Perry Township - Monroe County, IN
Perry Township Offices

Perry Township Board Meeting Minutes: Thursday, September 16, 2021

The meeting is called to order at 4:15 pm

Members Present: Jack Davis, Barb Sturbaum, Susie Hamilton, Dan Combs

Non-Members Present: Sharon Yoder, Pat Combs, William Morris

Agenda

  1. Funding Request from Community Groups
    • Amethyst House (Gina Lovell)
    • Boys and Girls Club (Not Present)
    • Community Kitchen (Vicki Pierce)
    • Courage to Change (Marilyn Grimes)
    • Friend's Place (Forrest Gilmore and Dorothy Granger)
    • Girls' Inc (Not Present)
    • Hoosier Hills Food Bank (Julio Alonso)
    • Mother Hubbard's Cupboard (Amanda Nickey and Erika Wheeler)
    • Mt. Salem Cemetery Society (Not Present)
    • New Hope Family Shelter (Emily Pike)
    • New Leaf New Life (No Show)
    • Stepping Stones (Centerstone) (Melissa Paneto and Rene Llewellyn)
    • VITAL (Bethany Turrentine)
    • New Requests
      • Pantry 279 (Cindy Chavez)
      • Perry Township Budget Items
      • Food Pantry Perry Township
      • Emergency Shelter (set-a-side) not for Friend's Place
  2. Budget Review
  3. Other
    • Legal issues/open door request for documents

Funding Request from Community Groups

Gina Lovell with Amethyst House was present but their request is the same as last year. There was no request from the Boys and Girls Club. Vicki Pierce from Community Kitchen was present but their request was the same as last year. Marilyn Grimes was present from Courage to Change and their request was the same as last year. There is no request from Girls Inc. Julio Alonso was present from Hoosier Hills Food Bank and their request is the same as last year. Amanda Nickey and Erika Wheeler were present from Mother Hubbard's Cupboard and their request is the same as last year. There is no request from Mt. Salem Cemetery Society. Emily Pike was there from New Hope Family Shelter and their request is the same as last year. Melissa Paneto and Rene Llewellyn were there from Stepping Stones/Centerstone and their request is the same as last year. Bethany Turrentine was there for VITAL and their request is the same as last year. The board allows all community groups with requests that are the same as last years to leave without giving presentations.

Cindy Chavez is from Pantry 279. They are a new community group requesting funding this year. They currently run out of Ellettsville but are looking to move to Bloomington in the near future. They were started six years ago by a Girl Scout troop. They were only expecting to serve 35 families a week but their numbers went up really fast. They currently serve 32 counties of which a little over 60% are from Monroe County. When they sent the request letter 567 families alone were from Perry Township, however, as of today that number is 602 families. Clients are allowed to visit the pantry once a week and are given food based on what the pantry has available. They also give out Thanksgiving boxes one per family and run a Christmas program for the children in the area almost like the angel tree program. In 2020 they handed out one million eight hundred thousand pounds of food total and are close to that again this year.

Rev. Forrest Gilmore presents for Friend's Place. He states that over the last five years they have been raising funds from the community to get to full budget capacity for Friend's place. This reserve is almost all gone. They have gradually been building up the amount of income they have over the last several years to get to full funding. The minimum annual budget amount for Friend's Place is about $180,000. They get a lot of donations through fundraising and community grants. We are currently their biggest operation grant every year. They currently have $150,000 of their budget reached so they are asking for an additional $5,000 this year to get closer to their need to be fully funded for the year. He also mentions that over the last couple of years they have made it so that Monroe County residents are prioritized.

Perry Township Budget Items

Food Pantry Perry Township is five days a week all year round operation still. The Food Pantry for Perry Township recommendation is $10,000. This recommendation is to purchase food from Hoosier Hills. The cost of food is currently 17 cents a pound and so that we can go to the store or a butcher shop to buy items if Hoosier Hills runs out of food. The Emergency Shelter set-a-side recommendation is $15,000. The Emergency Shelter set-a-side is in case Friend's Place would not meet their goal and would have to stop their program this money would go towards campaigning for that.

Budget Review

The overall budget increase given by the State Budget Agency is 4.3% increase in Growth Quotient, which includes, employee benefits increase 4.3%, township general increase is 4.3%, PERF matches are staying the same, raining day fund and capital improvement plan have been increased in anticipation of repairs needed. In township assistance if everything has been spent we should have $55,000 left. With the reimbursements and the increase in valuation next year in township assistance if we spend everything listed in the budget we should have a balance of $224,000 leaving an increase of about $160,000. With the possibility of annexation, the county is estimating a loss to the township of 30,000 in the first year in income from taxes and that it would take roughly three years before things would be back to normal. This extra balance at the end of the year should leave a cushion if this were to happen. General Tax rate 0.0041, Township assistance 0.0210, and Debt Service 0.0011 giving a total tax rate 0.0262 and .0251 without debt fund. This is down from last year.

Township 17: Salary increases are proposed to 2.3% and tiered merit raises up to 2%.

Other

Several city officials have requested sit downs with the trustee over the next couple of weeks to learn what exactly is done at our office such as Steve Vollen.

Dan and William ask the board to authorize William to do a Motion to Compel against the City to get the requested documents. A press release will need to be sent out and then the Motion will be filed. Dan says he would be happy if they could just get the answers to how our township got on the poster that was posted at Seminary Park and why there were not any other townships listed on it. Barb motions to authorize William to make this Motion in court, Susie seconds, all approve. Dan will get statements from the board for the Press release and will run it by them before them it sent to the papers.

Dan updates on the construction at the shelter stating that they are waiting on bathroom fixtures. The new expected completion date was sent to the board. They had to hire another plumber to fix a water leak at one point to continue working on the construction.

The front window at the office was replaced, however, the frame around the window still needs fixing as it has some dry rot issues. Dan states that with the budget up for review at the moment and other things going on it will be looked into at a later date and took the board's advice into consideration about maybe redoing the structure of the windows.

Next meeting is set for October 21st at 4:15pm.

The meeting was concluded at 5:50 pm.