Council sets three‑day budget review, moves September meeting to the 14th and orders data fixes

At the July 9 work session, Brown County councilors confirmed a three‑day schedule for 2027 budget hearings (presenter described the July 28–30 'dog and pony' sessions, 9 a.m.–4 p.m. each day) and agreed to a hybrid paperless process in which staff will update a spreadsheet in real time while printed backups are available.

Councilors also discussed calendar conflicts with the AIC (Association of Indiana Counties) conference and ultimately agreed to move a regular September council meeting to Sept. 14 to accommodate members’ travel; the group recorded a consensus decision to use the 14th rather than the 28th. The chair and staff said the August 17 meeting will be the published budget meeting and October will remain the adoption meeting.

Julie (staff) described significant data‑entry errors in department 'form 1' submissions: one mismatch in Excel formulas produced a difference of about $50,000 that was traced to a duplicated sheriff pay line. Council members volunteered to help cross‑check department entries to avoid manual rekeying and to reduce the risk of transcription errors. Staff said they would clean up the files and would provide corrected spreadsheets in time for the scheduled multi‑day hearings.

Members discussed logistics for the three‑day hearings: scheduling departments by day, building in small work sessions after each presentation so the council can discuss what it heard, and ensuring departments know their assigned slots. The council did not take a formal advertised vote to adopt any budget at the work session; it set the schedule and asked staff to finalize a timed agenda and to circulate the corrected Excel form‑1s.