The Vanderburgh County Council met in special session this 21st day of July 2009 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:35 a.m. by County Council President Tom Shetler, Jr.

President Shetler: Good morning. It’s a little bit past 8:30 and we have a special meeting today to consider the Homestead Credit for the year 2010. And I’d like at this time to call the roll and then we’ll have the Pledge of Allegiance.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Bassemier	X
Councilmember Lloyd	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Kiefer	X
President Shetler	X

President Shetler: There being seven people present, we have a quorum, and so I’d like to ask Councilman Raben if he would lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

President Shetler: Okay, we are here for the sole purpose of discussing and putting before the public the Homestead Credit for the year 2010. I don’t know that we can really take up any other official business, although there may be a few other things that we may want to bring up, some reminders at least that I have to give to you anyway. This needs to be kind of done in a specific way and I might let Mr. Ahlers kind of outline that so that we do this correctly.

Jeff Ahlers: What you have before you are two documents that have been noticed and advertised for public hearing today and for you to discuss and take action upon, the first of which is a Resolution of the Vanderburgh County Council Proposing An Ordinance of the Vanderburgh County Income Tax Council Establishing the Percentage Credit Allowed for Homesteads for 2010 and Casting the Votes of the County Council on Said Ordinance, which is resolution number CO.R-07-09-006. Attached to that resolution, of course, and the way this works, because the Income Tax Council doesn’t all meet at once because it’s comprised of the three different bodies all of which aren’t even in the same city. So we vote by the resolution to cast our votes, and then there is also An Ordinance of the Vanderburgh County Income Tax Council Amending the Percentage Credit Allowed for Homesteads for 2010. So what I would suggest we do is have, after a public hearing, that there be three motions. The first motion of which would be for this Council to move for this to be the first and final reading so that there would not be the necessity of another reading at some other time. And if that passes unanimously, then this can be the final hearing. And so, then the second motion would be to pass the resolution casting our 28.517 votes in favor of the ordinance and then thirdly, to keep the record clear, I would suggest that we go ahead and vote on and pass the ordinance so that there is nothing left in the record for anybody to doubt whether or not that we’ve taken action on pretty much every motion, resolution and ordinance and properly cast our votes. Any questions?

President Shetler: Do I have any questions about procedure first? Okay, being a public hearing, I’ll ask for any public comments regarding the Homestead Credit. Seeing that we’re not being rushed by comments from the audience, does anybody on Council have comments? Questions? Yes, Councilman Lloyd?

Councilmember Lloyd: Just specify, we need a unanimous vote so that we are basically doing like two readings in one meeting, is that correct?

Jeff Ahlers: That’s correct, Councilman Lloyd. Essentially, and I guess, because this is a much different process than any other resolution or ordinance that we pass, normally a resolution only takes one reading and if you assume that’s all we’re doing, that’s probably all it would take. But given the fact that there is an ordinance, just out of an abundance of caution, I’d just suggest that we go ahead and the motion, the initial motion just needs to pass unanimously, saying that this will be the first and final reading. The subsequent resolution and ordinance votes, you would not necessarily have to be unanimous.

Jeff Ahlers: That’s correct. The City Council has acted a few days ago to cast their 70.719 votes, the Town of Darmstadt has .764 votes, I’m not sure when or if they’ve already acted. So we’re acting as three separate members of the Income Tax Council, and casting our ballot on the ordinance.

Jeff Ahlers: That’s correct. This would be for the Homestead Tax Credit that would be for 2010.

Councilmember Raben: Mr. President, I’m going to move that today’s action count as our first and final vote to approve this resolution. I’d like to make that in the form of a motion.

Councilmember Raben: I’ll make a motion to cast our 28.517 votes approving this resolution R-07-09-006.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, now I’d like to make a motion to approve, again, the ordinance R-07-09-006 as our second and final vote.

Jeff Ahlers: Actually, the ordinance isn’t numbered. It would just be An Ordinance of the Vanderburgh County Income Tax Council Amending the Percentage Credit Allowed for Homesteads for 2010.

Councilmember Raben: I apologize, let the record state the correction in the motion.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. Any questions? Roll call please.

Councilman Sutton: There is something I did want to at least have some discussion on. I know that – because we look at the 2009 Homestead Tax Credit at least on the county side, the potential fiscal impact is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 1.2 million, something like that.

Councilman Sutton: Yeah, two and a half million, okay. For 2010, granted, I know we’re looking at projected numbers, what is the impact that we’re talking about as a result of the action that we’ve taken today, because as we get ready to go – we’re about to enter into budget hearings, obviously, this would be something very important for us to be very aware of regarding some very key decisions on a number of different things.

Bill Fluty: I would expect it would be close to the same amount. Then again, it’s based on homesteads filed, that number doesn’t increase or decrease dramatically. But I would guess still in that same range, 2.5.

Councilman Sutton: So a total of a five million dollar impact with, granted we haven’t – there hasn’t been any action taken on the 2009, based upon what we’ve been hearing over the last few days, but, so, in total, over the next month or so, we’re going to need to make some adjustments to the county budget amounting to five million dollars downward?

Bill Fluty: There are a lot of variables to that, but that is probably a true statement. Revenues, tax collections, how other revenues come in, actually what the budget is for 2010, how it will pan out, and we’re looking out over the next eighteen months. But yes, we’re looking at five million dollars.

Councilman Sutton: I don’t know if there’s been any additional thought or some plans maybe laid out regarding how we handle this, how we make the appropriate adjustments going through our normal budget process, probably will not be fully sufficient because that’s focused upon 2010. I think probably if we’re looking at appropriately adjusting this, I would recommend that at least a committee of this body would be formed that would look at several different options and in dealing with at least the 2009 impact if we do, again, make the adjustments there. And then, of course, the budget process will take care of the 2010 adjustments. But that is a pretty significant impact upon the county of which, I don’t think any of us have made any particular plans. There are some areas where we probably can make some cuts, but the type of cuts we’ve been making won’t come close to at least the 2009 adjustments.

President Shetler: It’s a good point. I have actually been thinking along those same lines in that perhaps looking at maybe doing it for a committee of the whole, and having more of training session perhaps in the beginning where we would sit down and be able to have our County Auditor explain to us exactly where the revenue streams come from and what those monies could be used for and cannot be used for, so that we have a full understanding of how the income comes into the county government and then go from there to start thinking in terms of ways that we can wrap our arms around the expenses, the cost of county government, much like you do at the bank and that we do at our place. It’s difficult in county government in that there is, and I’m not advocating any other form of government, but it is difficult in county government to wrap your arms around managing the costs when there is, not like in the city of Evansville where you have a single mayor or a single executive who is responsible for doing that. And when you have a variety of different elected officeholders and department heads who are autonomous, and have their own authority, it does make things a little bit more difficult. But we need to do that. We need to find ways that we can wrap our arms around the expenses and manage the cost of county government the best we can. Yes, Councilman Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: I think a seminar of that nature definitely has merit so we have a better, clearer understanding. To the County Auditor I have a question, as far as, I don’t think deal with this year right now, but for next year, what percentage would you estimate we’d have to cut as far as expenses go to match the projected loss in income or revenue? Three percent, five percent? Do you have any idea?

Bill Fluty: A lot of things are going to play out between now and next year. Number one is what budget you’re going to approve for 2010. I think that’s first on the list of what’s presented and what those needs are. You have been conservative in past years, you do have different pots of money that you’ve held on to over the years. You know what those are. You may have to look at those to make ends meet, I guess, in a sense, the end of this year and next year. You also know that the caps do increase next year as they drop from 1 ½, 2 ½, 3 ½ to 1, 2, and 3, which actually I think will mean 1,400,000 less in property taxes that you can collect. That will be a factor. You have information that there are declining revenues right now. One of our key factors that we have wait on is our County Option Income Tax numbers that should be out in August. They should give you a better handle of how we can budget for next year and where we’ll have to look to make cuts.

Councilmember Goebel: The state is also reducing its property tax replacement from 140,000,000 down to 80,000,000 for next year, as far as the credits go?

Bill Fluty: Property tax replacement credit is completely gone this year, the Homestead Credit goes from 140,000,000 this year down to 80,000,000 next year, and down to zero the following year.

Councilmember Goebel: The reason I’m asking the question is, if we have a feel for how much less revenue we have coming in, and maybe it’s three percent, we could ask now all departments to factor that in and maybe propose cuts from within their own departments so it can be maybe, I don’t think it’s going to be pain free, but at least more palatable because they can have a say in where we’re going to cut across the board. That’s, I think we’ve already agreed we’re going to freeze all salaries, but maybe we’re going to have to go a little deeper.

Bill Fluty: Yes, I understood that all departments are trying to put in a zero line budget, I think is what you called it, James, the same as last year. And that’s a starting point. If you have to go deeper than that, it might be a little early to tell right now, but we’re close. To get to an exact percentage, I can work on that, but it’s difficult to say that. When those budgets come out, then that information will follow.

Councilmember Goebel: I just think that, you know, we’re less than a month away, so we’ve got to start doing something in that regard and I think we need to ask all entities to look inside and maybe make cuts.

Bill Fluty: You have to remember most offices are salaries and benefits and office supplies. Surely you’re not going to be able to get enough in office supplies to make these kind of cuts that you may have to make, so you’re going to have to look at a hiring freeze, that may be a possibility, you might look at just the people that retire, job changes that maybe you’re not going to fill those positions as quickly as you have in the past, look at them individually, that may be a start. You might be cutting services of some type, might be doing something we’re doing now that we may not be able to do in the future. So, obviously, things could be cut back that way.

President Shetler: Councilman Goebel, last year’s budget was $52,000,000, roughly, I’m thinking, for the county, wasn’t it?

President Shetler: Alright, so basically, you’re talking in the neighborhood of about, roughly eight percent cut that may have to happen across the board, compared to what, if we’re going to try to make up that five million dollars. A couple of thoughts that have gone through my mind is making a set up, basically a two-tier employee structure. It’s something we haven’t gotten into yet. I’ve just kind of weighed it out through my mind and been checking through different sources on how that might work. Something that companies have engaged in over the last several years. It’s a way that, after you do a hiring freeze, it’s a way that you can at least lower your cost of new employees coming in to the workforce, leaving all the present people alone at their present scales and what they were brought in as, but for the new people coming in, in the future, we’ve gotten to the point where some of the new positions coming in, they’re now starting off at a much higher level than you might find in private industry because we have given that annual three percent across the board, even on new people starting off. So I think there’s a way there to set up a two-tier structure on our employment that could save us several hundred thousands of dollars a year and I think there’s some ways that we may have to look at, as the Auditor mentioned, of hiring freezes, as well as we’ve already talked about the salary freeze.

Councilmember Goebel: We’re not talking about making up the difference from this year? Next year. That will be a double whammy, I think. I’m talking about Y2010.

President Shetler: I think, personally, that if we’re talking about a hiring freeze, and doing that through, you know, maybe even eliminating, do that through attrition, that that’s something that we could, in fact, implement sooner rather than later. I mean, the next four or five months could be fairly critical on doing that because I would, I’m guessing, this is an assumption, which is poor to do, but I’m assuming that a lot of people retire toward the end of the year.

Councilman Sutton: Councilman Shetler, that might be one of the ideas that we would pursue, but we are talking about millions of dollars here.

Councilman Sutton: We’re not talking thousands or hundreds here, so there’s going to have to be some – I don’t know what they all are, but that’s why I proposed a committee, something, there’s going to have to be some rather aggressive measures taken.

Councilmember Kiefer: What about capital, what about using the money as a one-time hit for 2009, two and a half million, what about capital reserves or capital monies, you know, or eliminating some capital type projects that could be used to fund 2009? I mean, instead of taking it all from operating?

Bill Fluty: You’re asking me that? To answer that right now would be a little premature. We’re still looking at the end of the year revenues, and taxes seem to be in shape and make this or get close to making this budget, but we still have that money that we’re going to have to redirect back to the Homestead Credit for the fall bill, is what I’m anticipating is going to happen. So we’ll have to redirect that money. You do have different reserves, your Rainy Day Fund, you have your Jail Set Aside Fund, so you do have some ways where you could kind of move this money around to get through 2009.

Councilmember Raben: As far as 2010, I mean, I appreciate and I – everybody’s comments are fantastic. I mean, Royce, I agree 100%. I think we need to get a committee established of three of us, because that’s all by law we’re allowed to have and start crafting our way into 2010. But looking at some of the funds that Bill discussed, I mean, we might have to redirect what we do in the future with our Riverboat. You know, we’ve got three different accounts that we set aside a million and a half dollars in every year that, you know, we may have to look at eliminating those three structures that those funds go into or a couple of them anyway. So there is no doubt we can get through it. It’s going to be leaner times than we’ve seen in the past and, in fact, I can recall back in ‘99, you know, we put on a hiring freeze, so it’s not unprecedented by this body and we can enact a lot of things and make up a lot of ground really quick. Just shooting from the hip, I think salaries probably are responsible for in excess of 50% of our budget, I would bet, or close to it. So hiring freezes, I mean, you can make up a lot of ground pretty quick. The two-tier structure, there is a lot of merit to that. But I like everything I’m hearing here today and it’s all doable. I’m confident it’s all doable.

President Shetler: Okay, I wanted to, before – also to remind everybody that we have a joint, speaking of the budget and monies, a joint meeting with the City and County Council in these chambers on July 29^th, and that is at 3:30. I tried to get it done earlier in the day so that we could save a little bit on the environment and not have to drive our gasoline cars back and forth, but anyway, that didn’t work out. So we will meet here at 8:30 and then come back at 3:30 with the city and county. I also wanted you to keep on your minds, and I think we’re going to try to work this out for August the 3^rd, but the ‘09 Homestead Credit, you’ve probably read a bit in the newspapers and stuff and through the news media, we’ll hopefully be able to tackle that on August the 3^rd at our regularly scheduled meeting. Then there is also the issue that was brought to light yesterday with the State Legislature passing the statute that allows for taxpayers to actually pay their taxes over a twelve month period of time rather than just on a semi-annual basis as it’s been customary in the past, and I think that’s an action that needs to take place by the county in order to afford that opportunity to our residents. So that, hopefully, we could get in line to do something on the 3^rd as well.

Councilmember Kiefer: Question? Do you know if that legislation allows us to charge some type of interest or is that interest free, that they are allowed to spread their payments out?

Councilmember Raben: If you’re paying in advance, if you’re spreading it out, I mean, I don’t see how we can charge interest when we’re being –

Rick Davis: That would be interest free as far as I know. I have several questions.

President Shetler: Is it pre or is it post? In other words, are they paying ahead on that or are they paying behind on it?

Rick Davis: They would be paying ahead and behind. They would be paying monthly. I have several questions. I called the Indiana Treasurer’s Association president yesterday and he wasn’t very clear on some of this as well. So Mr. Ahlers, I will try to do my best to answer some questions because I have several. For instance, if people are paying on a monthly basis, this year, for instance, our bills were not ready to be delivered. We had no idea how much your bill was going to be at home until mid-May. Now people, I sat there and thought to myself, if someone had a $600 payment last year, and they were paying $100 a month January, February, March, April, May, they were going to be around $130 off. If they had budgeted this into their monthly budget and they’re just getting by. Maybe their wife lost her job or they lost hours at the factory, which has happened, people in our community have had to take a pay cut this year, what happens when we give them their bill June 1 and they’ve got 15 days to come up with an extra $130? That will have to weigh into your decision whether or not to do this. And what happens if they pay the bulk of that and then miss a payment? And my worst fear is if they are living month to month and they’ve got this in their monthly bill, what happens if they don’t have the money and we take an ACH withdrawal, they’re going to get fee’d at the bank. They’re going to get fee’d by us, most likely. How long will this continue? Also, our fall payment is due November 10^th. They’ll be paying in December. There are lots of questions that need to be answered. I’ll probably talk to the State Board of Accounts or Department of Local Government Finance. I wanted to remind everyone watching at home, we have a similar program already in place in our office. If you want to pay on a monthly basis on your bill, even pre-payments, we’ll accept them. The only difference between what was pitched yesterday and what our office currently does, is we don’t take ACH payments per month. And I think in a tough economy right now, accepting a check when the taxpayer knows they have the money in the account is a greater service to the public than to have them sign up for a monthly plan and then, you know, January everything is fine, April, one of our factories shuts down, then what happens? That’s what I’m worried about, because it’s tough out there right now, especially for people who want to take advantage of something like this. The newspaper printed that probably around 30% of our parcels are already on escrow where they do pay the bank on a monthly basis and the interest question was a very good question, too. Do we earn interest on that? Yes, in a sense we would because if they pay in January, February and March, we take that money and we invest it. So we would be earning interest there. I doubt that the taxpayer would get that interest back, but again, those are questions we’ll have to ask. I’ve got a lot of questions that I would want to have answered and I can bring to you at the August 3^rd meeting, and I’ll probably talk to the State Board of Accounts or DLGF.

President Shetler: I apologize. I was giving the wrong date out, it’s August the 5^th instead of the 3^rd.

Rick Davis: But just to reiterate, we do have a similar plan in place. And out of 100,000 parcels, only a dozen or two dozen people are on it. And it’s mostly for people – the people who are taking advantage of it are people who are worried because they’ve had their hours cut, they were worried that when the bill was going to come in May or June, they didn’t know at the time, they were worried that they were going to have a difficult time coming up with $600 out of the blue and our office has bent over backward to help folks like that. We put them on a payment plan to get them to pay on the expected due date where they don’t have to pay any penalties. If the amount of money they’d have to pay per month is past that, we try to get them within that five percent penalty period the first 30 days. If they can’t do that, we try to get them caught up as soon as possible in that ten percent period and try to convince them to start making pre-payments for the fall payment. And its been very successful. The folks who have agreed to do this, for the most part, have lived up to their word. And it’s a non-binding contract where what was proposed yesterday or by law, would also, you know, they’d have to sign their name on the dotted line and live up to that promise. So what we’re offering is free of charge to them and is not a contract where, if they miss a payment because somebody had an illness and missed two weeks of work or whatever the case may be, if they miss that payment, they don’t get an extra hit or an extra penalty, we just hope somewhere down the line they make up that difference with an extra payment.

Councilmember Goebel: Rick, even though it’s free of charge from your office, they still, if they don’t meet the deadline, they still have that penalty, correct?

Rick Davis: It is free of charge if they make what would be due June 16^th, by that June 16^th deadline.

Rick Davis: And that’s our goal. When they call in January or February, at the time, we were hoping for May 11^th. We tried to get them on a plan by May 11^th, you know, divide their amount of what they paid last year, because we were guesstimating, and tried to get them to pay a monthly amount, where when they got their bill, it wasn’t such a big hit. But if they can’t do it, then we try for the five percent period, within that 30 day window, and then after that, it’s a ten percent penalty, but at least it keeps them off tax sale, it’s a smaller bill when they get it in the mail, and we’ve bent over backwards to help folks like that.

Councilmember Goebel: I think when you do your research, you can maybe report back and then we could – it’s premature right now. Some of the counties are on this plan, and what the benefits and costs will be. Thank you.

Councilmember Lloyd: So if someone goes on ACH, I mean, if they end up not having the money and that payment doesn’t clear, that’s not any different than writing a bad check, right, for your office?

Councilmember Lloyd: So, I mean, part of it is communication. We need the taxpayers to communicate with you. And from the way it sounds, the ones on the plan are doing that.

Councilmember Lloyd: So it’s something to think about. The only other thing I’d like to point out, it’s going to make our job a lot harder on the 2009 Homestead and obviously, we all thought those deadlines had all passed long ago, that there was no effect, so, you know, I’d like to commend Governor Mitch Daniels for getting involved and having the state agencies go in and waive those rules so that the county can do that. And, obviously, in this bad economy, I mean, it’s going to be good for taxpayers to get that rebate and it’s just going to make our job harder, but that’s what we were elected to do.

Rick Davis: Bear in mind one more thing, Vanderburgh County, two years ago in 2007, when the taxes were really, really high, to the best of my knowledge, Vanderburgh County was the first county to bill that year, or one of the first. And everybody down here in Vanderburgh County was really upset because we had these high bills. Nobody in Indianapolis heard. It wasn’t an issue. And then, guess what happened? Marion County folks got their bills and the little donut hole around Marion County, they all got their bills and they were really mad. And then, all of the sudden, we had a tax problem in the state of Indiana. And Marion County has not billed for 2009 yet. It may be the end of this year or the beginning of next year before Marion County folks see their 2009 bills. They recently got their 2008 bills within the last month or two, so they’re really happy in Marion County right now, because that’s part of the 620,000,000 that Mr. Goebel was talking about a few minutes ago. Once Marion County bills for 2009, I have a feeling it’s going to be a state-wide problem again with the General Assembly, and we just heard they got a 1.3 billion dollar surplus with the state. That sounds like a whole lot of money to folks at home but for people who deal with millions of dollars like you, it’s not that big of an amount. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that once Marion County bills go out and it becomes a state-wide issue again, that the state is going to increase that $80,000,000 for next year, it’s just a sneaking suspicion, because it will, once Marion County gets their bills out, people will be picketing on the courthouse steps again at the General Assembly in the next twelve months.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, I was just going to point out, you know, this whole brouhaha over the tax exemption and everything that occurred, would it be prudent for the Council to send the legislature a letter saying, requesting them to pass a law that says the exemption is in place unless we take an action to remove the exemption as opposed to, it’s not in place unless we take an action to approve it?

Councilmember Kiefer: You never know. Another mayor, another Council, it could come up. But it was just a thought to make it much simpler, because I think some of this slipped by people because it’s just too easy in the vastness of government to miss something like this and for some people, it was a rather innocent mistake, and they just missed it. And this way, if the legislature passes it to where it’s automatic unless we take action to reverse it, I think would be a good thing.

President Shetler: Well, I think the other thing we discussed a meeting or two ago was trying to set the date at least for that so that we have until like October the 1^st so that it kind of falls with everything else and the budget process makes a lot more sense as well. So that might be the avenue that we’ll take with the legislature as far as trying to get them to pass that deadline on from August the 1^st to at least October 1^st, that way, it will be on the top of our minds throughout the process, anyway. So, okay.

Councilman Sutton: I had proposed earlier about the committee and dealing with some of these issues, Councilman Raben seemed to be agreeable, I’m, I guess volunteering myself to serve on it if we decide to put together a committee of that nature. But obviously, we need more than two but I just want to hear – and obviously, we do need to hear from the Auditor in terms of giving us a general overview, but –

President Shetler: I have checked into the possibility of us doing this as an informational session and whether or not we could do it. There would be, I guess, no decisions made, just information only, more of a learning session, that if we could do that and it be essentially a closed-door meeting so that we would have that kind of freedom to throw out ideas and discuss possibilities there, that could be looked at. And then, and there are some possibilities, that’s why I’m thinking in terms of the committee as a whole. So I’m thinking the same way you are, but I’m thinking that it may be advantageous, rather than restricting it to three or four people, to looking at it, that all of us would participate in that particular committee meeting. So I don’t know, Counselor Ahlers, if you have any point on that?

Jeff Ahlers: You know, one of the things you could do as well, I suppose, is there is nothing that says the meetings have to be televised if you think it would be easier to work. But one of things you could do is, I guess, what I hear you saying is something similar to maybe how we do Personnel & Finance Committee, I guess you could go ahead and notice, it but it wouldn’t necessarily have to be televised. But otherwise, you know, I guess to be on the safe side, I would suggest that you probably always notice up a meeting if you’re going to meet as a whole. If you’re going to have a quorum, it’s always – I would suggest that you advertise it.

President Shetler: Are there any times in July because we’re going to be getting into this thing running pretty strong come August. We have about two weeks left in July.

Councilman Sutton: Well, I guess my suggestion is, maybe for expediting the process, now obviously, the committee, we would open that up, I guess, if we needed to, but in the month of August, we’ve got a number of meetings to deal with just the 2010 budget and then, of course, we’ve got our regular Personnel & Finance and our regular meeting in August. Now if we’re talking about layering another series of meetings, trying to get everyone here might be somewhat of a challenge, but if that’s what you’re intending to move forward with, and really, if we’re talking about the end of July trying to get something in still, you know, we’ve got, what, ten days left in July, we’ve already got a meeting scheduled for the end of – two meetings, already, scheduled for the end of July, so we are kind of pressing ourselves a little bit. But, I’m open.

Councilmember Raben: We’ll make it work. The other idea I had is, depending on the structure, you know, if it’s more of an informational type meeting with information provided to us by the Auditor, you know, it’s possible to have two or three different meetings where everybody kind of gets to share in on the same information, you know, just so long as there’s no more than three of us at a time. So however you want to handle it, I, you know, you don’t have to make the decision today, but maybe, you know, contact us in the next day or two, but we can do it as a single committee or try to circulate everybody through the same process.

President Shetler: Why don’t we set up the committee of three just as Councilman Sutton has suggested, and Councilman Raben and Councilman Sutton and myself could serve on that and then we could work out at least that part, the first detail of if we want to have a committee of the whole or how we want to go from there. And at least get something started from there. That would at least get the ball rolling.

Jeff Ahlers: If, as Mr. Raben said, if it’s purely information, you know, we had that happen whenever we had the House Enrolled Act, you know, 1001, when it came down and people from the state came down and spoke to us, I mean, it’s one thing if you’re being spoken to, the problem you run into is if you meet as a whole and you’ve not advertised, that while it may be intended that no decisions, you know, are taken and it’s merely, you know, you’re discussing, the problem becomes, you know, whether someone else perceives it differently and just to, an abundance of caution, if you’re going to be discussing among yourselves and you’re going to have a quorum present, I would recommend that, you know, you advertise accordingly so that there is no mistake that, you know, you’re in compliance.

Councilmember Kiefer: I prefer just to make them public meetings. This all affects the public, just open it up and we don’t have to worry about it.

Councilman Sutton: Well, you could take our Personnel & Finance meeting that we’ve got next Wednesday, and I don’t know how long it will take for Auditor Fluty to put together a presentation of the information that we are needing to pore over and attach that on to our meeting for next week.

Bill Fluty: Yes, I think some of it will be, I did send out last week an email, you all received that. Of course, that is actually the bulk of the information, but I think our budget books will be done next week. That’s a good time to start, but yes, I’ll have something for you by next Wednesday.

Councilmember Goebel: I think if we have graphs and things, it could be even posted so viewers at home could watch, I think that would be really beneficial, too. Most of us are visual, at least I am.

Councilmember Lloyd: It’s my understanding if we met as a group, budgetary issues is not an exception for Open Door Law. You know, you have personnel issues, industrial development, real estate purchase, labor contracts, and I don’t think budgetary information would fall under that. So if we wanted the whole Council to meet, I would think it would have to be a public meeting.

Councilmember Raben: And again, to Councilman Kiefer’s point, I think it would be good for the general public that has an interest in seeing how all this is bundled up into one basket. You know, it really doesn’t hurt, I mean, I think a lot of people are interested in hearing just that. So I like this idea the best.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 9:18 a.m.)