LAPEL TOWN COUNCIL SPECIAL MEETING
SEPTEMBER 8, 2025

In attendance: Brian Robertson, Gary Shuck, Roger Fouse, Lindsay Washmuth, Chad Blake Teresa Retherford, Secretary and Michael Farrer, Legal Counsel

Motion to amend the agenda to add in group health coverage presentation between Resolution 5-2025 and budget discussion made by Robertson, 2^nd by Washmuth and all were in favor.

Resolution 5-2025. Robertson stated that this is a joint resolution Lapel Town Council and the Stony Creek Township Board of Trustees proposing reorganization under Indiana Code Title 36 Article 1.5 Chapter 4. Essentially this resolution is to start the process of having public hearings to potentially merge the Town. There are several reasons why we were looking at doing this. One of the biggest ones is the Anderson Water Territory expansion. It would bring, if it passes, would bring Anderson's water territory within a half a mile of Lapel. It also is essentially a backdoor to annexation. Some other things that it can help with are that it would get our population above 3,500.

With the new House Bill SBI, if we are over 3,500 in population, we can do our own LIT, Local Income Tax. We do not have to go beg the county for part of theirs every year. Some other things are that Lapel and Stony Creek Township have their Levy's, which essentially is the amount of money we get from your tax dollars. Our Levies are set to the lowest, which means... What we didn't take 15, 20 years ago gets spread out amongst the county, the library, basically any money that we didn't take at that point got spread out. It was not a tax savings. We can reset our levies. So, we can recoup as much of your tax dollars that you pay into the Town of Lapel. Shuck stated that it's more of a reorganization. It reorganizes the whole government structure for the Township and the Town of Lapel. Robertson then went on to explain some of the processes. Motion to approve Resolution 5-2025 made by Blake, 2^nd by Fouse and all were in favor.

Mr. Farrer, legal counsel, recommended opening a Public Hearing in case there's somebody out here who wants to comment before a vote is taken. Robertson then closed the Special Meeting for the Lapel Town Council and opened a Public Hearing on Resolution 5-2025. Robertson asked if there were any comments or concerns from the Public. Kristie Worthman asked who the members of Stony Creek were. Robertson closed the public hearing and resumed the Town Council Special meeting. The vote was then taken.

Aaron Mercer from Clark Insurance Group presented an option for Health Insurance because the town is coming up on a transition with the chamber plan that's currently with Anthem. He went through all the information and coverage. Retherford stated that she received from our current insurance guy a spreadsheet and said we would continue the same amount for one year on the SIHO and then Anthem is a 3% increase for basically what he's offering us and we're saving money. Retherford stated that it would benefit the employees.

Motion to approve the plan that, lower savings for the town and greater benefit to the employee which is plan number two made by Blake, 2 ^nd by Robertson and all were in favor.

Retherford went through the Budget and numbers. She highlighted things that may be a little different this year. She also suggested giving the Parks Department more money by appropriating them $20,000 out of Riverboat/Casino along with $40,000 out of Cascadden. She stated that the Public Hearing will be on September 18, 2025. Blake stated that one of the things that is outstanding is there are still things from Senate Bill 1 that we don't know yet. So, one of the recommendations that has been made, and many communities are doing is they're going very conservative on their budget with the expectation that information may change around July.

Motion to advertise the budget put before us and or any changes made by Washmuth, 2^nd by Blake and all were in favor except for Fouse who voted no.

Motion to adjourn made by Blake, 2 ^nd by Robertson and all were in favor.

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