05/29/2026
Madison Runs Public Meetings. North Vernon Runs a Paid Hide-and-Seek Program.
Bless their overcompensated little hearts, because Granny went and compared Madison’s public meeting records to North Vernon’s, and the difference is so wide you could drive a city-funded truck through it, park it beside a vague agenda item, and still have room left over for excuses.
Madison appears to understand that public meetings are supposed to be public before the vote happens, not after the bobble-heads have already nodded, motioned, seconded, and wandered back to their little tykes chairs. Madison posts agendas with materials. Actual materials. Documents. Ordinances. Resolutions. Supporting paperwork. The kind of information citizens need to understand what is being discussed, what money may be spent, what law may be changed, and what their elected officials are about to do in their name.
That is what relatively functional government looks like when it remembers the public is not an inconvenience.
Then there is North Vernon.
North Vernon too often treats an agenda like a fortune cookie. You crack it open and get one tiny sentence that could mean anything. “Surveillance cameras for code enforcement.” “Quotes for police cars.” “Stage rental request.” “Claims to be determined.” Good grief. That is not an agenda. That is a teaser trailer for people who already know the plot.
Madison hands the public a packet. North Vernon hands the public a shrug.
Madison’s system says, “Here is the agenda, here are the materials, here is what we are considering.” North Vernon’s system says, “Come to the meeting, listen carefully, hope the audio works, guess what the attachments would have said if anyone had bothered to post them online or even provide them to residents that show up, and maybe someday the minutes will appear.”
That is not transparency. That is municipal peekaboo.
And let us quit pretending this is some poor little volunteer club trying to run a city government from a folding table with one Bic pen and a prayer. North Vernon has paid officials. Paid department heads. Paid staff. Titles. Offices. Nameplates. Salaries. Public money flowing every payday like taxpayers are watering a garden and somehow still getting weeds.
According to the 2025 Certified Report of Public Employment and Compensation for North Vernon Civil City, the city reported 164 public employment compensation records. The same report lists Mayor Raymond “Missing-Minutes” Gerkin at $85,507.08 in 2025. It lists Clerk-Treasurer Charles “Minutes-R-Hard” Weber at $76,000.08, Police Chief Keith E. Messer Jr. at $80,687.20, Sewer Superintendent Russell L. Vaught at $87,759.10, and Water Superintendent William M. Spencer at $87,484.72. These are not couch-cushion salaries. These are grown-up public-payroll numbers attached to a city that still struggles to make its public meeting records look like grown-up public records.
The report also lists the mayor’s administrative assistant, Tara N. Thormin, at $47,174.15. So the public is not just paying for the mayor. The public is paying for administrative support under the mayor’s office too. That makes thin agendas, missing supporting documents, delayed minutes, sloppy archives, and the “come into the office” routine look even worse. When there is paid leadership and paid assistance, the excuse bucket starts running dry.
If the mayor is collecting $85,507.08, and the mayor’s office has an administrative assistant listed at $47,174.15, Granny has one simple question: why does the public-facing paperwork still look like somebody tried to govern with a sticky note written by Twitchy McTweek, a caffeine crash, and a shrug?
Now compare that mayoral paycheck to people tied to work where things actually break, flood, burn, back up, leak, clog, crash, get called in, or need fixed before citizens start hollering for good reason.
The police chief is listed at $80,687.20, which is $4,819.88 less than the mayor. The fire chief is listed at $63,660.30, which is $21,846.78 less than the mayor. The street commissioner is listed at $68,796.00, which is $16,711.08 less than the mayor. The assistant street commissioner is listed at $59,318.11, which is $26,188.97 less than the mayor. The parks director is listed at $53,077.10, which is $32,429.98 less than the mayor. The police administrative assistant is listed at $57,544.64, which is $27,962.44 less than the mayor.
And the mayor’s own administrative assistant is listed at $47,174.15, which is $38,332.93 less than the mayor, while from the outside it sure looks like she handles a whole lot of the heavy-lifting office grind.
So the person likely buried in the monotonous daily grind of office work, calendar work, phone work, email work, paperwork, packet work, and public-contact work makes barely over half of what the mayor does, while the mayor gets the title, the ceremony, the microphone, the photo ops, and apparently a city website that still needs citizens to squint through agenda crumbs like they are reading tea leaves at a budget séance.
Nobody is saying the assistant is the problem. From the outside looking in, assistants, clerks, and office staff may be the only reason the municipal wagon still has wheels. They are often the ones answering phones, typing minutes, chasing paperwork, managing calendars, cleaning up messes, and doing the dull grind that keeps government from collapsing into a ceremonial pile of nameplates.
The problem is leadership that gets the title, the paycheck, the photo ops, and the authority while the public still gets skinny agendas and records that look half-fed.
And let us talk about those utility salaries too, because they are not small. The sewer superintendent is listed at $87,759.10. The water superintendent is listed at $87,484.72. Both are listed higher than the mayor. Granny is not saying water and sewer work is unimportant. Quite the opposite. Water and sewer are real public services. If those systems fail, nobody cares how polished the mayor’s speech was, because they are busy wondering why the toilet sounds haunted and the faucet is auditioning for a lawsuit.
But that is exactly why the pay deserves a harder look.
North Vernon’s water superintendent is listed at $87,484.72. Madison’s 2025 Water Supervisor is listed at $73,080. That means North Vernon pays its water superintendent about $14,405 more than Madison pays its water supervisor.
North Vernon’s sewer superintendent is listed at $87,759.10. Madison’s 2025 Sewer Supervisor is listed at $72,607. That means North Vernon pays its sewer superintendent about $15,152 more than Madison pays its sewer supervisor.
So Madison is producing stronger public-facing meeting records while North Vernon is paying its water and sewer chiefs roughly twenty percent more than Madison’s comparable water and sewer supervisors.
Bless that math. It came wearing steel-toed boots.
And it is not just Madison. North Vernon’s water superintendent pay sits near the higher end of Indiana water-supervisor examples. It is below places like Carmel, Pendleton, Columbia City, Santa Claus, and Edinburgh in one comparison set, but still well above Madison. In another water-superintendent comparison, North Vernon sits right below places like Galveston and Auburn and above Bremen and Delphi. That is not a humble little small-town stipend. That is North Vernon trying to sit at the grown-up utility table while still handing the public a children’s menu of agenda details.
The sewer side is just as spicy. Madison’s sewer supervisor is listed at $72,607. Greensburg’s sewer superintendent is listed at $77,969. Cannelton’s sewer superintendent is listed at $75,000. French Lick’s sewer superintendent is listed at $61,530. North Vernon’s sewer superintendent sits at $87,759.10, only about $2,404 below Speedway’s $90,163 figure from the same comparison.
So North Vernon is not paying bargain-bin utility wages. It is paying serious money. Near-upper-end money. “You better know what you are doing and document it cleanly” money.
That means the public has every right to expect serious results: clean records, clear documentation, competent management, straight answers, and public paperwork that does not look like it was assembled by a sleep-deprived raccoon with a PDF scanner.
And if there are public concerns about family connections, hiring habits, or who got placed where, that makes transparency more important, not less. You do not answer “cousin-hiring” whispers with vague records and disappearing details. You answer them with receipts, policies, posted documents, clean minutes, and a public process that does not look like it was built to keep questions wandering in circles.
Because high pay does not automatically prove high competence. Sometimes it only proves taxpayers are buying expensive hats for heads that still cannot figure out how to post a full agenda packet.
Upload the packet. Attach the quote. Post the claim amounts. Spell the words correctly. Keep the archive clean. Put the supporting documents where the public can see them. These are not advanced acts of statesmanship. This is not diplomacy at the United Nations. This is not negotiating peace between two angry kingdoms. This is paperwork.
Boring, plain, necessary paperwork.
And somehow, North Vernon makes basic paperwork look like climbing Everest in flip-flops.
Public records are the boring machinery of government. Nobody expects a parade because someone uploaded a PDF correctly. But that is the job. Public administration means doing the boring things correctly, repeatedly, and on time. If they cannot handle the boring part, why are they being paid like they possess the governing skill to handle the big part?
Because from the outside, it sure looks like a whole lot of North Vernon leadership has mastered the fine art of sitting in official chairs while the monotonous work gets pushed downhill to assistants, clerks, and staff. The assistants likely do the typing. The assistants likely chase the paperwork. The assistants likely answer the phones, manage the calendars, prepare the packets, clean up the messes, and keep the wheels from flying off while the folks with the titles float around collecting credit like loose candy from a parade route.
And still the public gets skinny agendas, late minutes, vague descriptions, missing context, and archives with enough typos to make a spellcheck program file abuse charges.
That is not an unavoidable workload crisis. That is leadership laziness showing its house slippers.
A competent leader does not just show up after someone else did the grind and call that governance. A competent leader makes sure the public record is complete. A competent leader checks whether the agenda gives residents enough information. A competent leader asks whether documents are attached. A competent leader makes sure minutes are posted timely. A competent leader treats the public’s right to know like an obligation, not a nuisance buzzing around the conference table.
Because “we are a small city” is not an excuse when other small cities manage to post better records. “We are busy” is not an excuse when everybody else is busy too. “Come into the office” is not transparency when the same documents could be online. “To be determined” is not public finance. “Other business” is not meaningful notice. A livestream that disappears after 90 days is not a serious archive, especially when the mayor’s self-promotional radio talks disguised as public business seem to stay online forever while actual meeting records vanish into the municipal fog. And a government page riddled with sloppy spelling, missing materials, and thin records is not a professional standard. It is a digital junk drawer with taxes behind it.
Madison is not performing witchcraft. Madison is doing basic public documentation. Agenda plus materials. Meeting information plus support. Records that help citizens follow along before decisions are made.
North Vernon could do that too. It just does not want to. Add in all the red-flags over the years.....
That is where the incompetence starts looking less accidental and more cultural, possibly intentional design. When vague records keep happening, that is not one bad day. When supporting documents are not routinely attached, that is not one oversight. When old records require physical access instead of easy online posting, that is not modernization. When agendas hide the actual substance behind two-word labels, that is not efficiency Charlie! That is a government trained to do the minimum and then act offended when the public notices.
They are not underpaid volunteers. They are overcompensated public servants.
So serve.
If Madison can post agenda materials, North Vernon can post agenda materials. If Madison can attach ordinances and documents, North Vernon can attach ordinances and documents. If Madison can give the public a useful meeting record, North Vernon can stop acting like uploading a PDF requires a moon landing, three consultants, and a ceremonial blessing from the copier.
The public should not have to beg for basic information. The public should not have to decode agenda crumbs. The public should not have to sit through meetings just to learn what should have been in the packet they hide from the public. The public should not have to ask why a city with paid leadership is producing records that look like a procrastinated group project.
If a regular worker turned in this level of thin, late, sloppy, under-detailed work over and over, management would not call it “challenging but manageable.” They would call it a performance problem.
So why does government get to call it business as usual?
North Vernon officials are compensated like adults entrusted with public business, but too often the recordkeeping looks like nobody wants to do the dull part unless someone shines a porch light directly into the office window. Even that only got a couple of the more expensive claims listed while the rest are apparently to hard to add minutes and upload. That is not leadership. That is laziness wearing a lanyard.
The fix is not hard.
Post the full agenda packet. Attach the quotes. Attach the ordinances. Attach the resolutions. Attach the claims. Attach the policies. Post the minutes quickly. Keep the livestreams longer. Clean up the archive. Stop making residents come downtown for records that should already be online. Stop treating public information like office furniture. Stop acting like transparency is extra credit.
Because Madison is making North Vernon look bad without even trying.
Madison is just doing the normal work. North Vernon is the one making normal work look like a heroic burden.
That is the whole rotten pickle in the jar.
North Vernon does not need more excuses. It needs standards. It needs discipline. It needs leaders who understand that public service includes the unglamorous grind, not just the meetings, photos, titles, and checks.
If they want professional pay, they need professional output. If they want public trust, they need public records worth trusting. If they want residents to stop calling the work pathetic, then stop producing work that looks pathetic.
Until then, Granny is going to keep saying the quiet part loud enough to rattle the blinds: Madison is running a public-meeting system, and North Vernon is running a taxpayer-funded document scavenger hunt staffed by people who seem allergic to the boring work they are paid to oversee.
Bless their overpaid, underperforming, PDF-fearing hearts. How they can pretend to be so good at their job while complete failing in every aspect is beyond Granny. I guess what all the extra mental health perks they get is for, it has to take alot to keep their mental gymnastics supporting the overblown egos.
