The Vanderburgh County Council and Commissioners held a special joint meeting for discussion of jail and corrections projects on December 19, 2001, in Room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 12:35 p.m. by County Council President, Ed Bassemier.

Council President Bassemier: Major, Sheriff's Department, do you want to open the meeting, please?

Brad Ellsworth: Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, the Vanderburgh County Council and Commission is now in session pursuant to adjournment.

Council President Bassemier: Thank you, Sheriff. I want to welcome everybody to the December 19, 2001, special joint meeting. This meeting, the purpose for this meeting is to for information purposes about the jail project. You want to take roll call?

Teri Lukeman: Just start (Inaudible. Mike not on.)

Council President Bassemier: As far as Council members, please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Tornatta?

Councilmember Tornatta: Here. 

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Here.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Wortman?

Councilmember Wortman: Here.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Hoy?

Councilmember Hoy: Here.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Here.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Here.

Teri Lukeman: President Bassemier?

Council President Bassemier: Here. Mr. Mosby.

Commission President Mosby: Yes, I would like to call to order Board of Commissioners meeting December 19^th, regularly scheduled meeting. Present today will be Commissioner Mourdock, Commissioner Fanello, Commissioner Mosby, myself, along with Counselor, Tom Bodkin and Counselor, Phil Hayes. I guess, if I could at this point, we'll just have a motion to suspend normal business? 

Council President Bassemier: Can I have a motion?

Commission President Mosby: To go into the special agenda.

Council President Bassemier: Is that okay? Motion to suspend? Do I have a motion?

Unidentified: Pardon?

Commissioner Mourdock: Just for the record, the County Auditor is here too. I know she stepped out for a moment, but the County Auditor, as she always is-

Commission President Mosby: Oh, I'm sorry. Right.

Commissioner Mourdock: -(Inaudible. Talking over each other.) County Commission meeting.

Commission President Mosby: And in my introductions include the County Auditor, Suzanne Crouch.

Council President Bassemier: Thank you, Commissioner Mourdock. Okay, would everybody please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?

(The Pledge was given.)

Commission President Mosby: We need a motion to suspend normal business. Yeah, we need a motion.

Commissioner Fanello: I need to make a motion to suspend normal business.

Council President Bassemier: Okay.

Commissioner Mourdock: Second.

Commission President Mosby: So ordered.

Council President Bassemier: Thank you. Information items, Mr. Mosby, do you want to go ahead and start on your presentation by the professionals.

Commission President Mosby: Yes, we'll start today, as you said, this is an informational hearing, so we'll start with a presentation by the professional firms that we have with us, being Crowe Chizek, Shireman and Company, Julie Von Arx, Al Bennett, United Consulting, DLZ, Baker and Daniels, and Mike Claytor from Crowe Chizek. I think they have a designated spokesman, and I will let them go ahead with their presentations and then we will come back with questions by Council members and Commissioners.

Council President Bassemier: Thank you, sir.

Brad Ellsworth: My name is Brad Ellsworth, Sheriff of Vanderburgh County. I've been asked to make the introductions. First I would like to introduce Mike Claytor with Crowe Chizek, the financial advisor, to make his presentation.

Council President Bassemier: Sir, for the record, please state your name.

Mike Claytor: Yes, sir. My name is Michael Claytor. I'm a partner with the accounting firm, Crowe Chizek and Company. 

Council President Bassemier: Okay, sir, thank you. 

Mike Claytor: Hopefully, you have before you a couple of packets of information. One is, hopefully, enough detail that if you have any trouble sleeping, you will be able to take care of that. It is in a bound sheet that looks like this that has various detail of financing scenarios. Then the other thing that you have that we provided is a copy of the power point slides that I'm going to go through at this point. I think, probably, you will both squint at the screen and squint at the one's in front of you. So, if I get my bifocals aligned right, and you get your bifocals aligned right, we should be in pretty good shape. What we are going to present today are project sizing scenarios to give information to the Council and Commissioners based on the work of the professional group here as to the type of project that may be pursued by Vanderburgh County. We will have some recommendations in here. We will have various numbers in here. We will be presenting four distinct types of scenarios, and showing what the financing would be for those types of scenarios. The first one is going to be based on bond size. It is based on the direction that we received from you saying that you were wanting to look at a $35 million bond size. I understand we were talking bond size, not project size, so that's the scale that we've used in that scenario. Then we have used three other scenarios to present you with the information of what the various recommendations would be depending on the type of project. The first would be to build an adult facility of the size recommended in some of the planning procedures that have been gone through. The second would be to build both an adult facility and a juvenile facility. Then the third set of scenarios would be to build all three; a jail, a juvenile facility and a community corrections facility. Now the various scenarios that you have in front of you, and the cost sizes, and the lease payment scenarios that are there are based on assumptions. We've had to make a lot of assumptions here to be able to present this information. We try to make as conservative assumption as we can, so that these numbers should be maximums. These should be the top points. We never want to come back and say, oops, it's going to cost you more. So, in these scenarios we have tried to estimate things high, so that when we do get to a final bid on a project, they come in lower. You definitely don't want to come in higher. We have assumed that we would be doing a lease financing, and that it would be on July 1, 2002. Now, lease financing is what is typically done for governmental projects, building projects. A number of the things that you have done in the past here in the community have been lease financings. Typically, in Indiana these are done as lease financing because of the extremely restrictive nature of the 2% debt limitation in the Indiana Constitution. It is one of the most restrictive limitations in the country, and because of that more Indiana debt is done on a lease basis proportionately than in any other state. It is because of our debt limitation. Now if you look at, we are changing our property tax basis, so our assessed values are all tripling by going to a true tax value system. So, the legislature decided to take away your discretion on that matter, and they have reduced the 2% debt limitation to be based on the old method. So, by tripling assessed values, you are not going to get an increase in your debt limitation. So, that would not free up capacity to do this in a general obligation type of format. We are also looking at using a 25 year amortization to repay the bonds. We are looking at capitalized interest for a 2 ½ year period during part of the planning, and through all of the construction phase. Capitalized interest is a legal requirement for lease financing. We're hoping as we get further along that we could shorten that capitalized interest program, and that would certainly save you money if we're able to do that. We are assuming a 1% underwriters discount, which would be a fee that the underwriter charges for brokering those bonds to people within the community, or to insurance funds. We are assuming an average interest rate of 5.76%. Now that is an extremely high interest rate. We would probably be a full point below that were we to sell the bonds today, but the reason we estimate a high interest rate is because I can't tell you what the rate is going to be in July of 2002. If the project moves at all, we may be issuing the bonds even further down the line, so just to be sure we are within a range where we wouldn't have to go back and start over from a state tax board perspective, we use a high interest rate in our estimate. So, when I give you a payment and say this is what the payment would be, it's assuming a full percent interest higher than I think it really would be if we did this today. Now the county has done a very fiscally responsible thing in setting aside an amount of money and projecting that you will set that aside in each of your budgets until we get to the point where we've done this financing. The county has designated, I understand, $2.7 million. That is fabulous to do that. What we can do with that, setting that aside this year and next year, we can use part of those funds to help hold down the capitalized interest costs, or to pay some project funds as we go along by doing that as part of the construction costs or part of the soft costs in this deal. That way you will save money on interest and on capitalized interest. So, by setting that aside, you are setting an excellent precedent. That is great, and that is going to be very helpful. There is one small caveat in that, when you set that money aside, and for the last several years the Tax Board has allowed units of government to set that money aside, and they haven't touched it. The Tax Board can consider that money part of your free cash balance in working your budget to reduce your property tax levy. I don't think that is very likely, but it's something that you need to make sure, and I know Suzanne will take that into account when she's working with the Tax Board guys in going through the budget to make sure that is set aside for this project, and not used as part of the budget process. So, that's just a let's make sure we do this. Now not included in the financing numbers that I presented are certain costs, and we're going to cover some of those. Some of them are really unknowns, so I wasn't able to cover them in these numbers. The financing numbers don't include operational costs, because you can't finance those operational costs. Those are budgetary items that you will finance in the normal budget. We have outlined, and in the presentation we will show you the estimates of operating costs for each one of these scenarios, and what the staffing requirements would be, but we have not included that in financing. Obviously, that's a budgetary matter, and that's something then that you would work into your budgets in the future. We have not included a land acquisition cost, because there has not been a site selected. So, that is kind of a number that we need a place holder for that you need to realize either you are going to have to spend maybe part of that money you've set aside for land acquisition, or if it's existing county property that you could currently use that wouldn't have an acquisition cost with it, otherwise, if you don't use one of those two methods, we would have to increase the financing for land acquisition costs. If, in fact, a solution as we finally go through this, includes some modifications to the existing jail, we've not built that into the financing costs. That would be a separate matter to have to be handled later. Then, finally, we haven't included staff training to go into this new methodology, again, because that is an operational cost. That is not something we can finance with a bond issue. So with those assumptions, to tell you what the parameters are of the four scenarios that we are going to be looking at, as I said, the first one is based on a size of bond. We went to the working group and said, with $35 million of a bond issue, we will have to set aside a certain amount for capitalized interest, and cost of issuance, and the other things that we have to have in the project, so here's a net amount that you have left for construction costs, which here is shows at about $26 million, and $4.8 million as far as actual project costs, what can I buy with that? They came back and said, we're talking about a 448 bed jail for that kind of a price, with 124,475 square feet. Doing that $35 million bond issue, and using that 5.76% interest rate, a lease payment would be about $2.85 million. I know we were also talking about a $35 million deal would come close to that $2.7 you're setting aside, that's assuming a lot better interest rates, and a shorter capitalized interest period. So, you know, if we were to market today and get good rates and be in good shape, we might be able to do that for the $2.7 million, but it's, you know, it's in that neighborhood. The second scenario which was the recommended size of the jail facility for an adult jail is 650 beds, which would be a five pod system, the way they build jails now using pod systems to help with operating costs because of the staffing. It's 172,000 square feet, roughly. The bond issue size would be around $47 million. The annual lease payment would be about $3.8 million. The actual construction costs, the hard costs, would be $35.66 million, and the soft costs, and we'll go through those in detail in just a minute, would be $5.9 million. The next alternative being the combination of the adult facility and the juvenile facility would be 674 beds, which is the 650 adult jail and the 24 juvenile facility. That's roughly 191.6 thousand square feet. A $52 million bond issue. $4.25 million lease payment per year. Roughly $39.6 million in construction costs, hard costs, and $6.45 in soft costs. Then the final all in facility, 974 beds, which includes 300 beds community corrections, is roughly 231,000 square feet. $58.8 million bond issue. Almost $4.8 million annual payment. $44.8 in construction costs, and $7 million in soft costs. Now to go into detail and to show those side by side, I'm sorry, this is another squint at the numbers slide. This just presents the same information you just saw, but shows it in a side by side format. I wonder if that...(Inaudible. Stepped away from mike.) make that worse. That is better. That works for my eyes. I don't know if that works for your eyes or not. It shows those same numbers we just went over on a side by side basis as far as project costs, bond issue size, and annual payment. To go into detail for each of those, we talked about the project cost size, those are made up of components, obviously, the first component is the actual construction cost, which in each of those facilities, you can see in the first one, it's roughly $24 million. For the 650 bed jail it's roughly $33 million, and it ramps up as you go to higher number of facilities. Furniture fixture and equipment, basically, out quip, excuse me, equipping the building, also ramps up because you'd be doing larger facilities and more facility. Then we have included a contingency. This is a number that we hope we don't have to use, but one of those that you get into a project and you start digging in the ground and you start finding things you have no idea was there, and something comes up just in case. So, a contingency is put into those numbers as a just in case number, and you certainly hope that when you get down to bids, and when you get down to actually doing the surveys on the property that you don't have to use that money and you can do a smaller bond issue. Now this is really a squinter. To get into this one, this is the detail of the soft cost component. We've tried to detail those as much as we could for you to let you know individually what those components are in the project, because, obviously, soft costs are a large component of a project. Of course, there is architectural fees and engineering fees that are the first line item. The second line item, program plan and implementation, is the consulting project to determine the facility size and layout to allow you to have the optimum configuration for what the community needs are. A and E Reimbursables are any costs for reimbursement the architect would have. Base CM Fee is the construction management fee of the firm that would come in and do the day to day beating up on the contractors, and making sure that the project comes in under budget, makes sure that they can get things done in an appropriate manner. There is CM reimbursables, obviously, other kind of detail of things in there; printing, distribution, surveys, kitchen design, environmental, civil design, you know, review fees, insurance, telecommunications. Issuance cost is in there, the issuance cost pays for things like the financial advisor, the bond counsel, local counsel, the ratings from the rating agency, the printing of the offering document that goes out, those sorts of things. Then there is a total there for the soft costs in the project. Now shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about the operating costs for the various scenarios that we are looking at. We've seen, you know, part of this is based on number of pods, number of square feet. We do have a detail of the projected operating costs for each of the scenarios. Now one caveat here, and we'll talk a little bit about the current budget, this is the cost to operate the new facility. You are ,obviously, already operating a facility. So, when we say you need a jail commander, that is something you already have. So this is not new costs to operate a facility, this is all end costs to operate a facility. Okay? As you can see, depending upon how many pieces to this there are, a four pod facility has a total operating cost projected of about $4.6 million. The adult only option has a cost of about $5.9. Adult plus juvenile, a cost of about $7.1 million, and then the all three component, a cost of about $9 million. The detail on those, we have looked at, actually the design team has looked at what it would take to operate the facilities, how many people, what the average annual salary would be for that, various types of equipping. This even includes medical and the other types of costs that you would incur at a regular facility as well as whether you build a new facility. So this has the operating costs for the $35 million scenario. The next page shows the staffing positions, how many positions would be staffed, and then based on the guidance that's put out as to how staffing should be done in a facility, came up with a number of positions. You can see the $35 million is 86 positions. Then the next slides I will just touch on real briefly. Obviously, the adult facility takes more people with a fifth pod for the 650 beds, because you are going from four pods to five. Again, the staffing detail for that is 96 individuals. Then if you go to adult and juvenile, which is the $7 million item. That is 132 people. As you can see, those numbers individually and how they are broken down, and see the number of people on the next slide. Then the final slides related to the operating cost show the detail of the $9 million operating for adult and community corrections, as well as the staffing requirement of about 173 persons. Now to give you a comparison, and we need to validate these numbers, these are at least the numbers that I've been given. Is that, currently, and if we, I'll mess up everybody's eyes and go back to the overall. If you look at the overall different size, you ramp from $4.6 million up to $9 million. What I understand the current budget to be of the jail, is roughly $3.3 million , with 59 staffing. The current community corrections of $3.26 million with 59 persons. So, your total current costs covered in your budget are $6.59 million with 118 persons, are the numbers that I've been given that that is your budget today. So, if you look at a comparison, your budget today is about a $6.6 million, which is sort of in between the adult jail solution and the adult and juvenile. It's a little different if you keep the current community corrections, you are not going to lower costs for that. The way I understand the way these numbers work, the adult is going to increase your costs, the adult and juvenile is, obviously, going to increase your costs, because that is not something you are currently operating. If you throw in community corrections because they are able to do this in one facility, what your current community corrections costs are will come down. Now in total it is going to be higher, because you've got a bigger adult jail, and you've got a juvenile facility, but in total the community corrections will come down. Now total costs, obviously, of $9 million, that means you are going to have to find $2.5 million dollars of additional operating costs if you do all three components. There are some savings if you only do adult and juvenile, and do the $7 million and don't change community corrections, you're total operating costs are going to be roughly $10.4, because it would be the current three million, two hundred sixty some thousand that you are spending for community corrections, plus the $7 million to do adult plus juvenile. So, you know, there are, I can't just say, you know, this is going to cost you $9 million, because, in fact, if you only do two of the components you may actually have almost $10.5 million in costs.

Council President Bassemier: Sir, we need to change the tape. Hold that thought.

Mike Claytor: Oh, sure. I'm sorry.

(Tape Change)

Yes, I'm sorry, just throw a rock at me. I respond to rocks really well. The last slide that we have up is a little bit of a (Inaudible) chart to show you a time line, again this is kind of squint at a little bit but it's got a lot of really cool colors on it and it does have the timing of a project to bring out through the schematic design phase and then on through construction phase. As you will see this is the chart that the design team put together awhile ago as we were beginning this project. They expected to already be pretty well along in this phase and ready to go on further into design development and getting the construction documents ready. We are a little bit off of this time line so it will need to be pushed out a little bit as you make your decisions going forward on what Vanderburgh County is going to do. That really concludes the slides that we have. There is a tremendous amount more detail in your book as far as we have included all of the debt service schedules for each of the scenarios and more detail on capitalized interest and how that arrived at and other costs of issuance. But the team would be very happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

Council President Bassemier: Could we have the lights please? Thank you. On the Council side, who would like to start please? We will probably want to take a couple of minutes to look at this.

Mike Claytor: That'd be great. I've actually got a deal with an ophthalmologist that if I can get you enough eye strain we might have to get you all new glasses.

Councilmember Winnecke: I'll start.

Council President Bassemier: Okay, Mr. Winnecke.

Councilmember Winnecke: Help us understand how you came up with the scenarios in terms of, how was the price based on? In other words, the $35,000,000 bond issue, 448 beds, how does that math work?

Mike Claytor: For, in terms of per bed, per square foot?

Councilmember Winnecke: Right, correct.

Mike Claytor: I am going to have to kick that to the design team. They are obviously estimates. All of the estimates are based on square footage estimates of build out with number of pods. Obviously you can't because of the podding system and I know that you are fairly familiar with the concept that jail facilities are now built in pods so that you centralize your command and you centralize to review and supervise prisoners. So, you can't take a four pod system and make it a four point two pod system. So, you can't take a 448 bed facility and make it a 449 bed facility. You have to go to the next step. So, this was based, all of the other scenarios were based on if we have 650 beds, what, how many pods will that be and what will it take to build it. On the 35,000,000 one we went the other way just because we wanted to stay within the number that you had set. So, we went backwards and went to the design team, here's an amount of money, how many beds can you buy me? But, it is still based on the square footage either way whether it is number of beds times or amount of money divided by. But, I can get you, see if that, we have to get the right. Mark, do you want to address that?

Council President Bassemier: Come on up to the mike, sir, and state your name.

We are not going to let you out that easy.

Mark Shireman: I'm Mark Shireman. We worked as a team on this. I worked on the dollars and United DLZ worked on the square footages and the beds. There is a question about that costs per square foot specifically. At this point in time, the cost per square foot is an estimate as Michael said and it is what we call a probable cost What we have to think about is what's gonna happen a year or so from now when bids are opened? And it is an unknown. So, basically what all of us do it use historical cost data. I have a data base, so does DLZ United and some architect friends of mine and we based this on those estimates and our goal here and my job is to get the fat about of this project during the design phase. So, we set the community corrections up for example at $118 a square foot and we set the rest of it up at around $190 a square foot. Now, one of the companies that is well known in the United States is RS Means and Company and I am going to go ahead if I may and pass out a page out of their cost book, if that would be okay? Okay, Michael will pass those out. You will see, if you turn to that second page, you will see that nationwide and regionally they show jail construction at $132 a square foot to $217 and I am going off of memory and I hope that I am right about that. So, we are trying to come up with a number that we think is a reasonable number. We don't want to be extremely high and we don't want to be extremely low and again based on our data base and other information that I have gathered we think that the numbers, the estimates, we have are reasonable and not extremely high. I hope that's, does that help?

Councilmember Winnecke: That helps.

Council President Bassemier: Anybody else?

Commissioner Fanello: I have a question. This is more of a question for Mike, it doesn't sound like my microphone was working, when you were going over the, you gave us all of the detail on the bond issue, whenever the Council earlier this year set aside the $35,000,000, they thought was an amount of a bond issue that they could do without having to raise taxes. Is that true? Will there be a tax rate increase on that size and could you kind of briefly synopsize the --

Mike Claytor: Sure. I think that the original thirty-five was assuming that the lease payment could stay within $2.7. Which Suzanne has run a number of numbers on that shows the County would be able to set aside $2.7 and do that. That number is going to depend on both the construction period which impacts the capital interest and the interest rate that we got. So, if we could shorten six months off what we are kind of thinking around right now the period would be, in other words if we go down to two straight years of capitalized interest instead of two and one half and if we had today's interest rates, then yes we can stay within that $2.7 million, that shouldn't be a problem. We are working with some unknowns though because we don't know what the interest rate will be necessarily. We are still not sure what the capitalized interest period will be. I kind of mentioned the 2.7 that's already been et aside could be used to help reduce that capitalized interest, so you know I won't say yes, absolutely, you can stay within the 2.7 but you can probably get close to it..

Commissioner Fanello: Could you on the other three bond size scenarios, tell us, kind of explain the tax rate impact just real quickly?

Mike Claytor: Sure, in the booklet you have, behind each tab of a scenario and starting with the $35,000,000 scenario, if you go to the fourth page behind that tab, that would show you and again as we've said worse case assumptions with the only unknown that might go into the bond issue some kind of land acquisition for the example of the $35,000,000 scenario, on that fourth page behind the $35,000,000 tab, the estimated debt service is $2,854,000 and we have assumed a normal growth in assessed value of roughly, where somewhere near three percent, we have assumed what has been the rate and because we changed assessed value basis we have done this both ways for you, we've done it under the old assessed value method and under the true tax value method. The only thing that I haven't done is gone to the crystal ball and estimated what reassessment is going to do to these numbers. But, as you can see under the old methodology it would be roughly seventeen cents on the rate, that is not assuming using the 2.7, that is assuming that you paid it all out of property taxes. Obviously if you use the 2.7 million that is within your current budget, it's certainly not going to be a seventeen cent impact, it would be a very low impact because the total payment is only estimated to be 2.85. But, under the new true tax value method, it is roughly five and three quarters cents if the payment is 2.8 million. We have included one of those sheets for each one of the tabs but again we have done this in the worse case scenario. We are not assuming for these purposes that you are using any current budget money. This would be the impact if you put it all on property taxes and didn't use any other revenues any savings out of budget. So, for the $35,000,000 again with those assumptions it starts out at about seventeen cents and ends up a little, well right about nine and a half cents. True tax value method again it starts at five and three quarters cents and ends up about three cents. The true tax value method is the value that we are going to be in for this coming budget year and the only reason that I put both in is that it confuses everybody because last years tax rate might have been three dollars and next years tax rate is going to be a dollar and it's the same amount of money. Just because the true tax value is three times. Just so that you have something to compare to, we put in both methods. Yes, sir?

Council President Bassemier: Mr. Wortman.

Councilmember Wortman: According to that $35,000,000 right now if we stay with that and we go to the corrections center and juvenile center we are really going to get out of this $35,000,000 considerable and I don't know if we can afford it. Plus, we know our operating costs are going to go up on top of it so we do have to be careful here and remind everybody that there has been three counties that has had financial problems so we don't want to be the fourth one. Now, I'm very conservative on this and I thought that I would kind of remind everybody we, I think this to me, all we can afford right now. That's the way I look at it, that $35,000,000 with that 448 beds. Juvenile system, correction center and our judicial system, when that PMSI they lowered the inmates how many was in the jail? I think that has to be followed up and gone through so that we keep that population down and I think that is one way to do it because it was effective right away and now it has gotten out of hand a little bit. So now was it neglected, just a trend or what, I don't know but I just thought that I would remind everybody, thank you.

Council President Bassemier: Thank you, Mr. Wortman.

Mike Claytor: And you point also, the estimated operating costs for the $35,000,000 scenario are higher than you current jail operating costs. So, you have to take into account both operations and finance them.

Commissioner Fanello: So, you are saying that we are not going to be saving money if we just build the jail portion and still continue to operate community corrections as a separate entity?

Mike Claytor: Right.

Commissioner Fanello: You do have to add the two together so?

Mike Claytor: Right, if you do adult only, I would have to go back to my slide, I turned off the projector. If you do adult only, you don't have any savings in any community corrections, if you coordinate them then there are some savings in community corrections that offset that.

Commissioner Fanello: So, you actually could be increasing your operating costs?

By not building shared services.

Mike Claytor: You, I mean, your operating costs, I want to say it carefully because I don't want to say that are going to save money building a new jail.

Commissioner Fanello: Exactly, but yeah, no.

Mike Claytor: You can't ever tell anybody that they are going to save money by building something new and operating it but in fact there are some economies of scale that you could do with combining community corrections and jail that you will not have if you only do one. But, you know I don't want to come out and say, gee, this is a great way to save money because it is obviously not. If you do a project it is going to cost you capital and operating.

Commissioner Fanello: Well, I was just looking at your spreadsheet and for the 448 beds, the operating costs were approximately 4.6 million and if we were to continue community corrections in it's present state, that operating cost is almost 3.3 million. So adding those two together, we actually increase-

Mike Claytor: That's correct.

Commissioner Fanello: Our operating costs. So, we are not saving any money ourselves.

Mike Claytor: Your operating costs would be about 1.3 million higher.

Commissioner Mourdock: That brings up another very good point. If in fact we, and I am not suggesting this as the goal, but I am trying to understand the methodology, it doesn't make sense to me that if we abandoned this jail that we now have at 268 beds that we all know is antiquated that we all know takes a lot more man power than a modern jail, if we set that aside and simply build what you are calling option one at 400 and whatever it was 448 beds, and in doing that we are adopting a new methodology, a podular jail that is less manpower intensive, how come it takes so many more people to get simply that 200 beds? That doesn't make any sense.

Mike Claytor: And we need to defer some of those questions, because I am not the bond guy, I am the staff guy, but you are going to a larger jail. Even though you are going to the pod system.

Commissioner Mourdock: That's right but the whole theory is that I have understood the pod system is that it is less manpower intensive.

Mike Claytor: Right and if you had a 448 bed jail and you went to a 448 bed pod jail you would reduce your operating cost, but you are not doing that.

Commissioner Mourdock: I understand if it's apples to apples. I understand that we are going from 268 to 400 plus but it still seems to me that we have a huge manpower increase in there to gain those 200 beds in something that is supposed to be more efficient. Again, I understand that you are the bond guy.

Mike Claytor: And I, right, if we go to the $35,000,000 scenario, if you look at the staffing slide which is on this little jobby here is on page five on the power point slide thing, some of you may actually have the readable power point slide on, but on the barely readable power point slide, you currently have in the existing jail, you have 50 staff for your 260 whatever beds.

Commissioner Mourdock: Two hundred sixty-eight.

Mike Claytor: This has 58 positions for the four pods and then there is a multiplier for some of the positions that get you to the 96 staff. So, it is going from 59 to, I'm sorry I am on the wrong page, it would be going to 86 staff, 59 staff to 86 staff, so you are not, even though you are about doubling the size of your jail you are not doubling the size of your staff. But, I understand.

Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah, you understand my question but it seems like an awful large increase.

Mike Claytor: This is based on the staffing estimates and I understand this is based on the staffing guidelines that the state of Indiana puts out for jail facilities and I don't know if your current staffing meets the Indiana guidelines.

John Staley: The state of Indiana, my name is John Staley, DLZ, I am one of the consultants on the project. The state of Indiana is and has implemented a program of staffing analysis and earlier this year they conducted workshops with various counties concerning the new procedures to be followed. When we developed the plans for the new project, the new facility, we will have to have a staffing plan within this book there is a staffing analysis procedure that we have to calculate. If we were to follow that procedure for the current jail I think you would find that we are far understaffed in accordance with these rules and these rules have been adopted and will be enforced currently in the inspection reports that Paul Downing and his staff conduct twice a year. They have made references to many county facilities having inadequate staff on all shifts. What that means is, in terms of your cell block design today in the linear pod design that you have under these rules you will be required to have a staff person observing those inmates all of the time for each of those day rooms. If you added up all of those day rooms, in accordance with this criteria, you would see the difference. So, you are correct sir that the pod design does save you money in accordance with the standards that we must follow.

Councilmember Raben: This may not sound right coming from me but one other consideration in terms of operating, operational costs, you have to remember too that just looking at the $35,000,000 scenario roughly $850,000 of that is inclusive with what we have now in terms of building maintenance, trash removal, utilities. When you take that out of this facility, I mean that is part of our rent today, so, you know that is going to throw that figure up an additional $850,000 that's.

Commissioner Fanello: I was going to tell everybody, did they realize that there is a bigger copy with all of the info in there?

Councilmember Winnecke: Just now.

Commissioner Fanello: In case they can't read the slides.

Al Bennett: Thank you, my name is Al Bennet with Bennet Associates. I think you need to consider also that when you build a new jail you are going to building services and operations that are above and beyond what you have now and please excuse me, I have a little cold here. The one operations that you are not paying for not, at least I think that's being paid for by the City, is intake and booking. That will be picked up in this unit and will be virtually a two person post on a twenty-four basis which means that takes ten people to cover that post everyday, 365 days a week or year. I think that there is other services that you do not have that you need to consider as well that will need to consider as well that will require some staffing so this initial intake, initial design for additional facilities will require that much more. As I reviewed, having experience with helping with the design and set up the start up operations and attempting to provide information to Councils and Commissioners all over the state for the last twenty years, I have taken a look at the staffing that has been presented to you today and I think it is amazing how well they have come up with the staffing knowing the State's guidelines and using the American Corrections Association ACA standards without even drawing a line on a piece of paper. But, attempting to do it from past experience and doing it many, many times over a period of a number of years. So, I think even though this is not an exact science, we find that we are giving you, perhaps on the high side, so as to be as correct and not low, we are giving you the opportunity to see operational costs not only for personnel but operational cost of cost of food, cost of clothing, cost of utilities and so on and so forth so that you get an idea of what your budget costs will be the first year that it is in operational and that we know will be down the road away, several years before it will be operating so, it is coming across a little high but I think it is quite accurate and is very close to other jails that are just coming on line in the state of Indiana in the next few months.

Councilmember Hoy: You may want to answer this.

Council President Bassemier: I'm sorry Mr. Hoy but we have to change the tape.

Council President Bassemier: Okay.

(Tape changed)

Councilmember Hoy: Mr. Bennett, you may want to comment on this, I know that when we did the PMSI study you worked primarily on the juvenile section of that.

Al Bennett: The juvenile and the jail.

Councilmember Hoy: And the jail. Under that study, if my memory serves me correctly, you all were recommending a minimum of 400 beds-

Al Bennett: 500.

Councilmember Hoy: -500, and adding some beds if we were a university city, is that correct?

Al Bennett: That is correct.

Councilmember Hoy: Now we're looking at 600, possibly 650 beds. I'm curious as to why, I'm assuming, and I don't assume anything, I'm assuming that came from a recommendation that was made from this county for 650 beds, 350 community correction beds, and 24 juvenile beds.

Commissioner Fanello: 300 community correction.

Councilmember Hoy: I'm sorry.

Commissioner Fanello: 300 community correction beds.

Councilmember Hoy: 300, yeah, that's right.

Al Bennett: Community corrections.

Councilmember Hoy: Your recommendation from PMSI for community corrections was 225. Do we really need to go this large is my question?

Al Bennett: Let me explain that there was a process that took place during the PMSI study in which we received input from the people in the system here in the county, including, Council members, Commissioners, of course, the Sheriff, the Evansville Police Department, the Prosecutor and Judges. There was a fiscal plan committee that came up with a recommendation on the numbers that that study should recommend. So it came from, pretty much, the people from here in the county, and there is nothing wrong with a recommendation for a minimum of 500. In our planning the last few months, we've went back to the same people that we had been talking to a year ago, and the recommendations came in from them to be a little bit higher, both on the jail and on the community corrections center. I might add, that the community corrections center is very unusual. You are a county that is super unusual in this state in that it is accepted, well accepted, the judiciary like to use it, and it seems to be, generally, very successful. So they could see that instead of 225, perhaps 300 might be better. So in the process of a matter of several months, maybe a year or two years, people in their thinking kind of when up, but I can only say that those reflect the input that came to us. 

Councilmember Hoy: I just, as you know, because you know me, I have problems with those larger figures. Particularly with community corrections and thinking that we could probably be creative in approaching that situation from another standpoint, and I won't make that speech here because we are here for information. That does clarify the point for me.

Al Bennett: Well, I hope that I explained the process-

Councilmember Hoy: Yes.

Al Bennett: -that took place a year ago, and what took place the last few months, and I don't have problem with 650 jail beds in this community knowing other communities of about this size needing about that number of beds for the next, sometime in the next ten or 15 years. We cannot build just for the next year or two, we've got to build, hopefully, for the next 20 years. 

Councilmember Hoy: And that's built on the assumption that this industry is just going to get bigger and bigger, which is an assumption, as you know, I resist. I don't, I want to stick with facts here which you've done for me. You've answered my question, but-

Al Bennett: Thank you.

Councilmember Hoy: -we could get into a philosophical discussion, and I'd rather not do that.

Al Bennett: I've enjoyed those discussions in the past.

Mike Claytor: Mr. President, if I may, this is sort of, I don't know if this is a point of information or what to call it. I erred earlier, I need, I know some of you have caught this. I gave you the departmental budget numbers of current operating costs, that doesn't include the Building Authority's maintenance and utility costs. So, in fact, and I don't have those numbers. Unfortunately, the only things I pulled to give you that $3.3 million number on the jail, and the $3.26 number on community corrections, that's the departmental budget. I don't know what the utilities are, but the numbers that we put in our presentation include utilities and business maintenance. So, if you add, I don't know what those numbers would be, but there is not as much difference, obviously, between the new costs and what the old costs were when you consider that we've included...and I know you just, you mentioned that, that those items are in there, and that's the sort of catch there that, in fact, we won't have much higher costs when you consider those things that are currently being captured in the Building Authority's budget.

Councilmember Hoy: Mike (Inaudible. Talking over each other.) that would remind, that would remind Council that, that we are still going to be paying rent on all of this space here, no matter what happens, so that empty space over there where the jail is now, we will still be paying the square footage on that. So, we do have to be careful as we estimate these, because I don't, the Civic Center rent is not going to go down.

Mike Claytor: Sure. No, but I wanted to clarify, I was comparing apples and oranges. I apologize for doing that.

Commission President Mosby: Mike?

Council President Bassemier: Commissioner Mosby.

Commission President Mosby: I wanted to ask you one thing I don't you've included here when you are talking about the departmental costs today. Have you included patient/inmate care? I know you have in your scenario here.

Mike Claytor: Right.

Commission President Mosby: But that doesn't come out of the departments budget, it comes out of our budget, so that's another $2 million that you can probably take and add to it because they have included it in their scenario.

Mike Claytor: Okay, and I can't tell from the information I have. Eric, is medical in the departmental?

Eric Williams: What I think Commissioner Mosby is referring to is the patient/inmate care account which is (Inaudible. Not at mike.)--

Council President Bassemier: Eric, I'm sorry, Eric. You've got to come, come to the mike, please. Thank you.

Eric Williams: Eric Williams, Chief Deputy Sheriff's Office. I believe you're referring to the money that's used to house juvenile offenders out of this county and other facilities. That money is not factored into our budget, because we have no control over it.

Commission President Mosby: So, I guess-

Eric Williams: Our general annual medical expenses for inmates housed in our facility is included in those numbers.

Commission President Mosby: Okay, but the patient/inmate, the juvenile part of it is it figured in too?

Eric Williams: No.

Commission President Mosby: Okay. I think it's $1.9 million.

Councilmember Raben: What you do have to remember, though, a lot of that is specialized care that we're not going to do in our 24 bed facility. A big part of that is.

Councilmember Sutton: Could we follow up on something Councilman Hoy was saying?

Council President Bassemier: Okay, Mr. Sutton.

Councilmember Sutton: Just to maybe follow up on your line of questioning, Councilman Hoy. Would like to get an idea, basically, we have two different scenarios in the size of the actual jail facility. Can you, I guess, Mr. Bennett was kind of alluding to it, did make mention of it, based on the assumptions and the data that you gathered, how long do we anticipate this facility lasting us based upon the trends, demographics, what have you? I know that's obviously something that you have to try and factor in when you put together the size. Can you share that? I know you mentioned the 15, 20 year just a few seconds ago. Can you talk about that a little bit more? What went into that?

John Staley: I think Al could answer this as well as myself, but we've both been in this business, I guess, 25 or so years or more, and unfortunately the need continues to grow in spite of projections that crime is down nationally. The U.S. Justice Department said crime is down. In Indiana there is 60 some odd jails that are overcrowded today, and some of them are less than ten years old. A number of them are less than ten years old. So, I think it is prudent to plan ahead, and we try to look to a 15 to 20 year horizon. I think the discussion about alternative has got to be a part of this, because if we just build the jail and we don't look at the entire criminal justice system in any community in terms of alternatives, such as community corrections, home detention programs, they have to go hand in hand. I think that the reports that have been done, and the assessments that have been done that Al participated in have looked at those things, and those continue to be important. The bottom line is you still need adequate space. One of the things that is important to know, if you'd really, if you really conduct a jail in terms of it's operation, with a classification plan, you really can't use 100% of the beds all the time because of the classification of inmates away from each others predators, or certain kind of offenders. So when you look at those beds, there is a constantly changing population there, I'm sure, the Chief Deputy can reiterate this, but, you know, the jail has to be flexible enough to accommodate this sort of detail. We looked at 15 to 20 years, recognizing all these other programs.

Council President Bassemier: Sir, would you give your name again?

John Staley: John Staley, DLZ.

Commissioner Fanello: I have one more question, John. To build on Royce's question. All these scenarios we have here they have expansion capabilities in the scenario?

John Staley: That is correct. When we-

Commissioner Fanello: Well, I know this is 650 bed on up.

John Staley: When we look at the intake booking function, the food services function, inmate property, storage, staffing areas, as we design the facility, we would certainly design it to be capable of expansion, but I think that is essential, because you know you need to plan for this, and whether and how you do it is as important, and sure there are some more costs to accommodate that in the first step, but we believe that is also is important. 

Councilmember Sutton: When you say a 15-20 year horizon, what did you factor in to make that projection?

Al Bennett: In the 650 or the 500?

Councilmember Sutton: Either one of, really any of the scenarios that you've presented to us. I guess, just trying to get a real sense of how long the facility, you know, what we are looking at at far as capacity. What we are looking at in terms of the length of, the life of this facility on any of the sizes that are shown here.

Al Bennett: The size of the jail and what bed size you need is basically up to the judiciary. They are the folks that make the decisions that place people in jails. We saw a year ago an operation of the offenders going in and out of court being handled in a very prudent way. Not waiting too long for trial, and we felt under those circumstances about 500 would be a jail that could be good for at least five years, hopefully, as long as ten years. I would suggest that 450 beds, probably, you'll be back here five years from now asking to make that larger. Now going up to 650, we actually did not make that projection. Again, that figure came from input from people in the community, Council members, Commissioners, Judges, Prosecutors. They are feeling like 500 is not high enough, and that was determined to be 650.

Councilmember Raben: Al?--

Council President Bassemier: I'm sorry, Jim. Let...Mr. Winnecke's been-

Councilmember Winnecke: This gets back to the, Mr. Shireman may actually be better suited for this. Did I understand you to say that when you were computing the cost that the square footage that you used was $190 a square foot for the jail, and $118 for community corrections?

Mark Shireman: Yes.

Councilmember Winnecke: Then in these scenarios, like on the $35 million scenario for instance, shouldn't 125 or 124,475 square feet times $190 equal the construction cost.

Mark Shireman: What does it equal? Maybe I've-

Mike Claytor: I've got to calculate...this is Mike Claytor again. The construction costs number, and it works out a little odd on the $35 million, because as I said, we backed into a number, and then, unfortunately, just to make it balance to $35, instead of being $34 million 900 when we got done, we rounded the numbers off. So, I've got the $35 million working out to be $192 on the actual construction costs, not the project cost. Because project cost includes furniture, fixture and equipments and the contingency. So, I've got construction at $192 on the 35, $190 on both the adult scenario and the adult and juvenile. Then because it blends between adult juvenile and community, it comes out to an average of $178 on that for the scenario.

Councilmember Winnecke: Okay, but wouldn't these, wouldn't those numbers then be reflected in the bullet points tabbed construction costs?

Mike Claytor: In the power point?

Councilmember Winnecke: Right.

Mike Claytor: I hope my two sets of books agree. Actually, if you look at, on the bound book, the, in the very first tab, on the second page you've got the construction costs broken down. I hope that very much agrees with the power point, otherwise my typing skills have left me. Yeah, I've got construction costs on the 35, I've got at -

Councilmember Winnecke: 23,920.

Councilmember Wortman: Where do you see that?

Mike Claytor: I've got that at $192.17. It would be divided by the 124,475.

Councilmember Winnecke: Do you get $26,055,000?

Commissioner Fanello: No.

Mike Claytor: No, that's project cost.

Councilmember Winnecke: Well, it says construction cost on this.

Councilmember Sutton: Turn it around. It's called project cost.

Mike Claytor: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it's headed differently on the power point. If you look at the slide you are on on the power point, where it says project cost. The very next slide below it summarizes the project cost, and it shows construction costs at $23,920,000.

Councilmember Winnecke: Where would I look at that?

Unidentified: After the tab.

Commission President Mosby: Over here it's got construction cost. That's what Lloyd is doing.

Mike Claytor: Yeah, I apologize. On the earlier slides, it uses the term construction cost, and it really should be project cost. Because the project cost includes; construction, furniture, fixture, equipment and the contingency.

Councilmember Raben: Mr. President?

Council President Bassemier: I'm sorry, Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: I might direct this to either Al or John. Al, you had mentioned that using the figure 450 or 500 beds may be adequate for the next five to ten years. I still have a problem with why that's not adequate. Why...it appears to me as if getting larger than that and getting in the area of 650 is a bigger gamble, because I agree with all of this, nobody knows where the trend is really going, what the future is going to bring. The Feds do state that the crime rate is going down, and I don't know why if the design is not, if the design of the jail is proper why it's absurd to look at the possibility of needing to add another pod ten years from now.

Mike Claytor: Just from the bean counter standpoint. I'm currently working with two counties where this is our second jail bond issue in the last ten years, because they built new jails and now the are building new, new jails. The one in particular is a situation where they designed modular pods that could go up, and, apparently, at the last minute to save money, they ten years ago took out the ability to go higher, and so now they are building a whole new jail when they thought they were going to be able to add to this one. We are seeing that in various places around the state.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, well we're talking about, say for instance, the 650 bed facility expandable to 1,000, where do those, what type of expansion is going to give you that other 350 beds? Are you going to go up? Or just add another pod? Or add another two pods? Again, if we're designing this jail correctly, where it is expandable, I'm not a bean counter, but it seems to me, again, the wiser thing to do is not spend all that money up front in interest for beds that may or may never be used. I still contend that if we get that large and they do get used, shame on us. Because we're not handling society the way we should, but, again, somebody answer that for me.

Commissioner Fanello: Are you saying you don't want to build for expansion? You are saying you don't want to spend dollars, cheap dollars today to build for expansion, but you would rather come back and ask the taxpayers in five years to build an addition?

Councilmember Raben: How is it more expensive? If you are going to pay interest on that today, how is that-

Commissioner Fanello: Well PMSI in their study-

Councilmember Raben: -for the next ten years.

Commissioner Fanello: -said it would 10% to 15% less expensive to build shared services today-

Councilmember Raben: Okay, today, but how much interest are you going to pay on that money over the course of that ten year period?

Commissioner Fanello: Well, I believe interest, if we are talking about 4.76, you estimated 5.76% interest, and it probably will realistically come way in under that, are you saying it's better to wait and borrow money five or ten years from now at a higher interest rate?

Councilmember Raben: I think it's a more secure thing to do for the county.

Commissioner Fanello: I-

Councilmember Raben: Because, again, nobody here in this room, and there is a room full of professionals, and a lot of us that aren't, can answer or tell you where the crime rate is going to be ten years from now.

Commissioner Fanello: And that's exactly the reason. If we are going to spend the money today, we build for the future and we don't come back and ask the taxpayers in five years-

Councilmember Raben: Catherine, that is-

Commissioner Fanello: -to do it again.

Councilmember Raben: -probably in the simplest form, that formulation or that way of thinking is like a young couple today that gets married tomorrow, buys a minivan because they may have a large family ten years from now.

Commissioner Fanello: A minivan doesn't have bars and lots of plumbing in it.

Councilmember Raben: I think, well, it's my opinion, so.

Council President Bassemier: Okay, Mr. Hoy.

Councilmember Hoy: Well, my question about size, I just did some quick math. United just did a jail that was opened in 2001 in St. Joe County, and that jail, if you do the math on that there is one bed per 367 people in that county. What we are proposing here is one bed for every 264 persons. Why?

Commissioner Mourdock: That's the 650 bed number?

Councilmember Sutton: Which one are you looking at, Phil?

Councilmember Hoy: That's the 650 bed number. If you do the math on the population of the county, because St. Joe County is a lot larger, it is, I know you are comparing apples and oranges to an extent. You built that jail in St. Joe County with 600 and how many beds, 72 or 74 beds? For $35 million dollars, and finished it in 2001. We're looking at a whole lot more money, and United Consulting built that one. Was the architect on that one. So, that's a huge difference in cost, plus they built one bed for every 367 people, persons in that county, and we're looking at building a jail for every 264 persons. Now, I do not believe for one minute that we are any more sinful in this county than they are in St. Joe County, or Allen County, I've lived in Allen County. 

Commissioner Mourdock: They do have Notre Dame up there. They may have something.

Councilmember Hoy: They got a coach that can't remember what he did. Had Jesus, you know, signaling a touchdown on the building. Have you not seen Jesus doing this?

Council President Bassemier: Sir, I've got a question. You know, you've got it figured in here on 190 a square foot and, of course, all jails as far as maximum security, you might not need say maybe 150 maybe for felons, and misdemeanors you might need 50. I'm just using a round figure, I know, that's not right here, but you all got it figured in at 190 square foot no matter whether they are misdemeanors or felons. Is that correct on the 190?

Mike Claytor: That's an average square foot number, and as we said earlier, we are estimating high. You really, you don't know what the square footage cost is going to be until you get your bid packets back in and the people actually bid on the construction of the jail, which, I mean, can have all kinds of factors, but this is an estimating number that we are using as an average of 190.

Council President Bassemier: Okay, I was just kind of curious, because I know it costs less to build a minimum security than it does a maximum security. I just didn't know when you get into the numbers again, if we don't need as many maximum security as we do misdemeanors, this cost might go down.

Mike Claytor: Well, and, in fact, if you look at the configuration we've used that same 190 for planning purposes on everything but community corrections. Which is the 118 figure, so you are exactly right, you use a smaller number for the less secure type of facility, but we haven't, just for planning purposes, we haven't differentiated in that number between adult or juvenile. The only differentiation has been in the community corrections side, so. Like I said, these are planning numbers.

Council President Bassemier: One more question. I tell you, I've got a really concern about location. Why, I'm just curious why is this the last thing we are doing? I feel like it should be the first thing we do. Where are we going to build, what back yard are we going to build this in? Why are we, what's the hold up? Maybe this answer is not for you, but I'm curious, I would like to have a location so we can put some more accurate numbers together. So, can somebody answer, Mr. Mosby or? Oh, I'm sorry, before you answer that, we're going to change the tape.

(Tape Changed)

Commission President Mosby: Councilman in an attempt to answer your question, the problem lies within us. I would say that the problem lies within these two bodies. I mean we are the ones dragging our feet so I would say that it is our problem to find a site and I mean I will take part of that blame. We are sitting here arguing over contracts and numbers and everything else and I don't see a big attempt to go out and iron out a site right now.

Council President Bassemier: I was just kind of curious. This is great and I really do appreciate it what you gave us today. This is the first time that I have seen any numbers to, I didn't see any on the contract as far as how many beds we are going to get for $35,000,000 so this is great. I want to thank you all for coming here and putting this all together. But, I hope real soon that we can work out differences out so that we can get a location and I know with what you gave us today and your presentation I know that we are going to move forward on this and I appreciate it.

Commission President Mosby: Just to expand for a second because made the comment several times and I still stand by the comment, I didn't want the facility to be driven by the site, I mean I was waiting for some of these numbers, waiting for the size of the project and I still say you know as soon as these people are done today, we have to make a decision on what we are building because we are still not going to know how big of a site we need if we don't make a decision. So, rather than the building by the site, I would rather the site be driven by the building. So, we need to decide that.

Council President Bassemier: Thank you sir. Mr. Tornatta.

Councilmember Tornatta: This might be a better question for Sheriff Ellsworth and of course any professional chime in. Are we considered a regional, a regional site, even though we are Evansville and we can throw numbers per person, per bed, type of situation, are we considered a regional site where we have passers by coming through from Illinois, Kentucky, in the tri-state area where we would be affected?

Brad Ellsworth: Brad Ellsworth, County Sheriff. Probably the most marked example of that is when I think her name was Hesseman was murdered in the Bristol Meyers parking lot by two teens that certainly weren't from here and they were coming to the Vanderburgh County 4-H fair. Absolutely, Evansville, between St. Louis, Louisville, we get a lot of inmates that come from other areas that come here because it is a hub and it is a center and they are running drugs on the interstates, we have I-164, 64 , 41, we are catching people coming down the highways, absolutely it is a center where people come in and commit crimes from the small, the Warrick, the Posey, I don't have the exact numbers but if you look at my numbers historically there is a percentage that are out of Vanderburgh County, absolutely.

Councilmember Tornatta: Is there a way, and Mr. Bennett might be able to answer this, is there a factor for that, considering the counties around? Or is there a way to factor that in?

Brad Ellsworth: I can tell you a couple of things, I know that we have done some research on our bookings and in going back to those number things and you know our bookings have gone up. We did a time line a couple of years ago and I don't have the chart in front of me but based on history and the time line went straight up the predicted, the highest that we ever had in our jail was 428, to me it doesn't make any sense other to modernize and the really poor design of this jail to go to 44, 448 is ridiculous right now when I had 438 inmates in jail. The true numbers, if this county jail were perfectly designed the real number that ought to be in that jail so that I can do maintenance, so that I can do classifications, so that I can run, would be about 220. Now, you think, well you've got 268 beds, why would you only want 220 people in there? Because my job, running the place, by the Constitution is that I have to classify inmates, I have to keep sometimes sight and sound separate when a judge that inmate A and inmate B can't be in the same cell, I have to separate them. If I get an inmate that has AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, communicable diseases, because of his sexual preference, I have to separate them, then I have to move that to another place. If I have only got, right now I may only have 25 females but I've got 40 female bunks, I may have empty female bunks but I've got 25 men sleeping on the floor, that 268 is a false number because it is not indicative of the population that I have. On top of that we are not, we are living under false numbers right now, this 329 cap and I don't know if there is a judge in the audience but the judges and I won't speak for them, but they are keeping these numbers down based on beds but there is going to come a point where these judges go, I think this person deserves to be in jail and I don't care if they are overcrowded or not and they are going to put them in there and we are going to be in the same boat again. That number went up well above and I think we put a ten year projection and it went well above 400, 450 going into the mid 2000's, 2001, 2005 or whatever, I can't remember the exact numbers, I can pull the chart up. We also have to look at the warrants that are in Vanderburgh County. I've got thousands of warrants. Now if the City police, County police go out and do their, if we go out and arrest them, I have 6,000; 6,000 failure to appear warrants? Six thousand failure to appear warrants in the Vanderburgh County Courts alone where these people have been to court, the judge said come back on April 30^th or whatever and they aren't coming back. So, my officers and the city police have to go back out and up on their doors where now when we caught them in the car they didn't have a gun, now I am going up knocking on doors and putting my officers in danger again because we had to let them go and we had to (inaudible) and we did that, we are going to get our guys killed one of these days because we keep letting them out and that also clogs our court system because the judge hits the gavel and he sets another court date and then we arrest them again and he lets them go again because we already have 329 inmates in there and then we have to go out and arrest them again and they give them another court date and they keep continuance after continuance after continuance because these idiots won't come back to court. That's not their nature and they are not coming back. So, it's easier to leave them locked up until you adjudicate their court case and then be done with them and send them off to DOC or the Safe House or whatever you are going to do with them. You also have to look at these numbers. Are we going to be, you know some people don't want to make this a business. But, some people, we could recoup some money in this situation if we build some extra beds, not what we just need in the next five years, but we can stand to gain money in holding DOC inmates and we can also stand to make money in bricks and mortar and we talked about this last week so I won't beat it up. We can get bricks and mortar money from the U.S. Marshall service if we agree to house federal inmates and I think Commissioner Fanello has-

Commissioner Fanello: I think this would be a good time to pull out that chart and it is just for information purposes and I talked with the Sheriff about it a couple of days ago. Just looking at a scenario of housing fifty state inmates and fifty federal inmates, the fifty state inmates at $35.00 per day and the federal at $41.00 per day, I mean if we did that, assuming a 100, those 100 on a 365 basis, our annual total would be one point almost $1.4 million. Over a 25 year, 25 years that comes out to be $35 million.

Brad Ellsworth: Say we build it in five years, we say our inmate population does go up, you can then reduce the amount of Feds, reduce the amount of DOC's and you've got the beds for the local bad guys. That's a way that you all could recoup from this money that you are about to spend, or maybe about to spend on this-

Councilmember Raben: Brad, could I, could I stay with that point just a moment that Catherine brought up? Has anybody ran the math on what it costs you to house that inmate?

Commissioner Fanello: Well, I think-

Councilmember Raben: Because I did earlier. I saw this form.

Commissioner Fanello: Uh-huh.

Councilmember Raben: I did earlier, and it's right at $39 a day.

Commissioner Fanello: It costs us $39 today to house-

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, if you look at your operational costs and your-

Commissioner Fanello: So, that's why other counties are doing it and recouping money?

Councilmember Raben: Well, I'm just telling you, it costs you $39 a day-

Commissioner Fanello: I'd have to-

Councilmember Raben: --per inmate to operate that jail.

Commissioner Fanello: -confirm that. Maybe the Sheriff can confirm that, but I don't think that that's-

Brad Ellsworth: We did it one time, and we-

Councilmember Raben: I mean, that's based on the numbers provided today.

Brad Ellsworth: We did it one time, and we thought it came in at about $26, in that area. The point for me is that it doesn't cost that much more to house 500 or 400. You are basically talking about meals, and it's going to take the same amount of guards if you design it right. Unless you do a whole another pod for Federal and DOC, you are not talking about that much more-

Commissioner Fanello: I mean, are you, I mean, is it okay for other counties to get this money and not Vanderburgh County?

Councilmember Raben: Well, I'm just telling you, don't sell it as a money maker-

Commissioner Fanello: Well, but-

Councilmember Raben: -because that's-

Commissioner Fanello: -you're still going to recoup a large portion-

Councilmember Raben: -I mean-

Commissioner Fanello: -even if at $26, if you're looking at $76 a day-

Councilmember Raben: Okay, that's $26-

Commissioner Fanello: -combining the per diem.

Councilmember Raben: -on the existing facility. I'm using today's numbers provided to us by the professionals, and it's 38., $38.88 a day.

Commissioner Fanello: I would want Brad and Eric to confirm those numbers-

Councilmember Raben: Well, yeah, that's fine.

Commissioner Fanello: -because they work in the department.

Councilmember Sutton: On bricks and mortar, if you have Federal or State inmates, what type of numbers would we be talking about in assisting with a project like this.

Brad Ellsworth: They won't, they won't enter into an agreement until you a schematic drawing, and agree to it. But I know there is counties that have received over $1 million. I would venture to guess between $1 million and $2 million. Julie Von Arx with Correctional Concepts says that she knows of counties that have received $2 million per grant. Julie, do you know how many inmates that was housing? Feds?

Julie Von Arx: Between 50 and 100.

Brad Ellsworth: Between 50 and 100 inmates that they would agree to give you $2 million towards bricks and mortar. I don't know how many years you have to sign to that agreement, but I-

Councilmember Raben: Brad, can I-

Brad Ellsworth: -that's Federal, not State.

Councilmember Raben: Can I ask one other question? In terms of housing Federal or State prisoners, is there ever the threat that they, their sentence ends here and they are released in our community? Is that ever a threat?

Brad Ellsworth: Yeah. I think so. There is release dates where we would just release them. Sure.

Councilmember Raben: See that's, I mean, to me that is something important too. We are talking about crime rate going up and we may or may not release Federal or State prisoners back in our own community.

Brad Ellsworth: Right. It's, there's going to be a certain population...when we switched computer systems a couple of years ago, we were putting historical data in, and we ran, there were 88,000 different people booked into Vanderburgh County Jail in, I think it was, a seven year period. Of that 88,000 booked in, there was only 22,000 different names. There is a very small percentage of the population that is committing a very large percentage of the crimes. So, there is that group that every time you let them out, they are going to go out and commit a crime. That's just the way it is. As much as, as hard...and we don't do a lot of rehabilitation in the jail; AA, NA, some church services, but that's not our job to rehabilitate in the county jail. We do what we can with what we are given, but, you know, that is supposedly what the prisons do. Like I said, it's...the crimes are being committed by a small group. It happens to be more than 268 people in Vanderburgh County.

Council President Bassemier: I've got a question for you, Sheriff.

Brad Ellsworth: Sure.

Council President Bassemier: You know you and I and some others went up to Indianapolis and visited with the DOC, I don't know if I understood this right, but do we have to go ahead and build the facility first and then ask for the funding? Or is it we ask for it now and then build it? What, do you remember?

Brad Ellsworth: My understanding from DOC was that we ask them to put the money for bricks and mortar into the legislature to make it a part of their budget to give us money. We then have to agree to, basically, be a regional facility. For them, for the state DOC to give us bricks and mortar money, we have to agree to be a regional facility. That may, Julie, is that juvenile only? Is that...oh, I'm talking about community corrections too. 

Council President Bassemier: Yeah, both.

Brad Ellsworth: I was thinking jail.

Council President Bassemier: Both, community and juvenile.

Brad Ellsworth: Right.

Council President Bassemier: And wasn't that 50% they agreed to give us if we would do this?

Brad Ellsworth: They said they have funded up to 50. The law allows for 50%. I don't know if you would ever really see that number-

Council President Bassemier: Right.

Brad Ellsworth: -but it would allow, the statute allows up to 50% funding on that facility.

Council President Bassemier: I just wonder, if we, you know, if we'd really tried to pursue that just yet? To go after this before we sign any of the contracts or anything?

Commissioner Fanello: Well, but you can't, because he is saying you have to show them plans.

Brad Ellsworth: We don't know the scope of what we are going to build, so it's hard to say if we're only building a 440 bed jail, and knowing that we can't commit to community corrections, then there's no sense in trying to negotiate-

Council President Bassemier: Right.

Brad Ellsworth: -a jail, or having them put it in their budget. I think we need some, a plan first and then go to them and say-

Council President Bassemier: Okay, I understand it that way, I just wanted to get it on record that way. Okay. Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: I would like to go back to a question that was raised earlier, then other conversations took place, but I had asked that somebody give me their reasoning as to why they think over the next 20 years our jail population would rise to 650? What facts do you have that would substantiate that?

Brad Ellsworth: Basically, what I've said before, we did time lines on bookings. We did time lines on projected, time lines out of the future taking the past , the rate of increase, the amount of warrants that we have outstanding in Vanderburgh County, because those people normally stay here. That is kind of what you have to base it on, in fact, like I said, those statistics and the FBI statistics are felonies only. Regardless of what Mr. Hoy thinks, and I applaud him in his efforts, but, you know, every statutes are changed that increase the things that people (Inaudible). You very rarely see things taken off the books that disallow us from arresting people. Domestic violence, battery, drug cases, you know, the drunk driving increases. You know, that's where we see these increases. Once those laws go in the books, they are hard to get off. I think, historically, we are seeing that go up. Those crime rates and those FBI reports are only as good as what those jurisdictions send in. It doesn't, it only takes care of different kinds of felonies that they are showing. So, certain kinds go down, and they are more interested in violent crimes, the rapes, murders, robberies and that, and they are not talking about the dead beat dad that, you know, the judge might put in for 10 or 15 days, or 20, or whatever, and sentence to a facility. So, you can't be exactly scientific. We are just basically taking historical, what the numbers we've had and going from there.

John Staley: We've got a little caveat to add to that. The state has a guideline, that's not an official guideline, that they recommend. Paul Downing had told us recently, I think in the last few months, the statewide average of inmates is about 2.5 per thousand population. In communities that have a college or university, their recommendation today is four beds per thousand is their rule. That's a recommendation, it's not a requirement, but based on trends that's what they have seen as what we call prudent planning. If you asked Paul Downing to come and speak to you, and you know, it could continue as a part of the design process, obviously, we could design a project as a scope is defined and have this expansion. If Paul were to come and speak as a part of that in the future, I think that he would tell you a little bit more about what the state wide pattern has been, and what their recommendations are for design people or people planning projects.

Councilmember Hoy: The reason that, since I've been mentioned by name, I feel some need to respond, is I, frankly, my cynical side simply says that if you build a 1,500 bed jail, I'm certain we would fill it. This is why I say the whole process is a business. I'm not talking about the business from the standpoint of renting rooms to the state or to the Feds, but I think that's simply a mind set that we deal with. I still stand by my statement that the Safe House and the jail, typically, are places that we keep low income people, and I'm not convinced that they are any more criminal than middle class and upper class people. In fact, I'm convinced that more crimes are committed in air conditioned offices than are conditioned, than are committed in low income neighborhoods. I think part of this whole growth business reflects our attitude toward the poor, which I think is the last bias in America. I've dealt with that for a long time. Second thing I want to address is what Mr. Tornatta said and the Sheriff said, and that is I would remind you that St. Joe County is located on a number of busy highways. It's right across from the state of Michigan, and is next door to a much, much larger population base than we have in this area. If you take the five counties in the MSA here, which I do and the Feds don't, they don't include Gibson, you've got 340,000 people in five counties, and that's all. I see a major difference between the size of the jail in St. Joe, which you just built. I also see a major difference in the cost. They built a whole lot more beds for $35 million, and that was in 2001. I can't believe that inflation is going to make us, make it cost that much more for us.

Commissioner Fanello: Is that $35 million construction cost?

John Staley: The actual-

Councilmember Hoy: This is a sheet of paper provided by United-

Commissioner Mourdock: That is the right question. Was that a hair, guts and feather number? I presume it was.

John Staley: The job was bid though several years ago. It's been open about a year, so when you look at the construction period and the time that the bid was taken, you are talking now about several years that have transpired. So, those numbers have to be looked at in that light. You know, what the bidding climate is in the community also, those things take into account. One of the things about St. Joe County's jail is important to note, is that the city of South Bend has a police department right next door with a lock up, so they are able to house inmates in the lock up for a certain period of time. Our company is currently working on a new plan to expand that jail, the lock up, the police lock up in the police command right adjacent to the jail. So, there is a substantial number of holding cells currently that would be increased in this plan. I think that is the difference here in this community that this jail also serves as a lock up for the city. 

Commissioner Mourdock: The latter part of what you just said certainly responds to the potential numbers that could be in the jail over some period of time. But going back, the $35 million dollars, was that a fully loaded bond number?

John Staley: That's a construction value only.

Commissioner Fanello: Yeah, so-

John Staley: That's a construction cost. There are other costs for design, soft costs, land costs. The city sold the land to the county, and there was an environmental clean up cost. I think the total might have been $41 million, or something like that total, with the land and the clean up. I don't know that that is a precise number, but the Auditor's office or the Commissioners would have that. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, so still then, comparing apples to apples, that soft number, that's not the correct term, that construction cost number compared to the number you are quoting us is still, would appear to me, that they are getting 50% roughly more beds than we got with 672, than the first scenario you gave us 448. I realize there is certainly some inflation in the time of bidding, but that's seems to be a whole lot.

Mike Claytor: The project cost, Mike Claytor with Crowe Chizek again. The $35 million bond size, which the $35 million is the bonds. The project cost is $26 million. Of that, the hard construction costs without the contingency or the furniture fixtures, is $23.9. So, you're comparing a $35 million project cost to a $35 million dollar bond issue doesn't compare.

Commissioner Mourdock: But theirs does have land and ours doesn't.

Mike Claytor: That's correct. The adult facility, the 650 bed that we've shown you, the project cost, and again that's construction, ff and e and contingency, is $35.7 million, the 650. So, that's a $35 million project cost, so that's more similar. Again, without land, but that's a lot more similar number to the South Bend number. You know, $35.7 compared to $35 of project costs.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay.

Mike Claytor: The bond issue is actually $47 million to get you to a $35 million project cost, because, you know, you've got your soft costs, which are $5.9 million, and the capitalized interest is over $6 million, because of the lease financing. So, and I know those numbers are a little, that's a lot of numbers to absorb all at once, but the 35 is close to what we are showing as project costs for the 650 bed jail.

Councilmember Raben: How difficult would it be to provide us with some other scenarios? I mean, if we went, I'll just give you a scenario, 550 adult, 200 community correction and the 24 juvenile. Then you may figure 600 adult, you know, just if we had two or three scenarios in between these scenarios, because honestly, my personal opinion, I don't know, I mean, looking at what appears to be what a lot of the folks here today want are the bigger scenario, the 974 total. I know that, you know, our budget doesn't allow us to provide that much facilities. So, you know, we need some other scenarios to look at.

Councilmember Tornatta: Mr. Raben, if I could kind of shoot in here. I don't want to overstep the boundaries of the County Council. If we have a number, you know, we set a number, I think it's the Commissioners job to set the amount of beds, and they have set that in their meeting, and the majority voted on that. I guess, if we have an idea of a number, we can set that number in there, but I don't think we can negotiate on the bed size. I think we've got to watch what boundaries we cross. I don't think that's a boundary we can cross today. I think we can cross it on a monetary side, but I don't think we can cross it on the bed number size.

Councilmember Raben: I don't know that there is any problem with probably most everybody on this Council asking for that.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I think if you look at the, of what the information we have available to us right now, the different scenarios, you know, I think we can, you know, if you played around with the number of beds and either increase or decrease it can give you somewhat of a general range of what you might be looking at. If we are talking about $35 million, you know, right now that gives us just 448 beds. Now, the question is, this $35 million figure, how much do you want to dice and slice to try and get that? Obviously, if you are talking about $35 million, and you start cutting the number of jail beds so you can accommodate community corrections, obviously, that is not going to work. You know, if you're talking about adding community corrections and the juvenile, you are going to be in excess of the $35 million. Especially, if you're exceeding 448 beds on the jail. So, that's something that maybe we need to just be aware of that the $35 million figure is something that doesn't really give us a whole lot of flexibility given what we see here right now. 

Councilmember Raben: Okay, well, we might, I mean, then we may want to refer back to the Commissioners. I mean, they are not paying any attention, but I might ask Catherine and David is your recommendation the total package?

Commission President Mosby: I'll refer to Judge Heldt.

Council President Bassemier: I want to change the tape.

Councilmember Raben: No, again this-

(Tape Changed)

Council President Bassemier: - we still have to hear the public input, so and I want to hear from the judge. He's been patiently standing there for about ten minutes now, so we kind of better move on. Not to cut anybody off, but we've got to go with what we advertised. Okay. 

Commission President Mosby: To answer Councilman Raben's question, I'm not a professional, so I didn't try to come up with these numbers on my own, but after hearing the judges in our meeting, after sitting through all the juvenile detention meetings that I sat through, and after discussing community corrections and the time, the waiting list and everything that we have over there, that's how these numbers were arrived at. These numbers were more or less recommended to me and I'm taking the recommendation of the professionals. 

Councilmember Raben: Okay, but I guess, again, because it's all - I mean, it really does stand between you and us and the 35 million that was established was based on what we were comfortable with, what we could afford without increasing any tax or creating any new taxes. So, you know, again, I'm asking you, do you prefer the 974 bed package, and I mean, help me out here, do you want to increase that tax to do it?

Commission President Mosby: I'm not going to say we're going to increase the tax to do it. What I'd like to do is, we need to look at what the community needs. I don't want to be back here in five years building another jail. I think the Sheriff one day looked at me and said we could cut a ribbon on the front and walk out back and break ground, or I could do it all in one, if we want to build 400-450 beds. We'll just do a ground breaking and ribbon cutting in one day. I don't want to do that. What I want to do is look at what we need, then let's go after the money they're talking about for bricks and mortar through the feds, let's go after the state money, let's look at housing federal prisoners, state prisoners, let's look at the income that we can bring in to offset the cost of this bond. I mean, it doesn't have to come out of tax money. Don't refer to tax money all the time. Look for additional money. Let's go to the state. You can go with me. We'll go up and talk the representatives and the senators. We've got several of them around here. You know, let's talk to Julie. Let's get whatever money we can through bricks and mortar, let's do what we - but let's don't build something that in five years Mike Claytor is going to be standing back here saying here's the cost of issuing another bond -

Unidentified: No, we won't.

Commission President Mosby: - and Tom is going to be sitting here saying, you know, here's what it's going to take, and we're going to pay all this additional cost over and over. That's what I'm trying to prohibit right here and now. So if it takes building this package, let's see how much money we can get, let's see what we can come up with and then let's look at the bottom line cost of what we might have to do. That's my answer.

Councilmember Raben: I guess my question would be with that is, how long do you think that will take? I mean, if we go to state, try to look for state funds, -

Commission President Mosby: I wish that in your meeting at 3:00, you could walk out and give me an answer and we'd start tomorrow. That would be my hope. You know, that we could move forward tomorrow. Me and you go the Mayor's office, we'll do that meeting with him like we talked about, and then we'll move forward in seeing what kind of other revenues that we could start exploring, what we possibly can get. We have numbers on what we can do with housing prisoners, federal and state, so we can calculate them numbers and we can look at what we can afford. But I'd love to do it 3:30 or 4:00 when you get out. 

Councilmember Sutton: Keep in mind, too, though, I mean, the $35 million dollar figure was not based upon a facility, I mean, there really was nothing that we equated that number to as far as the number of beds, site, that really was not tied to any particular thing related to how this project will be built. So that's something we need to consider here as we're looking at what the numbers are telling us right today. Now that we see what we can possibly get for our dollars, what do we really want? What do we need, based upon what we know now, what we didn't know then. 

Councilmember Winnecke: I was just going to say, I believe the initial $35 million dollar budget was set based on information related to the original PMSI study, so there was a basis for the number beyond just the revenue projections over a decade period of time made by the Auditor's Office. So I do think there was some good basis for the original budget. Can I ask one question?

Council President Bassemier: Yes sir, go ahead.

Councilmember Winnecke: This will be of United and Shireman. How are your fees determined based on each of these scenarios?

Mike Claytor: I'm going to have them answer that, but one thing that I should have pointed out, we are now operating under a state tax board rule that prohibits professionals from charging a percentage fee, so I know that's what we all used to be used to in public contracts, but the tax board will not approve a bond issue until you submit copies of the contracts for all the professionals and you prove that it is not based on a percentage of the deal. So, I don't know if I was assuming your question and assuming wrong, but that is now promulgated into their rules. So that kind of underlies that basis. 

Craig Burgess: My name is Craig Burgess. I'm a vice president and the architectural department manager for United Consulting Engineers and Architects. Given what Mike just said about percentage fees, he's absolutely right. The fees are not in the letter of the contract stated as percentages, but in order to arrive at the hard, fixed fee dollar costs that we proposed, we do go back to construction costs and the overall type and size of the project. It's what we expect the complexity of the job to be in addition to its size, and work from percentages of those figures to arrive at fixed fees. So if we're going to end up talking about some percentages here, and I don't think there's any way around that, but keep in mind that in the contract, they're stated as fixed fees and they are based on percentages of an assumed construction cost that's tied to a specific scope of work. And the distinction that I'm trying to make here is that we designed to this scope of work that we were directed to by the owner, and should those figures, when the project is bid come in higher, if they do come in higher than what we had anticipated, that difference in the original construction cost estimate and the final bid numbers has no effect whatsoever on our fees. We don't get anything extra because of that. Given all of that information, we take a look at, like I said, the size and the complexity of the project. We take a look at the hours that we believe are going to be involved in the various tasks that we have to perform for a given package of service for a given project. We also compare those numbers with national standards that are published by the R S Means Company that Mark referred to earlier. We also used some numbers from another organization out of California called the guidelines group, that looks at architectural and engineering fees for complete professional, high-quality services for different types of projects of different sizes, and based on all of that, we decided that when we first started talking with the Commissioners about this project, that if we were to assume a 30 million dollar construction cost, the appropriate fee for our services would be 8 ½ percent of that, or I should say would be a fixed fee, a fixed sum of money that's based on 8 ½ percent of that 30 million. We believe that that is what's necessary to do a thorough, high-quality professional job. We have in the last week as these four scenarios have been developed, we've had an opportunity to fine tune some of those numbers and the fees have actually come down a bit. And granted, it hasn't been a lot, but I think one of the things that you have to keep in mind is the range of services that are being provided for these particular fee figures. We've assembled a team of very thorough, very professional, very knowledgeable experts in the field that we're bringing into enhance the work that we would do on the project. I honestly believe that in terms of architectural and engineering fees, you do get what you pay for. And I'm not sure what else to add to that besides the fact that we think it's an accurate reflection of the work that's required. Keeping in mind that we are (inaudible) to stay in business and frankly, my own personal opinion is that firms that compete on the basis of fee, don't have any other qualifications on which that they can compete. I honestly don't know how a firm could stay in business doing a project of this size and nature for some of the numbers that I've heard over the last week or so. I firmly believe that what we're proposing is a fair fee, if you take the time to examine what services are provided under our basic package and under our added value package. And I think if you examine the credentials of all the members of the team, I don't think there could be any question on that.

Councilmember Winnecke: How do you compare your fee structure generally to competitors on any given project or in any given - just day to day, I guess. 

Craig Burgess: I'm not sure I could give you a completely satisfactory answer to that and the reason for that is, like I said, we use as a guideline for our fee calculations these figures that are published by the R S Means Company that are based on data that's gathered on recent project history from all over the country. What's happening in a given economic climate in a given geographic location, really sometimes it kind of flies in the face of that information, so it depends on the project, it depends on the location, it depends on the current economic conditions, how those numbers would actually compare to what some of the practitioners in that area are willing to do. All I can do is go back again and say that I firmly believe that what we've proposed is a reasonable fee for the level of services that we'll be providing. We're a very good team, we are very thorough, we're very responsive, I don't think that there would be any question that in the end, everyone involved would be satisfied with our service.

Councilmember Raben: Is it possible, Craig, to at some point, give us your fee for all four scenarios? 

Commissioner Fanello: It's in there.

Craig Burgess: Yeah, that's in the information.

Commission President Mosby: Jim, Councilman, look under detail of soft costs on the four scenarios. 

Craig Burgess: Let me also add that in going back to Mr. Winnecke's question about how our fees compare to other competitors, -

Council President Bassemier: Sir, could you talk a little louder?

Craig Burgess: Sure. Going back to Mr. Winnecke's question about how our fees compare to competitors, one other aspect that makes it a little bit difficult to answer is the fact that most of our projects, on most of our projects, we're selected on the basis of qualifications. It's typically a situation where since we do mostly public work, a public body will issue a request for qualifications, we'll respond to it, if we're lucky we'll be selected in a short list, they'll interview us, they'll talk to previous clients, then they'll make their selection and at that point we enter into negotiations on the fees. So it's rare that we're actually in a competitive bid environment with a competitor. 

Council President Bassemier: Jim, guys, we better hurry. I don't know how many wants to speak out there and we've still got to hear Judge Heldt, so can it be quick?

Councilmember Raben: Okay, can I ask one question of Craig before he gets away? Looking, and I'm sorry, I missed the breakdown on the fees, but looking at this based on $35 million, am I safe to assume that the fee is down from where it was originally?

Craig Burgess: It is. And I will be the first to admit that the reduction isn't large, but it is less than the 8 ½ percent that we had figured on the $30 million dollar.

Councilmember Raben: Now the $500,000, the program plan and implementation, is that the value added services that are addressed in the -

Craig Burgess: The added value services consist of the programming and planning work and also the work that Al and Julie bring to the project actually runs from the beginning of that programming and planning work through the completion of the entire project. 

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you.

Mark Shireman: I would concur with most of the comments that Craig made and I won't say all those same things. Also when you look in the four scenarios, you'll see our fees are listed there. We have a contract that's about 95% boilerplate, standard in the industry. Based on those services, and based on what it's going to take to do the job, this is what we think the fee should be. And based on what we think our involvement will be in the hours that we'll be here. We're looking at a year of design input and two years in the field. So this is basically the way we calculate it. And I think that if you look at that contract, the services that are in that, and compare that to other situations, I think you'll find it's very fair. 

Councilmember Raben: And it appears as if your fee is down, too. Is it?

Mark Shireman: When we first issued a contract, we didn't know what the scenarios might be, we didn't know what the program would be exactly. United and us worked on a program after having read that program which some of you have seen, and after we've seen the scenarios were able to more and better calculate what our costs would be. So that's basically, now that we know what the scope is, this is what we've come up with. 

Councilmember Raben: Mark, just one question, and Craig and I discussed this on the phone yesterday, and I'm not at all familiar with working with CM's, but I know on the typical project where you have a general, the general contractor is responsible for acts of nature. For instance, like if a wall blows down or something, and you know, we've had that happen actually twice in the city in big construction projects where there's actually been people killed from a concrete block blowing over or something like that, a wall. Is that your responsibility as a construction manager, or who assumes that liability?

Mark Shireman: Well, basically, when you have a package program, and I'll, if you wouldn't mind, I'll pass out a little cost benefit thing here - every person working on this job will carry a 100% performance and payment bond and full liability insurance. And all the responsibilities will be laid out in those separate contracts. So whatever happens will be covered. 

Councilmember Raben: Covered by?

Mark Shireman: The performance and payment bonds and all the insurance. 

Councilmember Raben: Okay, and I - just one other question, as CM, will your firm actually take part or bid for any of the services that are being -

Mark Shireman: No, it's against the law for a CM to bid on their own things that they inspect. We'll have full-time people here on the site performing quality control, but we cannot work with our own forces. 

Council President Bassemier: Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Judge? (Inaudible)

Carl Heldt: Carl Heldt, Circuit Court. I just rose to respond to a question Mr. Raben had 20 or 30 minutes ago. If you still want to hear my response, I think I can shed some light on it. I think his question was, what evidence is there that our need for jail beds five years from now would be any greater than it is right now. And my response is that I think you - at least I look to past experience and the past history as far as needs are concerned. And the jail beds are a function, the number of jail beds needed are a function of the number of felonies filed in a county, in my opinion because the more felonies, the more jail beds you need. And when this jail was built in 1969, we don't have figures from then, but in 1975, and these are round numbers, I think there were 450 felonies filed in Vanderburgh County. Last year there were over 2,400 felonies filed, which is an increase, I think, of around 500% with an increase in the number of jail beds of 0%. And if you look at a graph of those years, I think it pretty much is like this. Now it may very well, I can't guarantee you it's not going to level off and go down, but historically over the last 25 years, it's gone up almost every single year, so if you believe the past experience is a predictor of future occurrences, then that's the evidence that I would present to you that we're going to need more jail beds as the years go by. The other thing I heard while I was standing there was the reference to perhaps a new corrections facility, community corrections facility of 200 beds which is less than what we have now. I think that would be big mistake for several reasons. First of all, community corrections is one of the best thing we do here, and I think that community corrections, I know that community corrections takes pressure off the jail as far as beds and needs are concerned. I think that, quite frankly, I would prefer that you do nothing at all as far as community corrections are concerned if you just want to build 200 beds because it's less than what we have now. You may not know this, that community corrections, it started in the jail, it was work release program run out of the county jail. And it was moved out of the county jail to relief pressure on the beds in the county jail. And I am concerned, I believe that if you lessen the number of community corrections beds or you don't provide what's needed in the future, assuming once again an expanded felony caseload, that a not insubstantial number of those people are going to end up back in the county jail. And so it might be wise to build more jail beds in the case. I firmly believe that. 

Councilmember Raben: Judge, on that topic, I guess there's been enough written about our community correction program and the cost or the burden that its put on the county in terms of cost, what are you as a judge doing to...in regards to that with the state in trying to alleviate some of the burden that we've taken with that program?

Carl Heldt: Me, as a judge, what am I doing with the state?

Councilmember Raben: Yeah.

Carl Heldt: I've had no contact with the state with regard to alleviating - you're talking about the funds and such as that?

Councilmember Raben: Sure.

Carl Heldt: The only thing I've done is traveled to Indianapolis to talk to the people at the Department of Corrections with a number of other people in this room. I don't know if any County Councilmen - Mr. Bassemier was there - to try to attempt, I guess, to get some money for bricks and mortar.

Councilmember Raben: Right, and -

Carl Heldt: I think community corrections is a great investment for this community. I think we get our money's worth big-time and always have. I think it's very important to have community corrections so that we can have people that are convicted of crimes that don't necessarily belong in the Department of Corrections or in the Vanderburgh County Jail be in a place where they can support their families and be rehabilitated. Reverend Hoy talks about, I think, about the need to rehabilitate people, especially people that have drug and alcohol problems. Community Corrections complex is the best place we have here to do that. So I think it's a real community asset. I think instead of it being suppressed, it should be expanded. I think it's money well spent. Even if it's tax money, I think it's money well-spent.

Councilmember Raben: There's probably several in here that would differ on that one with you, Judge. 

Carl Heldt: They have a right to do that. It's a free country. 

Council President Bassemier: Is that it? Judge, you got anything you want to add?

Carl Heldt: That's all. Thank you.

Council President Bassemier: Commissioners, is it okay to go ahead and open it up to the public? Is that okay? Catherine, you got anything to say?

Commissioner Fanello: I was just going to make -

Council President Bassemier: Mr. Mourdock, you got anything to add here?

(Tape change)

Council President Bassemier: And for the record, sir, please give your name and whatever you want to say. We're here to listen to you and I've seen your face -

Councilmember Tornatta: Mr. President? Mr. President? Did we set a time limit? We talked about that before.

Council President Bassemier: How many out there wants to speak? We've got to have a little break here before 3:00. Is there two of you? Okay, why don't we allow you both five minutes? I mean, is okay?

Unidentified: I don't need that long.

Council President Bassemier: Right, great. Is that okay with everybody? Thank you very much.

Marty Amsler: My name is Marty Amsler and one of the reasons I came down here was some of the articles written from your last meeting. And I lived in Chicago for 30 years and I'm very much ashamed because it sounded like the goings on of Cook County. And we in Evansville in Vanderburgh County, I think, are much bigger people than those up there. As far as, there is an increase in crime and I think there always will be an increase in crime. And according to whatever the comment was made, I think shame on everybody in this chamber and shame on society because, you know, no matter how much we try, there's still those people out there that are always going to commit crimes and each day we find out there are sicker and sicker people out there, as we found out not only within our area but the world. The other thing you talked about was, Mr. Raben, I'm not going to pick on you, but you know, you're asking these people to come back with different figures, you know, so many beds, so many things, you know, somebody has got to pay for that, sir. I mean, these people, they do so much but you just can't keep going back to the well. So that means that me as a taxpayer within Vanderburgh County is going to have to pay for that, and you can't ask them to do it for free. The other thing is that when they chose a firm, I would imagine that there was a bidding process, and within that bidding process, at least the way it is for all government projects, that there should have been a fee structure and qualifications, which I'm sure that the people within Vanderburgh County and when they selected these people, picked that out. So that should have been public record for everybody. And as a citizen, I'd like to say this, I think this is really important, but I think it's important for you people to do it right the first time. You've got I-69 that's going to be coming into Evansville and we don't know which way it's coming in. But take a look or even remember back when you've taken vacations, look at the different communities that have interstates coming into their towns, and I'm not going to exclude Terre Haute 'cause they didn't do it right, but we've got aggressive people down here that want to see this community grow. And with growth comes additional crime. So as a taxpayer, if I've got to pay a few more dollars as far as my taxes are concerned to get a jail that needs to be properly done the right way, one that can be done that we're not going to be sued later on, that's got the right medical facility within it. I have a friend of mine down in Orange County that's looking into the county jail down there because of a death. They have a citizens committee looking into it . We don't need that. What I'm saying is, please do it right the first time and use common sense on it. You know, black and white doesn't always spell everything out. Use common sense. And every one of you, every one of you have common sense. I thank you very much.

President Bassemier: Before you leave, let's get your name again. 

Marty Amsler: Marty Amsler, A-M-S-L-E-R.

Councilmember Raben: Can I answer one thing for Marty? And thank you for your comments, even though some of them were pointed at me, they're good to hear. But you had mentioned that you assumed that there were both RFQ's and RFP's. There were only RFQ's on this project, so...

Marty Amsler: But it probably was a process where you did qualifications and evaluations?

Commission President Mosby: Yes -

Councilmember Wortman: You used to play football.

Marty Amsler: Yes sir.

Councilmember Wortman: That's right, Chicago Bears. I remember you.

Marty Amsler: Well, thank you, sir. That's awful kind of you.

Councilmember Wortman: You used to run over me.

Marty Amsler: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Anybody else? Thank you very much.

Councilmember Tornatta: I'd just like to say, the sentiments of Mr. Amsler, I think, travel farther than we think. I think people want to see something be done and be done rather quickly as not to cause any more torment to the county financially. But they want to see it done right and they want to see it done so they don't have to pay twice on a project. And I think that's the one thing I'm looking at. If we do this and do it right, and factor in what the county needs and the projections of what the county is looking toward, then maybe we do need to step out there, but just do it once. And that's what I'm looking at. I want to do it just once. My grandma told me this is the last jail she wants to pay for. 

President Bassemier: Thank you sir. Would you state your name please?

Richard Helzerman: My name is Richard Helzerman. I would like to say, before you try to solve a problem you should analyze the problem. And if you don't analyze the problem, you're going to fix something but it's not going to really fix the problem. If you want to talk about how big a jail you need to build, you just heard the Sheriff up here saying he's got 3,000 or 4,000, the number used to be 9,000 or 10,000 outstanding arrest warrants. Unless you build a jail that has 5,000 beds or 4,000 or 3,000 beds, it can be filled in a week or two. And you don't have the money for that. Now if you analyze the problem, each of you should get the jail reports every week. Here's a typical one for December 5^th, the problem with the jail is the non, what we call pre-trial felons. Now it isn't the number of felonies that determine how many people are in the jail, it's the number of poor pre-trial felons. If you or I were arrested for something, and you can look at the numbers, a hundred people come into the jail every week and 100 people go out. Just think about it. If you were arrested, you or your wife or your husband or your family would gather together the money, raise the bail and you would be out. And if you look at the numbers, they flow in and out, it's only the poor people that can't afford the bail. Now, the constitution, and all of you took an oath to defend the constitution and to support it. The constitution says that a reasonable bail will be given to every person unless they are a capital offense, which means they would be put to death if they were found guilty. Now, there's 209 in this case, out of the 337 people, 209 of them are pre-trial felons. Of that 209 pre-trial felons, there's only 8 or 10 that are charged with murder and probably only one or two that are going to be put to death if they're found guilty. The rest of them are only there because they're too poor to afford their bail. And it is very upsetting that you all talk about wanting to do something about a problem when there's a constitution. Now, I've talked to Judge Heldt about this. I guess he's not here anymore. And he acknowledged that the constitution says that you're supposed to get a reasonable bail. But he says the law of Indiana says I can charge them a bail based on their failure to appear, based on their previous criminal conduct and all of those things, and I'm gonna do it. Now, when the county was set up by the constitution, the amount of tax base that you had was based on the property tax, and the wealth was in the property tax, and with the constitution you have enough in your property tax to pay for a jail that's big enough if they got the reasonable bail. If the - the state legislature makes the law that the judge can give people unreasonable bails, and the only reason the bail is there is to keep them in jail, then the funding has to come from somewhere else. Now, as our country developed, the schools ran out of money. They had to get state money to run them. The welfare system, as more people got poor, the counties couldn't afford the welfare system, the state and federal government had to help them. Now we're running out of jail space. You do not have the sources of income to pay for the jail that you need. Now the state will tell you, you need four people per thousand for your jail, that's 700 beds. And none of these proposals that these guys have put before you is big enough for the jail that you need. And you don't have the money to do it and I wish that you could put, you need to go to the state legislature, say look, if you guys are passing all these laws that allow, and aren't willing to abide by the constitution, then you've got to provide the funding for it. And now, the PMS, the last consultants you had in here, they recommended that you have a pre-trial...what is it, a conditional pre-trial release program. Now, if you would put a pre-trial conditional release program, these 209, at least 150 of them could be released under the exact same terms, all you would have to do is hire four probation officers and put them under probation. Say you go out, but you come back and report to me. And they could be having their jobs, they could be supporting their families, they could be preparing their defense. All the judges signed on that they would willing to support whatever the PMS recommended. PMS recommended a pre-trial conditional release program, none of them are doing it. I proposed one, I got one guy out for a week. The judge slammed him back in after a week being out. And so you could save the county all kinds of money. Now you need the new jail, there's no doubt about that, but unless you build one with 700 beds, it's going to be filled within 3 to 6 months and you're going to be back hearing the same thing.

Council President Bassemier: Is there any questions?

Councilmember Tornatta: Yeah, I just want to make a comment. One of the programs Judge Trockman and I sat in yesterday, he's got a program to try and help keep people on the right track and that's the way to do it, I think. We have to use the historical numbers and the professionals, including our Sheriff, to come up with the way the things are moving in the future and the way that things are as in reality. Okay, it's fine to say we need a 5,000 person jail because we have 5,000 warrants, but that's not how the ultimate system works. We need to look at how the system works. That's why we have the professionals here. And I appreciate your point of view, but we do have the Judge Trockmans, we do have the judges that are working to try and make sure that the system flows the best way they can, knowing how the system works. And I think nobody knows better than these professionals that we have, including our Sheriffs and our judges, to know how that does because that's their day in and day out job. And that's where I come from and in asking them questions because they're able to help me to figure out how that system works.

Richard Helzerman: Well, I'm a professional in systems analysis, and I've analyzed the numbers that are given here. And if you take the numbers and you analyze them, you find the problem in the pre-trial felons. If you analyze them a little further, you'll look down at the - have a Superior Court and you have a Circuit Court. More of the cases go to the Circuit Court, four of the seven go to the Circuit Court and three out of seven go to the Superior Court. If you look at the jail, most of the cases are Superior Court cases, now Circuit Court cases, even though they get more of the felonies. And there are significant differences in procedure between the way the Circuit Court operates and the way the Superior Court. And I've calculated that if you could make the Superior Court operate as efficiently as the Circuit Court did, there'd be at least 70 less people in the jail.

Councilmember Tornatta: And are we the only county that works that way?

Richard Helzerman: You are the only county in the world that operates the way the Superior Court does. Yes. You're the only one.

Commissioner Mourdock: I think it is still true, and maybe Julie could reflect on this, cut the rotation system that we have in Vanderburgh County is, I think, the only system in the state that functions that way. It is a unique system, which isn't Superior or Circuit, but we do have some unique nuances.

Richard Helzerman: But there are other significant, there's significant procedural problems with relation to the number and the method of assigning the public defenders. In the Superior Court, every eight weeks, the public defender comes in. So whenever he comes in, if they have to delay for anything, they delay it eights weeks until that guy is back in jail instead of every three weeks like they do in the Circuit Court, because they're back in more regularly. 

Council President Bassemier: We've got to wrap this up, thank you, everybody. So anyway, do I have a motion to adjourn?

Councilmember Sutton: Just real quick, Ed, just wanted to say something. I think this was excellent, the information we received here, but we don't want to be remiss in that with all the information that we have gathered here, you know, the question is what do we do with this information? I think we need to at least maybe take a couple minutes here, maybe try to figure out what we do next before we wrap up.

Council President Bassemier: Can I have a motion to adjourn?

Councilmember Sutton: Hold on -

Council President Bassemier: You want to do it now? You want to do it here? I was going to say at 3:00, so -

Councilmember Sutton: I was just talking about in relation to what we've heard.

Commissioner Mourdock: May I ask a question in that regard because I think Royce is again on point, and this has been very helpful for me today as well, seeing all the numbers, but I think the conclusion of today's meeting, if you will, you know, what is that one point that we conclude with? I think it was stated in about the first five minutes by Mr. Claytor when he put up option one, which was to show us at a $35 million bond project, we could end up 448 beds, and I think that one bit of information puts the question or should put the question in front of the Council, as to what is our fixed, final, absolutely, that's it, top dollar number for the project, because, and that is clearly the Council's call. I think the only variant to that might be is there some way that in addition to the money that the county would do a 35 million, is there some other way that we might try to find bricks and mortar money as the Sheriff suggested or someone else. But it seems to me that with the presentation here, we can all argue exactly as to the square foot price and the per bed price and all of those things and I can certainly get in those arguments, too, but the real bottom line is if we're going to go forward with this project, we need to know exactly what the Council is committed to on dollars because if it's that number, then I would suggest the first thing we need to do to tell United, we meaning the Commission, is to forget about community corrections, forget about the juvenile, and let's see what the real bare bones jail is, because that number, again, doesn't include land. It doesn't include a lot of things, so if we're going to go that direction, the Commission, at this point, needs some guidance from the Council on the dollars. 

Commissioner Fanello: I was just going to add one last final sentence. I couldn't have said it better and he's exactly right, we have to have a commitment from the Council before we can continue to move forward. So I would say that would be your next -

Commissioner Mourdock: Let the record show, that may be the first time Catherine and I -

(Inaudible-laughter from several open mikes obscured last remarks)

Commissioner Mourdock: - in a long time.

Councilmember Tornatta: Commissioner Mourdock, the Commission voted and I just want to ask this while we're all here together, the Commission voted on some language to allocate some funds to, I believe it's United, is that correct? Were your problems satisfied with that? Obviously, -

Commissioner Mourdock: My comments, as you heard them the other night, just for the rest of the Council's benefit here, I think you'll be presented today with a document that Catherine presented on Monday night that was in summary a request for payment for services already provided by United. There was the question that came up during our discussion, did that one request for payment in effect validate or put new life into the original contract as the Commission had acted upon and that this Council had ruled null and void? My comment that I requested of David and Catherine Monday was that we take out language that basically gave new life to that contract and they agreed that we strike that language. That was the motion that was made, that sentence was struck. 

Councilmember Tornatta: And so you're...okay. I was just making sure that you voted affirmative and -

Commissioner Mourdock: I did vote affirmative with that language removed. I have not seen the document since. I presume it was struck.

Councilmember Sutton: I don't want to rush us along, but we do need rush along, what are we going to go as a Council?

Councilmember Raben: And to your - Troy, no wait. Royce has still got a concern that he wants to address.

Council President Bassemier: I talked to our counsel, he thinks we can continue this in the next meeting.

Councilmember Sutton: This isn't a contract issue.

Councilmember Winnecke: What we're going to do next.

Councilmember Sutton: Yeah, that's what we're trying to figure out.

Jeff Ahlers: We need to convene the next meeting at three, so you're not going to have a break. That's up to you all, but I mean, I think you have to convene on time or shortly thereafter.

(Inaudible - several speaking at once)

Councilmember Sutton: We could put it up as new business at our next meeting.

Commissioner Mourdock: Well, I will motion for the County Commission to adjourn.

Commissioner Fanello: Second.

Commission President Mosby: So ordered. 

Councilmember Sutton: Can we ask that the professionals staff, if they would stay for our Council meeting, could we ask that they do that, because there might be some questions that we may have during that time?

Council President Bassemier: (Inaudible - microphone not turned on)

Councilmember Raben: Well, the special meetings pertains to -

Councilmember Sutton: Right, right.

Council President Bassemier: I think I just advised, we already had the question and answer time, I think we'd better move on. Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Councilmember Winnecke: So moved.

Councilmember Wortman: Second.

President Bassemier: Okay, everybody in favor say aye real quick.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

President Bassemier: We'll come back in about ten minutes. 

(Meeting adjourned at 3:07 p.m.)
 

__________________________
David W. Mosby, President

______________________________
Catherine Fanello, Vice President

______________________________
Richard E. Mourdock, Member
 

_____________________________             ____________________________
President Ed Bassemier                               Vice President Lloyd Winnecke

____________________________             ____________________________
Councilmember James Raben                     Councilmember Phil Hoy

_____________________________           _____________________________
Councilmember Curt Wortman                    Councilmember Royce Sutton

_____________________________
Councilmember Troy Tornatta
 

Recorded by Teri Lukeman. Transcribed by Madelyn Grayson, B.J. Farrell & T. Lukeman.