mean that longevity that understanding of what we have as a team going into these different times a different economic environment are are the next great bastion of how we will stay the number one city in the world in the history of mankind moving forward.

So thank you appreciate that wake up find something to be super excited about don't hesitate to ask your council to back things that we should be looking at strategically to make this place continue to grow.

Thank you.

Counselor Josh and Councillor Well the creativity confidence and thoughtfulness with which you always bring projects to us with is greatly appreciated and if the challenges that you just iterated um are pres are now in front of us I see no one better to be able to tackle those challenges than you Henry because you have demonstrated that in all the times that I have asked you questions and you have answered them and you have been honest about kind of your assessment on things so I very much appreciate the expertise and I hope that you feel valued and I know we often beat you up and give you a hard time and that is the nature of the job that you do but you do it with grace and I appreciate it.

I really appreciate that counselor I there's been a lot of turnover in the city.

Mayor Finkham has kept the redevelopment team intact every one of our staff has stayed intact and I believe that is a reflection of the um importance of redevelopment in the city and I can only be thankful for that Henry Thank you Mr.

President Henry this um should feel like a very different budget meeting than than years gone by I remember the days and and I would say I served as a commissioner with you on redevelopment and then you uh became the director and also served for you so I have great respect for what you do and we've had a great relationship but I do um I loved your answer to Counselor Locke's question that the team is intact and I sense that there was a turning point this year where you were allowed to um show us your skills and to do what you do best.

And so however that happened I'm uh happy it happened and I want to encourage more of it.

I um you sat through many budget meetings and uh Mayor Finkam can probably remember when uh they weren't so nice and they were very critical and it's looking back and seeing the success and seeing what has been done that should give you great a great sense of accomplishment and hopefully for the entire team a great sense of pride I have um visitors coming to Carmel uh next week and one of the requests or excuse me a request from multiple people is we want to meet your economic development director.

So I have reached out to you and you're gonna do that.

That is coming via the reputation of Carmel, Indiana when a mayor says they want to meet you.

So um so I just wanted to congratulate you on a job well done and um peace.

Thank you.

Councilman.

It's Henry Lovefest today.

I think what I think what uh I I'm gonna put it, I'm gonna put it I'm gonna put a cherry on top of this wonderful Sunday.

And I think um a lot of times people fear change and and don't understand change, and sometimes when you do things that people see as odd or out of place or not asking, we don't need it.

Clearly a lot of times then people come back and say, you know what?

You are right.

We don't please everybody at all times.

But when the majority of people come back and say you've done your job properly, that says a lot.

So like everyone else on this dais, I have appreciated your knowledge and your hand holding over the last 19 months.

I couldn't have done it without you.

So I thank you as well.

Thank you.

Teresa.

I just have one thing.

I think I said this in an email, but let Henry do Henry.

And only Henry Broad.

Then apparently only Henry can get counselor to speak.

Um I'll take you down and not you're my second favorite department head.

I know more trees, I know.

Well, I don't want his head to get too big.

So do you have any other things to turn them apart?

There you go.

No, Zach.

Just some.

Well, no, no, just so I was just gonna say now that we've we've wrapped these up.

If if there's uh I know we we took a lot of notes, things that you guys uh have asked for.

Um I think we can probably get all those by the end of the week or so.

If there's anything that you guys are still missing, let us know.

And and uh I know we we had some of those department meetings.

Um if there's more of those that you guys want, please reach out.

Yeah, so I Henry do want to say that 2027 is gonna be even tougher.

I keep saying that.

Uh kind of the work you do is gonna help us continue to grow our tax base, which is gonna uh we talk about how to create revenue, and it won't maybe be realized that fast, but uh it does set us up to really weather the effects.

And had we not been doing a lot of these projects for the number of years, we'd be in an even tougher position today.

Um Zach, so you'll get a copy of maybe an updated budget maybe by the end of this week, and then that would give us time for Tuesday when we have our uh meeting from 9 to 11 here in the chambers to kind of go over that.

But we'll we'll have that in advance to review.

Uh meeting 9 to 11.

It's 9 a.m.

to 11 a.m.

Yeah, on the 23rd.

Tuesday the 23rd.

So it's Tuesday next week.

And um the during the meeting, we'll go over if if there were any updates or changes based on council feedback, I assume, right?

I think we need to have an offline conversation of what everyone expects for that meeting, just to make just to be clear.

Okay.

Uh all I would ask is if we do uh if we could get it to us in a little advance so we weren't you know seeing it for the first time right when the meeting starts, so we can have a little chance to review if there is an updated budget.

So council Rao.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, I I guess I'm just gonna ask a question.

Mayor, um this I this is just a question, but do you take the feedback and the tone and tenor of what you've heard?

And do you then say, well, we'll make an adjustment here, or we'll do that.

Is that kind of the next step of what happens and then it comes back to us, or do we I mean what you know how does this work?

Well, we haven't done this process before, and this is only people doing it.

I don't expect you'll see a full new budget on the 23rd.

Okay.

So will you make you like to have a good conversation and move on and then we'll introduce the budget uh formally on the sixth.

Just which it has to be actually introduced before that, right?

Because we have to talk to DLG off and go on your packet, all that fun stuff.

I don't see you, I don't see us coming to you with a formal new budget on the 23rd.

Well, let me just follow up on my so like you probably if I were sitting in your shoes, heard some concern about experience, Carmel.

And um and you said, well, there is no other plan.

Um would would it be would we be able to expect that you might say, well, I we better at least think about another plan or do we think about everything you said for all the departments.

So again, I'm gonna there's been 12 hours of mind-numbing meetings here for or more than 12 hours.

So we're gonna go back to the team together and see what we want to do.

Right, but that is the purpose of the meetings.

That is the purpose of the meetings is to hear to introduce the department budgets to you.

And receive feedback, I think.

Okay, I know.

Okay, we did.

So just I mean, just to echo that too.

I this is the best way.

I but this is that's what I don't want to rehash everything we said these last two days again on the 23rd.

So hopefully, if there is new information from you, I don't expect a whole new budget drafted.

But even if you have yeah, if you have a position to say we've taken this feedback, we are going to try to work this into a budget, and then it's like, okay, now we've something is knocked off the list and we can see how we can actually make this work.

Um but if we walk in and then we just redebate everything all over again, I don't know if that's going to be useful.

So yeah.

Uh any other counselor lock?

And just a thought too.

I know that there's still some counting and stuff happening at the state from a calculation of process standpoint.

If it makes sense to move the 23rd back because there's more information we need there, I think that makes sense too.

But the thing that I would like to just kind of echo on this final as we get into this, like the next phase of hearing your feedback on the feedback you've received here.

If there's other information you need from us to feel confident and figuring out where to go with your department heads and others, like let us know too offline as we need more information.

I think that continues to grow.

But the idea of coming back at the next one with an understanding of where we're all willing to come back and compromise or move um into different directions, I think seems to be a good next step.

Goal here, obviously, is to get a budget approved by the end of October as needed and required by law.

Um so making progress on that and knowing kind of where we stand and what we need to kind of think more about seems to be a good next place to go as a team.

That way we can get through it.

Um if there are things that you do not want to move on, um, as soon as we know that that's the case, and we need to start looking at other options on our end of what we need to cut, present or process on what powers we have as a uh council, that would be helpful too.

So I do think that final piece of information from the state will likely be important.

Adam, could I respond to that real quick?

Yeah, so so uh as of right now, things are indicating that our uh the the goof by the county or or misunderstanding by the county uh won't have much or any impact on our operating dollars, might more so on our on our bonding capacity.

Once I get that a little bit more locked in, uh can say that with more confidence.

I'll I'll send something to council, making sure we're on the same page there.

I I I would also just note that in regards to moving that meeting on the on the 23rd.

Um we do have a a uh state DLGF requirement uh of posting our budget in gateway.

I think uh I want to say it's by Friday of next week, it could be Thursday, but uh whereas we normally are posting in like the the current or the reporter uh whenever we're we're doing a uh public notice for the budget, it goes into gateway.

And I I think uh again, Thursday or Friday of next week, there is a firm deadline of to put the mayor's budget in.

We go back afterwards and put in whatever the past version is, but we've got some weird deadlines there too.

So what uh one thing I want to clarify, or second on Councillor Locke's point is uh as far as moving.

I hear your deadline, but if there aren't gonna be substantive changes, and and and the there's no, it sounds like mostly logistically.

I mean, redoing this all by next Tuesday or whatever, whatever the reason is.