Good afternoon.

Everyone.

Welcome and uh thank you for being here at our uh Vandenberg County Council meeting.

Date is July 1, 2026.

Um, those here in attendance.

Thank thank you again for being here, and those that are watching streaming via granite is welcome as well.

We'll start next, or we're next up is our attendance roll call, please.

Councilmember Iacarino.

Councilmember Shatler.

Councilmember Kiefer.

Here.

Councilmember Bassmeyer.

Here.

Councilmember Raven.

Here.

Councilmember Hahn.

Here.

President Montrestaut.

Here.

Everyone's here.

Um except Nick.

He's not streaming.

No.

Okay.

Um, we'll next we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance.

I'll I'm gonna ask Sarah and her team to stand us, uh, stand up and lead us in our pledge in the Pledge of Allegiance, and I will do the invocation.

And Joe's got the flag.

Pledge allegiance, the United States of America.

And do the Republic for which it stands.

And visible with liberty and justice for all.

Heavenly Father, as we gather this afternoon, just days before celebrating our nation's birthday, we thank you for the blessings of living in a country where freedom is cherished and where we have the privilege of serving our neighbors.

We are grateful for the men and women who have defended our nation throughout our history, and for those who continue to serve today, our military, our veterans, law enforcement officials, firefighters, EMS personnel, and all who work to keep our community safe.

Lord, thank you for the people of Vanderburgh County and for the trust they have placed in us.

Help us to be good stewards of that trust.

Grant us wisdom as we make decisions that affect our community, and give us the humility to listen, the courage to do what's right, and the respect to work together even when we disagree.

May our decisions be guided by integrity, common sense, and a sincere desire to serve others.

Continue to bless Vanderborough County, the state of Indiana, the United States of America.

May we never take our freedoms for granted and always strive to be worthy of them.

In your holy name we pray.

Amen.

Mr.

President, can I just real quickly thank the commissioners as well as Laura Toms for decorating and all the festivities that we have before us?

Yes.

So thank you.

Thank you, Jill.

Next up is our approval of approval of our amendments dated June 3.

June 3?

June 3, 2026.

Can I get a motion for acceptance?

All those in favor signify saying aye.

Anyone opposed?

Motion carries.

Next up is our personnel request.

Mr.

Councilmember Kiefer, please.

Thanks, John.

Um the first three, all of these we went through, all of them but one we went to last week and had an opportunity to address any questions, but I uh will make a motion to approve a one B1 and C1.

I'll second it.

Uh but I have a question of Kevin.

Kevin.

Um I just would you just please uh give us a brief of you you want to reclassify the senior senior legal secretary, and I'm assuming because added responsibilities and so on.

Yes, so um the person in that position now is looking at retiring, and so as we were thinking about replacing her in the future, we happened to look at the description and realized it was way out of date.

So uh that position is more of an office manager now.

Uh she supervises other legal secretaries and the receptionists, she does the bookkeeping, uh does statistics, you know, right to grants, all of those things.

So we needed uh update and correct that description before we looked at replace her.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you so much.

Okay, sure.

Uh you made a motion.

I seconded it.

Uh, there are any other discussions on A, B, and C One.

None.

Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Motion carries.

All right, and then we have a D 123 and E1.

And I'm doing this separately, John, because I know you had a question related to, I think it was done via email, but I thought it was worth worthy to bring up.

I don't know if everyone saw the response.

Well, Joe.

Okay.

I don't I don't know hold on.

Okay, maybe I don't know if you all saw my email.

I asked Joe today.

He has a request for a new a director of PH expansion and accreditation, right?

Yeah, request to fill.

Yeah, request to fill.

I'm sorry, a request of fill.

And as I looked at that, I looked at the um uh typical responsibilities of that person, right?

And um and it and it's just made me think of of Sheriff Robinson's request for medical uh appropriation for 300K to to help in that area, and where can this person help in some way?

Um that was the gist of my question.

I could I mean it's a long question.

No, it was a view.

A lot of information, and I did send a response and I can go through that.

Not really knowing what uh the sheriff's request is for.

Um it seemed to me that it was for uh inmate care direct care um costs.

This position is administrative type of role um that we use um for expanding uh public health and the services that we provide, but also with accreditation.

Um it can be used to work with other entities, other government entities, uh community organizations again to expand services to expand public health services what we do.

We've never really been.

Well, we not really, we've never been a uh acute or primary care right.

We don't do that.

I don't again I don't know exactly what those costs are for.

Um, I'm not opposed to sitting down and and thinking about how we could help expand maybe some of the things we do in the jail.

Um, not sure if that's also gonna help offset some of those costs.

It could, I guess, if it's things like if we do STI testing and treatment, um uh vaccine um, you know, uh provide vaccines to inmates to prevent uh a measles outbreak or uh you know something of that nature.

Somebody has TB God forbid in the jail.

Um, you know, we obviously can come out and provide those types of services.

So um I think we just have to understand what what the need is and what the uh how we could fit in.

Yeah, you know, I I I mean you and your your team, you're excellent at health care issues, public, you know.

Well, public.

Sorry, yeah, public health issues.

Public health issues.

And if you could we could take harness some of your energy, some of your experience, and these guys back here, Sheriff Robinson and his staff, they're great at running the jail and and doing that type of stuff.

I'm not sure they're highly they're not as won't be as experienced as what you you and your team are in that area.

So if we can there may be some synergy there, happy to and always work together.

I gotta I gotta give uh uh councilman Raven some credit here because he's the one who reminded me.

Johnny, Johnny, uh I've been asking for the health department to help multiple times um to offset some of these costs.

And that was the second part of my question.

You know, with uh with uh the the grant monies that you you find and to hire new staffing, can can one of those new staff members um provide some of the care that he that's that that three hundred thousand dollars is costing us, right?

You know, is that possible?

It depends on the grant.

Um the grants we apply for um give you a good example, um, early early education.

You know, we're to run our pre-to three program, uh and we've continued to try to expand that um uh looking for grants to expand STI testing and treatment within our community.

Um, because really your public health, you're you're you're providing not acute care.

Yeah, I know, I get it, but you're providing health care, uh health services for those who can't afford things, right?

Yeah, right.

And a lot of our inmates at the jail, I don't I think they've kind of fall in that category.

Yeah, you know, but we don't we don't do like exams, we don't provide primary care, we don't have that expertise.

Um I think there would be a lot of logistics if you went that direction, uh, because also uh our health officer, Dr.

Bredenkamp, his license uh oversees what the health department does.

So if you're gonna change that and expand it, I think logistically you're gonna have to sit down and really understand everything that's gonna be asked and whether or not he's willing to take that on with his license.

I don't know that he is.

John, can I make a statement?

Yes, Joe James.

Uh I don't think when I suggested that to John and have in the past, it's not to provide the care, it's just to provide some revenues to allow the sheriff some or the sheriff's office some relief on picking up that bill.

So revenue from the health fund or from the health fund or whatever possible, yeah.

He just wants the money.

Yeah, I I heard him.

That's pretty good.

So uh anything you take from us, it reduces our ability to do what we do.

So I I would disagree with that.

Makes sense for us to really go to Echo Health to talk to them because they do things that reduce and help the community, and that's they're directly to help, you know, those who can't afford traditional methods.

They they provide primary care, right?

And they would be uh a potential source.

I don't know if they have the capacity to be honest with you right now.

Um I know they have struggled with uh uh cuts in funding as well and things of that nature, so um, yeah.

But they are set up, they are good.

They are set up, they have clinics for primary care, dental care, um, they send uh people with a potential STI to us uh because we can do the testing rather than them having a lab, um maternal child health, you know, those types of things we can kind of split, we have programs, vaccinations they send to us, but primary care.

If you're having somebody who is having a physical issue that needs to be seen by a primary doctor, that's them, that's not us.

But it may make sense for you know, like the sheriff's office to sit down and talk with them of ways they may be able to collaborate and get the price down a little bit here and a little bit there.

Yeah, absolutely.

Sit down and understand everybody's niche or role, and you know, we can we can come to some kind of conclusion on a lot of that, but um taking money away from the health department, I'm gonna disagree with that.

Yeah, we should Joe.

Who has been picking up the slap slack uh for who's been doing this job previously, or is there just been that much of an increase in demand for to hire this individual?

I'm not sure I followed.

Well, I mean, you got a director, so I mean, the job description.

Who's been doing this work now?

Until we receive the HFI funding, no one.

Okay.

So when we received expanded funding from the state, we put this in place so again we could expand services as much as possible, even into other counties where they're paying Vanderburgh County for for those services.

Okay.

So it was meant to bring in additional funding, but also to allow us to stay in a credit to health department.

Sheriff, did you want to add something?

Oh yeah.

Can I maybe don't support taking some money on your budget to give the sheriff's offices?

I didn't expect to expect that.

Um, you're he's absolutely right that the health department doesn't do acute care.

Uh we we actually are providing um a lot of the services that Echo would provide uh in the facility.

So we have a nurse practitioner and a doctor uh that that are in the facility.

The doctor is uh there once a week, the nurse practitioner is there 40 hours, and so they're they're providing that primary care in the facility.

The expenses that are being generated are are happening through diagnostic and imaging services, uh, prescription medications.

Uh a lot of the uh the the acute care, the trauma, uh injuries, uh chronic health problems that require and necessitate a trip to the ER or to specialists for treatment, those things well beyond the capabilities of our infirmary, and and certainly not something that that Joe's keen could could grapple with.

Um I will say that we are uh presently signed a contract with uh Heritage uh Health Group to scrub our bills, and we're gonna start to try to claw back more money from uh the healthy Indiana plan Medicaid for those individuals who are in uh inpatient for more than 24 hours.

There may be some additional opportunities to claw some money back.

So we're taking some steps to reduce this.

So we've identified the problem, and we're hard at work at trying to get these costs under control.

Um, and so we are we are looking for avenues to help reduce uh reduce these expenses, but um, and I will get with Joe about the I've always uh love the idea of doing uh vaccines inside the facility to help uh reduce the transmission rate inside the facility.

So that's something I look forward to working with with Joe on.

Okay.

Sheriff, does the county has it negotiated or does it get a reduction at all from some of the providers, like when you said diagnostic services, because you know, like when an insurance company you get a bill and they never pay 100% because anthems negotiated a 40% reduction, let's say, or whether it's healthy Indiana, you know, probably even more.

When it's self-pay, sometimes they try to charge you 100%.

I didn't know whether the county with some of those providers, whether you were able to, or if we have a mechanism to get that adjustment that an insurance company would.

Both our current medical provider and this group that we hire to scrub the bills are in the process of doing exactly that.

We recognize that we've seen the rising cost of a lot of these diagnostic services and some of these procedures, and we're looking at ways to control those.

And that speaks to exactly what we're trying to do right now.

And I look forward to reporting back to council the uh what level of success we've enjoyed in the coming the coming months.

Thank thank you, Jeff.

Thank you.

Joe, thank you.

I mean, you sounds like you offered to sit down perhaps with the sheriff and and and have a discussion and see if it uh we can make some headway and if you want uh a council member uh to join you.

That'd be great.

You know, okay, thank you so much.

And I didn't interpret that as pulling from your budget, it's just what are an expanded federal grants that could pass through, maybe.

But I'm not asking the question, yeah.

Um and I assume you guys are we're not like grant experts, or at least I'm not.

We so I just wanted to clarify that.

Looked into getting uh grants that cover that.

They they only cover uh addiction remediation, um, those middle health, and we're already getting all the grants that we can find for that.

Uh acute care, uh, there are no grants available for that.

I did I did I wanted to follow up real quick, John almost forgot.

I did follow up with um Torian insurance about the possibility of getting an inmate health insurance program.

He's looked, he can't find anything.

He's gonna continue to look, but he doesn't think such a product exists.

And I um I thought it was clever, certainly I'm willing to try it, and uh, I'll keep looking.

I also checked with the Indiana Sheriff's Association.

They weren't aware of any product or vehicle like that that we could sign up for that would um some kind of a group plan for in uh health insurance for inmates, so I don't think it exists right now.

I'm ahead of my time, Joe.

It's creative.

But you know, uh, Mr.

Uh Dillo can put that policy together, maybe.

Um, he didn't seem real uh enthusiastic from the tone of zine now, but I will I will follow up with them to see if one of the things that a mechanism like that could help would be what we were talking about is that sometimes you can have an insurance policy that it could have a high deductible or it may not pay certain things, but it will get that reduction we're talking about because that insurance company has that pre-negotiated rate with the providers, yeah.

And so even if they weren't paying anything, you would essentially maybe make money on it by getting the reduction.

That's that's what heritage group has has told us to expect from them is these negotiated prices.

So that's that's what in part why we signed with them.

Is they promised us some savings uh to do it to your point there about these negotiated rates.

So I look forward to reporting to you uh reporting back to you on that to see if they come through for us and what they've told us sheriff earlier you mentioned that uh those expenses are for like MRIs and other needed services and your some of your staff that are in the that they're uh they're recommending that right no we don't I mean how how do they how do they go get an MRI who's telling them that they need an MRI.

So the the physician on site yeah the NP on site would would offer initial diagnosis and send them to the ER for the ER to make a determination about hey are you seeing what I'm seeing.

And then it's up to the doc at the ER to decide about what what diagnostic imaging is is you know we don't we don't ever send someone down to beaconess with orders.

That's not how we operate we can't we don't have those kind of privileges at veganists so it's up to a deaconess or in some cases yeah physicians to go ahead and diagnostic testing to give um now if they were just to walk in off the street and it's in the ER and the doctor um uh you know uh said you need an MRI they would be responsible for that cost yes right uh but now since they're they're an inmate we're responsible for that cost.

No getting away from that's uh I and by statute you know I'm I'm responsible for providing medical care you know to all your inmates facility county is responsible for paying it's no but but if they had insurance then their own oh we definitely bill insurance though I'm glad you raised that point so if the inmate is insured yeah we are going out of our way to make sure that we bill that insurance all right uh the same way if we uh we always bill Medicaid first uh usually denied because Medicaid stops upon admittance but there are some ways to bill Medicaid if it's for an inpatient service that lasts more than 24 hours and heritage is promised to do a job about policing those to make sure none of those are getting through and that they in Medicaid is being properly billed for those services that are to take place beyond the 24 hour mark.

So we're going to get better um and I look forward to telling you results about a few months very good thank you.

Thank you appreciate it Joe I'm not sure where we left off well I yeah I didn't quite make the motion but I am making a motion we just that's us being creative and asking questions so um but yeah I make a motion to approve D one through three and E1 so any further discussions or questions?

Hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I aye anyone opposed motion carries.

And then we have um I'm also gonna make the request and we had conversations last time um and you guys uh sheriff answered a lot of our questions um so F one two and three I'm making a motion to approve second that discussions questions term roll this doesn't impact the appropriation right you know before uh we bring up a good point there before we approve uh F.

We on our which one, two, or three.

Let me we can start with the leave item F or uh and come back to that because on our appropriations is several of these same people within these appropriations.

So let me note every one of what if we can just skip to appropriations for just once a few minutes, we'll clarify this before we approve all these.

Go ahead.

You want to clarify something the appropriations.

Okay.

So under LIT Public Safety uh appropriation, there were several, I think initially around 25 requests for COs and whatnot.

So I'm gonna make a motion uh that we approve 11702, 11703, 11705, 1170, 117-031, 117-032, 11703, and 117034, 1170, and 117036.

So I'm gonna go ahead and complete this request, and then we'll go back and uh correct those other ones on the uh.

So it sounds like James now requires.

So you that we that we don't want to you're you're saying let's not um approve all 22 confinement officers at this time, uh that's correct.

Yeah, so you're the so which ones which ones if you look at our agenda, which ones of these like uh 11703, which ones do you want to um probably it sounds like uh table?

Well, the all the other ones would be table.

Now that the sheriff has a timeline that he had presented to us earlier, so this gets him well into September.

Right.

Now we'll probably come back later in the year if necessary and approve more COs, right?

Uh well for the motion we want to be it need to be clear.

So he is he is leaving out the four the third line, eleven seven hundred and four.

Right.

Just then thirty-eight beyond, and then the first two, then blank, and then the next one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, where it goes from fifteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-four, those are checked, and then nothing from eleven, three, three, eight down is there was a few of those, so six thirty seven thirty eight.

Joe, did you did you pick up on that?

So let me just call those out on the LIT jail, okay.

The ones that we will approve will be the one one seven zero one three two zero, one one seven, zero zero three, one one seven, zero uh, one one seven zero one three two zero and one one seven zero zero five, and then if we move down, there is another seven items one one seven zero three zero, one one seven zero three one, one one seven zero three two, one one seven zero three three, one one seven zero three four, one one seven zero three five, and one one seven zero three six.

So we'll need a motion, Joe, to uh approve those uh salary position numbers.

Um just a just I guess a question here if we approved underneath the personnel those positions, but not fund them today, that would be accomplishing the same thing, wouldn't it?

Well, I mean we wouldn't have to be we wouldn't have to redo that personnel request once again, it would just be a matter of when we fund them.

Well, we're just we're creating a salary ordinance that isn't ready to be created yet until we fund it and approve it on down the line.

So again, if we just approve those numbers on F one, two, and 3, that that gets us taken care of for today and for the next few months, and then we'll come back and I'm sure we'll appoint more of these in our salary ordinance in the future.

Yeah, and I don't have a problem.

I was just asking the question of why.

Sheriff, and if you if this sounds a little fuzzy, I'll go over with you later.

But I'm getting instead of two three sergeants and a staff sergeant, I'm just getting right now two sergeants and a staff sergeant.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um I'll make it work.

Uh huh.

Um, that's what's oh wait a minute.

Well, well that's 004.

Is the one you requested to be added, and that's yes.

I threw that in.

Okay.

234 and 5.

I was hoping for it.

Um, you read you got that four out or four out.

No, one one seven zero zero four is included.

I'm sorry, I just overcrowded when I thank you for that.

That's gonna help me a lot.

Right.

Okay, item uh uh request F1.

Yeah, you're saying let's table that.

No, F one and two, there's a motion to approve that in its entirety.

It's that true, is that correct?

It's F3, where you're doing the first two lines and then that's why it's not on the O36.

Okay, I think we have a motion to approve F1 and two, correct?

Yes, is there a second?

Second, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Okay, thank you.

Now let's go to F3.

Well, John, guess why we're still we were we were handling the LIT request first so we could line up.

Oh, I'm sorry.

So, I mean, this there is another uh uh few things that need to be changed within that.

If you look down at union over time, the original request was for one hundred thousand, and that was of the assumption that we were gonna hire the 24 25 additional people.

So I'm gonna ask that we drop that down to 80,000, and then uh the FIC and perf that is listed was uh for the entire whole enchilada, but since we're not handing it, we're not hiring all 25 right now.

Just everyone needs to know that we'll address the FICA and Puff or FICA and PERF as needed, but we don't have those numbers today.

Okay.

I think I have a number developed for the LDF.

So that is quite popular.

You want to run it real quick?

Okay.

Sorry.

I think that's a good idea.

Sure.

It almost was but it doesn't include all these pieces.

Okay, I think we're okay to go back to the because it's just I guess now that another question comes up to mind.

That is on the overtime.

Because we one of the things that we talked about at the last meeting is we took personnel meeting this one's okay because we talked about the fact that all these are hiring some of these people would make some of these people eligible come late November all through December.

To be actually filled in for and keep the overtime down, with the current staffing and stuff so far.

Uh and so just wait.

I'm just wondering if that's going to defeat that.

I mean, we talked about that, and you I obviously my preference is to have them funded and so I can hire them uh you know, but I I understand what Jim is saying there.

This functionally accomplishes the same thing that I had asked for because I wasn't requesting them to be funded.

I basically do it in tranches, so September, October, November.

I'm I'm fine, the way I I understand what Jim is trying to accomplish, and I defer to the council where they want to create the line item or simply fund it later or wait to create the line item in September.

It's just fine by the change.

What are you asking that we no?

That's that was the only other question I had is if in fact by doing all this stuff now was going to get some people trained and be fully engaged by very early December at the latest.

They would in fact then be on staff where they would take the place of some of those folks who were we they cut the overtime cost down for the existing people.

If that were the case.

That's a valid argument.

I would prefer it that way, but I can accomplish it either way.

So I'm saying I can make either either work.

Uh my preference obviously would be to hire them now, but I can make either scenario work.

So if I mean so I have no problem with it, if you can make a working doll.

Sheriff, uh back to the overtime issue.

Adjusting that down to 80 is probably still more healthy than what we need for this.

This should be okay with that.

But uh I mean I'm pretty confident that you'll set on that number until we hire these other people in.

Yeah.

Okay.

So is everybody comfortable?

I'm good with that.

Uh we do need here we go, you've got them now.

Good work.

Okay, so Mr.

President, we're gonna go back into the FICA number.

The new number is 21, 542.

And the Perth is 39, 895.

21,542 for the uh uh FICA?

Yes.

And what was the PERF?

Uh PERF is thirty-nine nine eighty-five.

So um I wrote down union nomadom at eighty thousand.

Yes.

Um FICA at twenty one five forty-two and perf at 39,000 nine eighty-five, correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

So uh did you did you want to make a motion on this part uh now or you want us to go back to uh personnel request and and move forward there?

Well, we can go ahead, but it's okay with you.

We can go ahead and approve this appropriation now.

Okay, so uh I think Joe, you've already made a motion.

So motion on one and two, we haven't gotten three.

Okay, so on three, uh and and just the last numbers only, James, uh you're saying to approve and Joey approve thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, and thirty-six.

Correct.

Correct only.

You wanna make that in the form of a motion, please?

Uh I make a motion for F3, the numbers that John just president Montrestewood just said, second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Motion carries.

Okay.

Let's uh James, let's move on with uh is that the rest of the uh no we have we had a mate with uh and and James will come back and vote on the appropriations.

Um after the personal vote now, okay.

That's fine with me.

Yep.

All right, and then we have a uh G1 and two, the request to fill a vacancy.

Both of them are so uh this came out with some details on it uh this week.

So I'm gonna make a motion to approve that.

Second, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye, anyone opposed?

Motion carries.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Keefer.

Next we're up is appropriation ordinances.

James, you're up again.

Okay, just one moment.

All right, let's go back up to the top under sheriff, garage and motor.

If you recall, we had pretty extensive conversation about this last week with the sheriff.

I'm gonna make a motion to approve under garage and motor 140,000.

Second.

Discussion questions.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Motion carries legal services with area plan for 21,000.

This is um legal services for the solar that was voted down by BZA.

Uh hey, Ron, you know, there's been some discussion, some questions after we talked about this last week.

Uh can you I think you were were you asked uh by other council members for some clarity on that?

Yeah, I sent all the uh I sent it in PDF of the funds that were spent this year, so it was uh can you discuss some of that?

You sent it, but can you share what you sent?

Uh some of them had to do with, and I sent a breakdown in the um in the email, but we have our monthly retainer, which is three thousand a month, so that's a total of between January and June of 18,000.

Uh we had multiple court cases, which came to a total of for this year.

Uh a little over 17,000 dollars, and then we had special projects which were ordinances that we had done as far as uh parking and um uh sign ordinances, and that came to a total of 8,000 for a total of 44,000 dollars, and we have currently have in our budget 45, so we've basically got a little less than a thousand dollars left for the remainder of the year.

So the twenty-one thousand dollars that we're requesting is basically for to cover our uh monthly retainer uh for the next six months, and then any miscellaneous items that we have with the two remaining court cases that we have.

So the the BZA um court uh with bluegrass solar, that's not the solely that what the 20K is going to go for, partly.

Is that one?

No, the we've already spent the amount for the solar.

This is to uh for the remainder of the year to just be able to cover our retainer that we have because the money that was spent that we have in our budget has already been spent for the the solar project that was part of it.

Right.

So all we're asking for is to be able to cover our retainer for the remainder of the year and then uh miscellaneous funds for the uh because we have two remaining court cases left.

So I don't know if any more money's gonna have to come out for that or not.

So any further discussions or questions?

No.

I'll make a motion um to accept for area plan the allotted amount of money for $21,000.

Second, all those in favor sitting up by saying aye.

Aye.

No one opposed, motion carries.

And I will be asking our attorney if we can uh put a clause in our future uh and as far as like I don't in our BZA um rules and and regs uh that uh if we can add a clause in there that if there are any court cases and we win the court case, which we've not lost one, if we win the court case that our fees would then be covered.

Is that is that something Dirk Stahl or you are saying that you can put in there?

Well, I don't know.

That's I'm gonna ask my attorney.

So I thought Dirk is your attorney, right?

Yes, uh he he told me the other day uh I was at a different meeting that uh this is this uh court case is really an appeal.

They're just appealing it.

Correct.

It's it's not they're not suing, they're just appealing the decision by the three to two vote.

That is correct.

Yeah, yep, and so that's what we're defending.

Yeah, okay, all right, thank you, sir.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, uh we'll move on.

Everyone uh did John, I was busy uh totaling up the new numbers on the uh LIT's public safety, but uh so uh we're going to move on to want to go back and finalize that one last time.

Yeah, yeah, we need to vote on that the LIT jail again.

I called out the first what was it, seven uh line items.

Uh, go to all two.

So thirty-seven down to fifty one, yeah, eleven.

The first eleven, that is the numbers we're approving, salary positions.

That overtime set in at 80,000.

The adjustment to FICA is 21,542, and PERF is 39, 985.

So the new total is 487, 233.

That's all.

Yeah, I guess those are the four.

Yeah.

Four eighty-seven correct.

Two thirty-three.

Could you give a couple of thumbs again?

Jamie's uh what's that bottom?

I know I'm gonna get an added machine up here.

So so Jamie, is that is that uh uh line item thirty-seven all the way down to fifty one?

You're taking those out.

Yeah, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Five, it's a five number.

Um, five.

Thirty, yeah.

Twenty one, five, twenty two.

Forty two.

What what do you mean?

Four, six.

Four eighty seven.

Two thirty.

Perf was uh thirty-nine nine eighty five.

Or share it.

Or share.

Okay.

I think your numbers scholarship educated the educational scholarship.

Three twenty-five.

True.

I can't even read my writing right now.

I'll scroll over to his eyes.

No, going all the down to 36, right?

4016, two ninety.

Three sixteen.

Oh, I forgot if I would have to show.

Oh, wait, wait.

Okay, so we can get to the one thirty three.

I'm not coming up with the same numbers saying you three fifty-three, what you said.

I have three fifty three.

We need a calculator, it's hard to do that on paper.

It it's yeah, yeah.

So James, your motion is to approve, and I'm just gonna read the last two numbers.

Oh two, oh three, oh, four, oh, five, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, correct.

Plus um shift dim differential, union over time at eighty thousand, FICA at twenty-one, five forty-two, perf at thirty-nine nine eighty-five, and Teamster Scholarship and education at three twenty-five.

Is that your motion?

Well, we don't know what the number is though.

Did I read that too fast?

John, he did not include the three twenty-five teamster scholarship.

Is that one of those two?

It's usually not like this.

You're not in three yet.

So that's what I had.

Yeah, when I added the thirty seven, and six in.

You need eggs.

Oh, no, no, no.

Okay, it is a little warm, I would expect.

Okay.

So it's not right.

I'm not gonna do that too many numbers for me.

This is why you guys do not add in the 325.

Truth, did you hear me?

We're not in three twenty-five.

He does not want the three twenty-five.

I didn't try to have that.

Yes.

No, that's eighty thousand.

Change it again.

The shift is eighty thousand.

The eighty thousand time, and three.

So I'm out with that.

Okay.

On the right knock.

Can you shift on your phone?

Okay, so what's the total?

So what do you do?

353.109.

353.

Yeah.

But every one of nine.

If these are the down to here and 10,000, 80,000 for you, set.

And you don't want to do it.

Okay.

Looks good to me.

Okay.

It's 10,000.

It takes them out of the health department.

Okay.

353.09 as well.

That's pretty cool.

You're ready.

Let's see.

Go ahead and make the motion, sir.

Well, that is the we've already covered it.

This is the new appropriation total request is 353.109.

Okay.

I'll make that second.

Is that clear?

No, I'm just asking or mature.

We clear in the record.

Yes, we are.

Okay.

I understand we're clear on the total now.

325 in it?

No.

No.

Okay.

Let's say because I came off with five.

So that's why it was.

Yeah, the 325 is zero, and it does not affect five and perfect.

So that is a lot of things.

Okay.

We are clear on the record.

We have a motion.

We have a second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Motion carries.

Okay.

That's all we're going to be churning.

Okay.

Is your mic on?

Mike, I'm sorry.

I turned it off when we were communicating back and forth numbers.

Okay.

But under medical, I'll make a motion to approve 300,000.

Second.

All those in favor signify saying aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Motion carries.

Okay.

Thank you.

John, under ONEP, that is next.

If you recall last week when we had uh discussed this item for uh the 88,003.

Yep.

They said we had there was questions.

Because the building authority was uh involved in this and we were gonna get a further breakdown.

I've not received anything.

Is anyone else yet?

You did.

Did you get anything?

No.

No, I didn't either.

So I sent this to all of you guys.

Oh, yes, that was last time.

So that breaks down.

And then there's a easy.

So we come back to the so did we get a breakdown?

This is part of that.

From Terry Ligman.

Gotcha.

So this is the other one as well.

Okay.

John, did you see that?

This is a quarter installment for the year.

So I'll make a motion to approve the eighty-eight thousand three dollars.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Motion carries.

Transfers, James.

Okay, we're gonna make this one easy.

Uh I'm gonna make a motion to approve all transfers as submitted.

Have a look at those.

Are there any questions on those?

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor of approving all transfers is printed.

Signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Transfers approved as submitted.

Yes.

I get it, I get it.

Okay, okay.

Okay, James, thank you so much.

Um next, uh, we've got some new business.

We have a Vanderborough County uh CASA update from Sarah Reese.

I'm not sure I said that right.

The executive director and her team.

Please come to the podium and identify yourself for the record.

Sarah Rice, executive director of Vanderberg County Casa.

And I'm Julie Talk, I'm the chief judge of Vanderburgh Superior Report.

When you speak, speak in the microphone, so we can capture your words so we it's all typed up.

Absolutely.

Happy to do so.

Thank you.

Well, I'm here today to talk about how investing in CASA will prevent future jail requests for more confinement officers.

What?

Mostly a joke, but there is a pipeline that we're going to talk about.

Share, share.

Did you see that?

Go ahead.

I can't wait.

So actually, the reason I wanted to talk with you guys today is the Indiana General Assembly Legislative Committee has selected CASA for a summer study session.

So they're going to be looking specifically at the role of CASA in our court system and how CASA can be more equitably funded, implemented, and managed throughout Indiana.

So given that some of our funding comes specifically from County Council, I wanted you guys to be well informed, have recent data about our program, what we're doing, why it matters, so that if your phone rings from a legislator, you will not be caught off guard, and you know who your point of contact is at CASA.

So today I'll give just a brief overview of our local program and talk about why I think the summer study is going to be specifically interested in our county more so than others.

So we've been serving abuse and neglected kids in Vanderburg County since 1984.

In that amount of time, we've had about 30,000 children come through the system.

Right now we have 97 active volunteers and 17 staff members, and we are serving 285 children.

We function on a 1.1 million dollar budget as a 501c3.

About 80% of that directly goes to just paying personnel costs.

In 2025, we served 523 kids with um more than 14,000 or almost 14,000 volunteer hours, and we decreased our wait list by 21% from 911 kids waiting for an advocate to 717, which is still a pretty egregious number, but it is moving in the right direction.

Those uh total hours for almost 14,000, that's all volunteer.

All volunteer hours, this is so impressive.

CASA is um statutorily required, either CASA or a GAL.

So if we did not exist, those would be hours that the county would be paying a GAL.

So in our county, we are ninth largest by population in the state, but by the number of kids experiencing abuse and neglect, we are second.

That's not a statistic that we're proud of at all.

And by per capita, we have the highest rate of child abuse and neglect in the state.

Today we have 1,011 kids with an open case in Vanderberg County for child abuse and neglect.

Are we are we second on the list just because of population or we're ninth largest by population?

Ninth largest.

To be able to serve all these kids, we would need to quadruple our current size of staff, volunteers, and budget.

With the drastic increase, as you look on your computer screens, you'll see the massive uptick in 2024.

With the drastic increase, we cannot keep status quo doing the same things that we did for a long time because the need is growing, and we have to keep up with that if we're gonna break the cycles of abuse in our community.

It's not a coincidence that our higher than average crime rates are mirrored in our children's experiences here.

Many families involved in our Chinese court, which is child in need of services, are involved in other court systems as well, which is why Judge Kirtochville is here with me, because she has said that she thinks CASA is the linchpin to our court system.

It's very easy to try to dissect and separate juvenile court away from the entire court system, and we do look at that oftentimes as juvenile court and child needed services as separate.

However, and I truly invite every single one of you to come into our courts and watch how they operate.

Because the families who are in our juvenile courts are in our misdemeanor courts, are in our felony courts, are in our housing courts, are in our mental health courts, they're in our family courts.

And in Vanderburgh County, we are considered a hugely overutilized court based off the state.

Our numbers of cases and all of those courts are increasing.

And so when you have COSA, and the reason I say linchpin is because CASA is able to add a service at such a specific time frame to capture these families at a specific moment.

And not just the family, but the children in the family, and they serve a unique perspective because they're not a parent, they're not DCS, which has a specific statutory obligation to pursue reunification.

So they are acting with a purpose to reunify.

Whereas CASA is the independent viewing of protecting this child's perspective and making sure that they are somewhat buffered from this system.

Because every time you remove a child, that is a trauma to the child.

Now I appreciate it's a necessary trauma.

We've had statutory basis to do this, and no one wants to remove from a good home, no one is removing from a good home.

But CASA is able to buffer and provide this insight into families that are otherwise in every aspect of our courts, and they're able to consolidate and help with resources navigating to where these families might have better housing opportunities.

They might be able to collaborate with our other courts so that they're not having recidivism issues.

They might be able to meet with these children and are meeting with these children so that in five years they're not offending parents because what is really problematic in our juvenile court is that these are generational families.

This has become a pattern of behavior that if you don't capture these individuals in a specific time, you lose them to the system.

And that is an increasing cost.

And it's a cost that is going to be at the local level and at the state level, and it's not going down.

Our numbers are increasing in such a huge way.

And again, I invite every single one of you.

I will walk you personally to every single court.

You are welcome to come into my court.

I do a lot of family, I'm not the juvenile court.

Judge Judge Shuty, but I'm here because I'm a representative of the superior courts, because we encompass all of those, and I certainly want you to understand.

And the individuals who are coming into this are volunteers.

They have CASA coordinators who are paid at a such small number.

But you have individuals who are just trying to better their community and doing this work for free, and seeing them in the halls talking to the parents, knowing they're going into these homes without security, without safety, without knowing what's awaiting them, to then come and advocate in a juvenile court in the hopes that they can capture them and kick them out of the system.

Because once they're in it, we all know it becomes everyone's problem.

That's why I use the word linchpin.

Thank you.

So a little bit about who these kids are and why they're in the system.

So 80% of the cases that have been opened in the last year.

This is just a snapshot of June 25 to June 26th.

80% of those cases were open because of neglect.

That means the children have a lack of basic needs: food, water, shelter, medical care, lack of supervision for young kids being left alone.

80% of the cases are closed by reunifying with the family that started in the first place.

36% of the families that had a case open in the last year have had at least one other case open in Vanderburgh County for typically the same reasons.

Our average case length right now is about 14 months.

About a third of the kids are never removed from their home, but DCS is working with them, trying to prevent them from being removed using whatever services they can provide to make them as stable as possible.

About a third are placed with a family member, a friend, someone for church, a teacher.

And about a quarter of those kids are in foster care.

And those are the ones that I really want to focus on because this number has increased.

Last year at the same time, only 19% of our kids were in foster care, and right now it's 24%.

There's been a lot of study about the foster to prison pipeline.

17% of all state and federal prisoners right now have reported spending time in foster care as a youth.

Half of our teens in foster care report being arrested or detained by the age of 17.

70% of kids who age out of the foster system will be arrested by the age of 26.

And for children who have had five or more placements in the foster system, they are 90% likely to be involved in the criminal legal system.

In Vanderburg County, we have 250 kids in foster care right now.

And while these statistics are alarming, we have a tool that makes a difference, and that's CASA.

We are the court-appointed special advocates for these kids, and whenever a CASA is involved in a kid's life, they spend on average eight months less time in foster care, and it cuts their families' likelihood of having a case open in half.

We don't want to see these families again.

We want to fix the problem, strengthen the family, and make them independent.

We don't want to see them again.

And we have evidence to support that CASA makes that difference.

So there are two teenagers that have been in well over 10 foster homes.

They have had many family case managers through the Department of Child Services, but they have had one CASA advocate by their side for more than two years.

The older brother was ready to be adopted.

He was tired of bouncing foster home to foster home, but his younger sister was not yet ready.

She had reactive reactive attachment disorder, and so anytime she started getting comfortable in a home in a foster home, she would do whatever she needed to do to make those foster parents make the phone call and say, I'm so sorry, you have to move the kids again, I can't do this.

And because DCS has a well-intentioned policy to keep children together, whenever foster parents make that phone call, they have to move both those kids.

But that older brother told his CASA advocate, I don't want to go.

I love my sister, but this is my family.

This is my forever family.

I'm tired of this.

So we called a court hearing, and our CASA advocate spoke on behalf of both of those kids and said, We would love for the siblings to be together, and we wish that the daughter would be ready for this, but he's ready.

If Casa had not been there to present that option, that boy would have bounced to yet another foster home, and he probably would end up as one of these statistics.

But we gave the judge something to rule on a choice to be made, and he agreed to let that child stay there.

He was adopted, he's been there for a couple years now.

They bought him a car, his life is so much different than it could have been otherwise, and that would not have happened without CASA.

In last year's local needs assessment, the residents of Vanderburgh County reported services for abused and neglected children as the number one need related to community safety.

Our own people are saying we need to do better at this.

Because it affects families in every single ward.

There are abused and neglected children in every single zip code in this city.

About the quarter of the kids are coming from 47714.

And you can see on down on that chart.

The bars in blue show the percentage of kids with a current open case and the zip code of origin for them.

Green is the overall population, just for scale for comparison's sake.

So I told you I think the summer study session, they're gonna have special interest in us.

This is why we have the highest rate per capita of abuse and neglected kids in the entire state.

We also have the largest wait list of kids who don't have an advocate.

Today it's 725.

The state average is 20 per county, just for reference.

There are only three of the 324 courts in the entire state of the trial courts, where the disparity of the need for judicial officers and what we have is more than one, and our juvenile court is one of those three.

Three out of 324 where we're understaffed.

That translates to families not getting enough time in court.

I don't want to interrupt you, but I want to make sure I'm comprehending this right.

So you're saying we're likely to be targeted because we have the worst ratio out of the communities you put on, and we're of the group, we're the only one that didn't take advantage of the full state state match funding because we underfunded the request.

That is item number four.

So we will be picked on because of what we did on our budget last year.

Yeah, so the summer study session, um there is a topic related to child welfare, and they did not put CASA in that one, they put us in their fiscal policy review.

So they're looking specifically at how um CASA programs across the state are funded and how it can be expanded.

But yes, we were the only program, um, we were the only county in the state where um we were not able to meet the dollar for dollar requirement to at least get a hundred percent of the state fund match match funds, sorry.

She already invited you to court, but I want to do it again.

I want to invite each of you to come observe a morning of Chin's court.

You all have constituents in there, come see what it's like for them for our judges to hear 54 cases in under three hours, and the hustle and bustle of hundreds of people in a waiting room that should fit about 25.

That happens every Tuesday and Wednesday morning at 8 a.m.

Or come observe some of our new volunteer training for CASA.

Meet the kind individuals who are giving of their time and their energy to try to make a difference in this broken system.

Where's that court at?

This court is downstairs, it's in this building, it is across from the prosecutor's office.

That photo is a picture of our juvenile court.

So when you see how they are situated, I want you to look where the parents and their attorneys are CASA in the middle, the CASA note taker, DCS attorney, and the family case manager.

That is exactly how close they are for trials for termination of parental rights, for fact-finding hearings, for changes of placement, and then there is the back gallery that is around three rows of back to back, absolutely together chairs, and then there is a lobby that has a capacity of about 25 people where people will bring their children in because they don't have child care.

That you will have CASA volunteers out there, you will have the DCS caseworkers who are processing things back and forth trying to talk to people in the hall, and all this is directly across from the prosecutor's office.

And not only is it every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, as that's just the ongoing cases, the new petitions for the new filings are every Tuesday and every Thursday afternoon.

And you can see those two.

That's when the parents are first advised of their rights, that's when the process first begins.

I do want to point out two things that are just very, I think important.

The first is when the average case is 14 months.

By law, if a child is out of home by 15 months, DCS must file a petition to terminate the parental rights by law.

So that's the average based off the number, which lets you know how close these families, some of them and these children are coming to having their parental rights terminated.

The other thing is in DCS its process, the sheer number of caseworker turnover that occurs means that a family might process through five, ten case workers.

Every case has a requirement that they have at least two case workers.

And that is because there's a difference of an assessment worker and an ongoing worker.

So at the onset of this, a family and a child will have at least two strangers to interact with in every case, no matter what.

So the more you add this level of change and change of plan, and you're causing this child to have a lack of trust and unreliability in this process, which is why CASA is so important.

But I certainly invite you.

And I mean, truly, I'm happy to have you sit through that and then walk you over to our family court and 126B, and then you can see these similar individuals.

I'm happy to walk you upstairs to our small claims courtroom that looks very similar to this.

I'm happy to then take you to our felony courts and our drug court, room 101 with Judge Trockman who's trying to rehabilitate some of these people.

I'm happy to take you to any of the other courts, the mental health courts where Judge Shively is trying to capture these people and help them with those ongoing needs.

But what the children have, they have a CASA volunteer if they are lucky enough to have a high enough risk case to have that because they do have to make strategic choices of who they pick and why they pick.

So the CASA volunteers are on the worst cases.

They are on the worst of these cases.

They're all bad, but those are the worst of the worst.

And I say this from the perspective of I came back to Evansville, Indiana in 2015 as a DCS attorney for Vanderburgh County.

And I worked in Southern Indiana in Gibson County, Posey County, Vanderburg, Pike, Gibson, all the above.

And then I became a parent's attorney when I went to private practice, which was a radical shift in how things are you how you see things.

And then I became a CASA attorney because CASA has an attorney, I think maybe two now.

But they are independent contractors, meaning CASA has to pay this bill because their cases have become so contested and they're they're having to participate more in this adversarial process before I took the bench.

And so I've seen CASA from three very distinct roles, and at no point in time in any one of those roles did I ever doubt the necessity of CASA in a family.

So should you decide to come observe?

These are not open to the public, so please let me know ahead of time that you want to come.

So we can sign some confidentiality agreements and things like that, and I will also go with you.

I might add the guys back here know that for 35 years I was in the classroom and uh middle school and high school where the um population was 70% free and reduced program, so poverty rate was very, very big, and I had many students that were part of the CASA program.

And some of it is very, very heartbreaking to see these kids be transferred to family to family to family, and it's actually quite simple.

We either take care of our children now and help them now, or we pay as a society later to yes, our jail system.

And so it's really a decision.

What are we going to fund?

So and you will see the cost of budget in the court budget.

We are putting the state amount as our request, the state match grant.

So you'll see that in our our budget has already been submitted, but that is what we have put in in our the court budget, just so you were aware.

Thank you for what you guys do.

So you started out by saying you could uh we could reduce uh the number of correctional officers if we were to provide additional CASO.

Workers or uh what there's a term for the CASA volunteers, volunteers.

Yeah, so it all comes down to you're you're asking, we need to uh uh increase what we appropriate to CASA.

That would be a wonderful start right yeah um and we're at what was it that number was two two ten or two last year we requested two eighty three that was the state and we have two eight three and we're not even hitting the match.

210 and we're not even hitting the match at two eighty three.

Can I know you have some uh I think you have some data on what some of these other counties do because they're not just doing the match you know they're well above that um I I thought it one time we had we had talked where you had mentioned that they have a set quantitative number in place.

Yes I know at least Marion and Lake County get a fixed amount regardless of how many new chins filings there are their county has committed to give them a certain amount and just trusting that it will level out year over year.

But of that list Marion Allen St.

Joe and Lake County they do not have a waiting list right now they're able to provide an advocate an advocate for every single child that comes into care in those counties.

Yeah and I I do want to add a little thing too that I uncovered last year when we were dealing with the public defenders office uh there they're uh I'm a liaison for them and so uh the trickle down that you mentioned with your uh maybe partial joke right at the beginning but it is true and it happens on the public defender side too so if we've got domestic violence in a in a house that has a kid right now uh the public defender office can't cover all three of them that's a conflict of interest or two so that that's additional monies that we're having to spend so when we're pressed on the public defender's budget what we what I realized in that situation is we're spending a ton of extra money having to hire all these outside attorneys because again an issue with children which this is a trickle down expenditure.

I can take that comparison one step further even for county money.

When a juvenile is arrested they also are entitled to a public defender and a probation department that has to operate to rehabilitate.

Also if they end up in YCC those are funds that are being spent by this county to help house them because we don't have a lot of availability so at every level to not assist these families costs the county money.

Yeah.

Jeff yeah I had a question on I guess it's your second slide to make sure I understand I was trying to understand how or if you have some thoughts as to when you say Vander County is one of 48 kids and I guess that's the most and you know normally I guess when we think you know we always think it's a great place to raise kids in a family and all the sayings and all that but when I look at like Vanderburg County versus other counties in the state it was some kind of kind of shocking to me to see that figure and I didn't know if there was anything else that goes into that whether it's because we're documenting better than other people which makes our number that way or is there something going on that's causing in our community this versus when I look at that and I'm sure we all can and I think of other counties it's shocking to me that our numbers would be this versus some other places that I would have thought we would have better numbers than so I don't know if you I just was curious if you have any ideas or what that is or if it's apples to apples or somebody else does their statistics differently or how's it it's all being drawn from the same statistics and there are different agencies that are providing this information.

So DCS provides certain information DCS is a statewide agency that does the same method of compiling their reports she also referenced the weighted caseload study that is a specific judicial measurement of cases and allocation that we provide to the General Assembly because they need that for purposes of funding our courts and that tells exactly how skewed or overutilized or underutilized a county is.

And then we can tell specifically by type what cases are being filed more and how long it's taking to process.

So part of it is that in Vanderburgh County, the case filings for juvenile cases are just increasing.

It's not because DCS is documenting things more.

There are some changes that will shift a trend specifically with DCS, and that comes from the federal level where they would change certain standards and funding and require certain things based off reunification, uh the removal of a child from a home, those types of things that you will see a an ebb and flow, but that would be shown statewide because it comes to the state and has to be implemented by the state agency.

So it wouldn't it wouldn't justify or explain Vanderburgh County's numbers.

Vanderburgh County's numbers are going up because this is just occurring more frequently in Vanderburgh County right now, and we have a very, very congested court system.

Because we are an overutilized court, our ratio for juvenile court is a 4.16 allocation, meaning there should be 4.16 judicial officers hearing those cases.

We have one judge, we have one magistrate, and we have two part-time referees in that court.

Now the easy shift if oh well we have other we have six other superior court judges, a circuit court judge and magistrates.

Because every judge in Vanderburgh County is considered an overutilized court.

So there is not one, let me actually stand totally incorrect.

Circuit court is very close to being corrective equilibrium of four judicial officers of the circuit court judge and three magistrates.

So I don't want to misspeak on that.

But in Superior Court, Vanderburgh County as a whole is considered, I think number 23 is the top most overutilized court in the state out of the 92 counties.

So we don't have enough judicial officers to to do all of this work.

Yes.

I believe that was based off the most recent way to case load study.

Yeah, approximately.

And division four, which is our juvenile court, is the number one in Vanderburgh County, by a lot.

I want you to think about Vanderburgh County juvenile court has the same amount of what circuit, like so, circuit has four judicial officers.

That is what that should mirror, but it has half of it.

And our referees help out immensely, but it that's part of why.

I mean, we we need to be able to, we have more cases.

Our cases continue to go up.

It's not because DCS is recording things differently in Vanderburgh County than in Warwick or Allen or Lake or any of the other counties, it's because the cases are just going up.

I mean, similar to how we have more crimes that are going up.

I don't I can't speak to the underlying issue.

I don't know the infrastructure that that's creating that.

I can just tell you what's happening.

Do you receive funds from other entities like the EVSC?

Um I know we fund you, but do you receive any kind of awarded money through any other means?

Not EDSC specifically.

So we receive state funding from CASA.

Federal funds through VOCA, Victims of Crime Act.

Um, and then about a quarter of our budget comes from private donations, that's individuals, corporations, community foundation, women's fund, Evansville Endowment, those type organizations.

Can I piggyback this question?

The match though, you receive other funds from elsewhere, but the state, the state funds are tied to are there just us or yes.

They are required to come from the county level.

Okay, so not from city or any.

They only look at county to match the state cost of funds.

So the burdens on us.

Yeah, it's it's a little surprising that the the school administration doesn't carry a little burden as well.

And not just in Vanderburgh County, really, all school corps.

I mean, that's who they serve.

They serve our children, you know.

Have you ever asked?

I have not personally asked, but I'll take the note.

What did I miss?

I ask if the EVSC has ever asked.

I mean, because CASA is a good idea.

Well, yeah, it impacts the school school system significantly.

Is the city I mean, even though there's not a match, are they participating in funding on this?

Because I mean they're vastly impacted by it as well.

Not currently, but I'm also making that action.

Okay.

Do you think that's a legislative issue?

Well, I think it's weird that it's just a county that matches, but that's what the rule is right now.

So the burden is on us.

Can you Jeff, can you look into that?

Because it it's a burden on all of us.

So the school corp, the city, the county, and why is it just a county?

Financial burden is what it means.

Financial burden.

Um I assume, and we can look into it.

We want a code number if you're going to be able to do that.

As we talk about, but I'm assuming it's just like courts and everything else, it's just a county function.

Are we and are we figuring, are we counting in the city when we refer to Vandenberg County?

We keep saying county, county, county.

He doesn't know.

So is this city contributing anything towards the not historically, no?

I have talked with are we are we required as a county at all to give to fund?

You are county is required to make either a CASA program or a GAL program accessible to children in this county.

Okay.

And GAL program is every single advocate is paying.

There's an Indiana code on that.

We are responsible to do that.

Yes.

Okay.

And therefore we are responsible to fund it.

Did are any other cities?

I guess to follow up on that line of questioning, or are you aware of any other cities in the state that do contribute, or is it strictly a county function everywhere else?

I know of one other city that contributes in addition to their county.

And that would be I have to look that up because I don't remember which one it is.

I mean, you know, Sarah, we we can increase that budget from 210 to I don't know, 310 to 500.

That's still not enough to really make an impact.

It is for each of those kids that would have an advocate.

No, no, it would it would make that additional funds would make an impact, but you need substantially more to really make an impact.

Yes.

Yeah.

And we need, and you know, the school corp and other agencies, they don't just give money freely, you know.

That's why I say, is it a legislative issue?

Does it do you have to write a uh a law on this?

Uh of course you can go and and make an appeal and maybe, you know, we'll jump on board.

I mean, they have a 350 million dollar budget, the school corp does.

Yeah.

I just I would be intrigued at what kind of creative things we could do, you know.

Like junior achievement type stuff is another kind of trickle-down impact to this, you know, when you're getting kids in the right position and and and then local uh uh businesses um have naming rights for those things, and you know, we we did one for that uh uh here last year, you know, so um I I just I don't have an answer solution today for that, but I what other creative things we could do to get corporate dollars as you know they're trying to support the community, so which I'm sure you've thought of that, but I'm just out loud brainstorming right now.

And my other friend with me here today, Shanna, we did just hire her as our development director in the last couple months specifically to build those type of relationships.

So do you have fundraisers that you could invite us all to?

I would love to invite you to our fundraisers.

Thank you for asking.

Well, expect invitations.

All right, so Tom?

Yeah, I'm very supportive of CASA.

I've had friends that have been involved in it.

My niece was one in the picture where you showed the group uh there stuff.

So very I appreciate very much what they do.

I guess the one point though that was brought up about why we happen to be at the lower and one of the things that and I don't know if the sheriff would agree with me on that or not, but uh I know past sheriff uh have come before us, other officers have come before us and explained that one of the problems that we have in our county with criminal behavior is the fact that we're in the tri-state area, and we pick up a lot of people that are at rural areas of Kentucky and Illinois and you know coming into Indiana and and having a good time and then blow it, you know, and stuff.

And there's things like that that happened that we end up picking up a lot of of uh criminals because of that.

And is that any effect that might affect our numbers here?

I would say so, but there are plenty of other counties on state borders as well.

Lake County, for example.

I used to work at the Department of Child Services about 15 years ago, and at that point, the running dark joke that we had as Vandenberg County workers was at least we're not Lake County.

Because their numbers were so incredibly higher than Vandenberg County, and everything was worse in Lake County.

And now they're I think they have right around 500 open cases.

They have half what we do, but I think their population is about a half million in their county, and they're right on the border as well of both Illinois and Michigan.

So that certainly does affect us, but other people are in the same situation if not experiencing such drastic increases.

Statewide, the number of new chins filings is actually down for the majority of counties.

This going up up is unique to us and a few others.

I've got another question.

I'd like to go back to those zip codes because I don't recall seeing it look like most of those needs are within city zip codes.

So you know, if if granted, I I agree with everybody that's a low match that we're we're able to give, but you know, if we can consolidate with the city, we can maybe get it up there where it is more meaningful, and I'm still a little angry that uh the school corporation isn't taking any action with you on this, too, because they are the ones that we trust to make our kids good kids, and if that's if that's not happening, then we need to bring them to the table too, and uh get them excited about helping uh fix this need that you guys are making a great point on.

You really are uh but let's uh uh let's try to get with the city and see what you can get from them.

Uh I know we're we're just uh weeks away from creating a budget for Vanderburgh County, and so is the city.

So uh I mean see if you can get them to create some line items to help you as well.

I will do that.

I have had a few meetings with the mayor and some city council members as well.

Um work in progress, but we but to clarify that those numbers that they give just help the general problem, right?

The met the state match currently as of today is required to come from this elected body.

Yes, okay.

Yeah, and just so you know the number for that we'll we're asking for for next year is two twenty-six nine.

So we got two ten last year.

We're asking for two twenty six nine.

You're not even asking for the match, that is the match for this year.

So the amount changes every year, and it's based on the number of new chins filings from two years prior.

So, because in 2024 or 25 our numbers went down slightly, the state number goes down slightly.

Okay, okay.

The need is there.

Thank you, ladies, for presentation.

Judge, thank you for coming.

Appreciate you and Sarah.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next, we have um amendments to the salary ordinances.

We have those everyone's been given the copies of the amendments to the salary ordinance, and I'm going to ask that that that document be entered into the minutes and make a motion to approve.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Um amendments to salary ordinance are approved as printed.

Uh, do we have any public comment today?

Um or reminders are um county council meeting.

Our next meeting is July 1 here in this room at 3 p.m.

July 1.

No.

Do I want to July twenty ninth?

Our next meeting, sorry, uh, is a personnel finance meeting here July twenty ninth in this room.

Is there any other business to come before this council?

Anything?

No, motion to adjourn.

Motion to ad