Welcome to the Timesheet. This column is a report of work done on behalf of the people of Hamilton County. It’s to be informative, too – a place to learn about projects and how our county government works.
As your employee, it’s important to me that you know what is being worked on as transparently as possible in government. You hired me as your County Councilman, and my hope is that you’ll choose to be informed by regularly reading this column, getting involved, consider volunteering, and by asking questions. Council meetings are at 7 p.m. the first Wednesday of every month at the Hamilton County Government and Judicial Center in downtown Noblesville. Meetings are also available to watch online for those unable to attend in person.
Here is where my time this past month has been spent.
In addition to the County Council public meetings, October work included: a 2025 final budget adoption meeting, a Board of Commissioners public meeting, a combined County Council and Board of Commissioners executive session, and a quarterly county services meeting with Cicero Town officials.
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October included the 2025 final budget adoption. The Hamilton County budget for 2025 is slightly over $309,000,000. Once the budget is approved in final form, the Auditors’ Office submits all the details to the State of Indiana Department of Local Government and Finance. They ultimately approve the numbers and the associated tax rate.
As a point of reference, Indiana has 92 counties, many of which have a budget under $20,000,000. Hamilton County is fortunate to be growing, but managing that growth and keeping up with the required services can be challenging. The workload has increased over last year in volume and in complexity.
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After an extraordinarily intense September, I took some time off after final budget adoption to rest, recharge, and fish a bit. This trip reminded me why they call it fishing and not catching.
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The October personnel committee meeting was canceled as we only had one request. It was addressed by a poll of the committee members. Personnel requests are voted on as they occur, first in the personnel committee and then at the next regular council meeting using a recommendation from the committee. The finance committee did not meet in October.
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This month there were three constituent services requests. Requests require research with a county department, securing the correct answer, and then following up with the taxpayer.
One October request was regarding undocumented immigrants being introduced into Hamilton County. My research, in speaking with public safety, prosecutors, and city officials, confirmed that while we do have an influx of some immigrants arriving with a temporary visa, they are not being dropped here in any large quantity.
A second request asked about Noblesville property taxes and the amount of our property taxes that goes to the Noblesville School system. The answer is 47 percent of our property taxes in Noblesville go to the school system.
The final October request was from a constituent asking for support for a city government-ordered appraisal on her property. This was interesting in that the city sent contracted appraisers for a detailed analysis of her property. They plan to acquire a portion of her property for a road expansion project. I was happy that schedules worked out such that I was able to meet the appraisers, watch their work, and offer support and assurance to the constituent.
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Noteworthy items from October included a meeting with Chief Mann of the Noblesville Police Department discussing the new training center and the approval of $55 million in bond financing to pay for the judicial center expansion project.
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The last item of special interest is what is best described as a pebble in my shoe. Allow me to explain:
For my age, I have a decent memory and last year – this would be September of 2023 – I remember our council budget discussing and agreeing to put away money from the 2024 budget into the county rainy-day fund. Well, we got to October and after reviewing fund balances, to my surprise, no money had yet been moved into what is essentially a county savings account.
So, now I’m bugged about this and started researching. Research led to asking fellow council if they remembered the discussion about moving the money to savings, and yes, several did remember it. The problem is that there was nothing in the minutes about us moving the money.
Now I’m like a dog with a bone. This is not what we agreed to, or at least not what was intended. Undaunted, I hit up the Information Technology team to pull off all the audio recordings from the two days of 2024 budget hearings recorded in September of 2023. Flash drive in hand, the listening begins. Eight hours of slamming coffee and listening to the audio recordings and boom, a-ha, found it! I found the audio recording of where the council agreed to move supplemental LIT (Local Income Tax) into our rainy-day fund.
It was like I found a mint condition Bob Gibson rookie baseball card.
I was excited and exhausted, clipped the audio recordings, and sent them to the council president. We had agreed to move the money but had not held a vote to do so. The result: over $16 million of our tax dollars will now be moved from the general fund into our rainy-day fund, saving for the future.
With the planned 2025 rainy-day contribution, the county emergency savings account balance will be over $45 million by the end of fiscal 2025.
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This is my timesheet. This is where my time went during October 2024. This was an especially busy month that included 2025 budget meetings. My job is primarily the financial oversight of the county budget. It is important that I understand the Board of Commissioners’ priorities and balance them with the stewardship of taxpayer dollars. That is the job, and I am excited to do the people’s business.
As a taxpayer myself, and listening to so many of you, our employers, it’s important for the taxpayers to have access to all the information you want. I work for you, and although you may not choose to do a deep dive into what your County Council does, it’s important that you can always do so.
Feel free to contact me at (317) 832-1104 or mark.hall@hamiltoncounty.in.gov with questions, feedback, or if you would like to talk about county business.