President Jerrel: I would like to call the Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners' meeting to order. I don't see any strange faces in the room, so I am going to dispense with the introductions. I would like to ask all of you though to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.
 

Approval of minutes

President Jerrel: At this time I am going to ask for the approval of the minutes of the September 11^th meeting.

Commissioner Mourdock: And I'll move approval of those minutes as filed.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. These items we are going through will not take but a few moments.
 

Purchasing - Permission to advertise bids APA008-2001--Batteries and APA025-2001--Commercial fuel

President Jerrel: Is there permission or a motion to grant permission to let bids for two items?

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the advertising of bids for the year 2001 APA008-2001 for batteries and also APA025-2001 for commercial fuel with those to be advertised September 27^th and October 4^th respectively with the opening to be October 23^rd. 

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

First reading and public hearing Vacation of right-of-way easement by Tall Timbers Drive

President Jerrel: This also we have a first reading. Would you like to give a motion for that?

Commissioner Mourdock: I would move approval on first reading for the petition for the vacation of a certain right-of-way easement and that on behalf of petitioners who reside at 1230 Tall Timbers Drive, Evansville and the petitioner being Pamela W. and Richard M. Stivers. 

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. The next item.

Commissioner Tuley: That's a first reading? 

Joe Harrison, Jr.: And it's a public hearing if there is anybody here on it. 

President Jerrel: I don't think we have anyone that is interested in vacating an easement in the audience.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: So the second reading will be next month?

President Jerrel: Next week.
 

Health Department Memorandum of understanding with Managed Health Services

President Jerrel: The Health Department, approval of the memorandum of understanding with Managed Health Services.

Commissioner Mourdock: We have in our packets basically a memorandum of understanding or MOU as they are known. This would be between the Vanderburgh County Health Department and Coordinated Care Corporation of Indiana, Inc doing business as Managed Health Services and in particular this is to allow the Managed Health Care Services to provide lead screening for certified and identified Medicaid recipients and also to process blood samples for lead sampling. I would move approval of the acceptance of the memorandum of understanding.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

Interlocal agreement with Water & Sewer Utility Board - GIS

President Jerrel: The next item on the agenda is an interlocal agreement with the city or with the Waterworks Department concerning GIS. Have you had a chance to look at this?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Yes, and you'll need a roll call vote on that also.

President Jerrel: Okay, alright.

Commissioner Mourdock: As Joe mentioned, he saw this before. This was before us last week and there were some revisions which Joe had made, so I would move approval of the agreement of the Water...or between the Water & Sewer Utility Board and the Board of Commissioners of Vanderburgh County concerning GIS.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: And I'll call for a roll call vote. Commissioner Tuley?

Commissioner Tuley: Yes.

President Jerrel: Commissioner Mourdock?

Commissioner Mourdock: Yes.

President Jerrel: And I vote yes.
 

Any group or individual wishing to address the Commission

President Jerrel: The last item is any group or individual wishing to address the board. I think we'll just hold that and see if anybody comes forward after we have our presentation. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Is there anyone here wishing to address the board on any issue beyond the one of the courts and the discussion of the evening? I don't think so. 
 

Project Management Services, Inc. Processes that affect management of the jail population

President Jerrel: Okay, at this time I would like to present Project Management's group and I don't know who is going to be the spokesman.

Bill Shepler: I'm going to start.

President Jerrel: Okay, thank you.

Bill Shepler: Good afternoon, instead of evening. That's kind of nice.

President Jerrel: Yeah.

Bill Shepler: In case some of you weren't here last week I do want to introduce our team again. Al Bennett is here this evening with us. Cyd McNeilly sitting at the back and Julie Von Arx is with us and myself, Bill Shepler, just in case somebody missed that. I think it would be appropriate to see if the Commissioners had any questions that had come up through the week that we need to address on the juvenile issue presented last week before we move on to the next issue. 

President Jerrel: There is still a little bit of confusion about one thing and I don't know that talking about it would change any of that, but that is one more thing we need to get clear in everyone's mind. Detention may be something the judge assigns as a sentence for someone, but more than likely the ones that we're concerned about is the more temporary urgent need for girls and boys, particularly if they are under the influence of alcohol and drugs and that has kind of gotten confusing to some people. They, you know, my understanding is we don't need a lot of beds for just...those are six hours, is that right, Al?

Commissioner Tuley: Right.

Al Bennett: That is a common thing to be confused because everybody knows about long-term treatment such as the boy's school and girl's school and other out of county and out of state long-term treatment. What you're lacking here is the short-term and that's the reason it doesn't take very many beds for strictly this community and for it to be a service to the community as well as law enforcement, and the judge can determine how long they are to be there and he can keep them there for a short period of time, but he has to take them back to court by regulation every so often. Certainly after they are arrested they have be in court within 72 hours, so it is a short-term program that we're talking about.

President Jerrel: Well, that's what I have been telling people. That is one little item so when you do your final report, if you could tweak that a little bit so it's clear.

Al Bennett: We will.

President Jerrel: Okay, thank you.

Bill Shepler: Anything else? Well, in that case we're going to talk about court processes this afternoon that affect the jail population. Julie Von Arx is going to come and give that report this evening. And I wanted to give a little bit of background about Julie. Julie was the past director of Marion County Community Corrections for 11 years. She has served on the jail overcrowding strategies for 13 years and that is an appointment by the mayor. She is the past president of Statewide Community Corrections Association and was involved in drafting the model legislation regarding community corrections. She actually was one of the people who brought into the state in 1985, the first of the electronic monitoring programs here in the state and currently she serves under contract with Marion County to monitor two of the three jails that are in Marion County. That's beside her consulting services, and she has served in a consulting capacity for not only Marion County, Cass County and Johnson County, to name a few, but she is also the Indiana Association of Counties' appointee or representative to the National Association of Counties for criminal justice matters. She also serves on the American Correction Association to do auditing of jails, and she has done that in Texas, Massachusetts, Chicago for Cook County and in Colorado. She also provides some expertise in legislative matters as a result to or relate to community corrections. So she comes with a lot of experience in the matters she is talking about this evening and I'm going to turn it over to Julie and Cyd. She is running the light show. 

Julie Von Arx: Thank you. I think it is imperative that before we begin we...that sounds very loud. Does it sound as loud to you as it does to me? That we acknowledge the efforts of this committee. It's sort of a misnomer, I think, just to refer to this as a court committee because many, many people outside of just the judges and other people that are related to the court system were a part of this committee and I think it is important that we acknowledge their efforts today. The Chief of the Superior Courts, Scott Bowers; Circuit Court Judge, Judge Carl Heldt; Doug Knight, Superior Court Judge; Stan Levco, Prosecutor; Jonathan Parkhurst, who is with the Prosecutor's Office; David Shaw, is a Public Defender; Brad Ellsworth, of course, who is the Sheriff; Eric Williams, Deputy Chief of the Sheriff's Department; John Althoff, a Lieutenant in the Evansville Police Department; Bill Cottun with SCT; Tim VanCleave with SCT; Richard Mourdock, County Commissioner; and James Raben with the County Council. I would also like to acknowledge the other Superior Court judges who did not participate weekly in the committee meetings, but they did meet several times with PMSI and were always, always open to suggestions. That's Judge Maurice O'Connor; Judge Robert Pigman; Judge Robert Tornatta; and Judge Wayne Trockman. I was sort of elated with I saw all of the judges coming through the door tonight because I think that is one of the things that probably makes Vanderburgh County more unique than any jurisdiction I have been in, including my own, in working with jail overcrowding efforts. To have a team of individuals that are willing to come together even prior to a formal capacity or capping placed on the jail speaks volumes for Vanderburgh County. I think it is important just to give you a few observations that I've had in working with these people. I also found them to be very open and willing to share information about their performance. I also saw them very willing to implement changes and I do hope and do believe that they will take the recommendations that are made here today very seriously. With that, I think we'll get started. When the committee first began, we realized that the two issues that most impact the jail population are how many people enter the system and how long they stay. Realizing that the courts do not control a lot of the reasons why an individual enters, it's important to consider all of the things that affect how an individual can enter the system. Arrest patterns, demographic factors and criminal justice system policy decisions all have to be considered when weighing in on jail population and jail overcrowding. No one entity causes a jail to be overcrowded and no one entity can be looked to to solve the problem. Simply increasing jail beds and simply speeding court processes is not going to solve this problem. The best thing that I can suggest to you is that we create an environment for a shared responsibility among all of the stakeholders in the criminal justice system. Over the last few years several things have complicated the processing of cases within the court system. Prosecutorial discretion in filing cases, the complexity of DNA evidence and the backup of DNA labs at the state level, lab backups in regard to evidentiary matters with drug cases, increases in mental illness cases and the need for assessments including, and probably one of the most important things, is the increase in arrests that has come from adding additional police officers through federal funds. I have already mentioned this fact, but I think there is one thing that I have taken from every jurisdiction, and I believe it is the case with Vanderburgh County, and that is there is no magic bullet. There is no one solution, but there are a couple of universal truths and that is that the stakeholders can never believe that the problem has been conquered. Having been in another jurisdiction and having been a practitioner there I have worn a pager for ten years and actually received the daily population of the jail from the county that I live in. There are about six or seven us within that jurisdiction that receive that page. Once my particular jurisdiction reaches a level where the jail has been capped, we get phone calls from the sheriff and realize that we need to get all of the stakeholders back together again. I do believe that the stakeholders need to have a permanent committee that is institutionalized and will probably...and probably never should be disbanded. I do commend the Commissioners and the Council for looking at processes that impact and affect the jail prior to entering into any construction process. I think it is very, very important that we insure that the system is as efficient as it can be prior to entering into adding additional bed space because I do believe the more efficient the system, the possibility is that you will need to construct less beds. Historically speaking Vanderburgh County, I think, has had some success in managing the jail overcrowding problem. In 1998 the Blue Ribbon Committee was implemented or started and all of the representatives from the criminal justice system took part in that. Not unlike any other jurisdiction there were immediate changes that were implemented and impacted the jail situation and once that committee quit meeting, the jail population did seem to be affected. I don't say that in terms of being critical of anyone in Vanderburgh County, that is just a phenomenon that happens in every jurisdiction I have ever been in that looks at jail overcrowding and has a committee such as that trying to address the problem. The jail, at this present time, has an informal agreement with the Indiana Civil Liberties Union that has capped the jail at 329 beds and the jail's capacity is 268. In looking at the average daily population for Vanderburgh County there are two significant facts that I felt were important and that is that the average daily population figure has increased almost every year since 1994 and when a collaborative effort is focused on the jail the population numbers decrease. I just mentioned that, but in 1998 the population decreased, the average population number decreased by about 20 inmates. It still was not, however, within the capacity number of the jail. The average daily number at that point was 272. When looking at court processes, it is very important that we consider felony filings and in terms of looking at the volume of cases that the courts are expected to deal with and in looking at felony filings if you remember what I said about the two significant facts that impact the jail population, that the second thing that is important to look at is how many cases the courts are disposing of. That seems to be a relatively easy thing to consider and pretty black and white, but I think a lot of jurisdictions miss the boat when they don't consider that when felony cases outnumber felony dispositions then the pending caseload just continues on from year to year. In order to manage that caseload there has to be, in my opinion, a person in place to advise the courts of their performance and let them know how they are performing in terms of those particular...those three numbers. There are three elements. Excuse me, that's felony filings, felony dispositions and pending cases. Within the final report, we will have statewide information that shows in total that the state from 1990 to the year, I believe, it only goes through 1998. Filings increased about 25 percent statewide. Could you (inaudible) this one. The increasing trend in Vanderburgh County-

President Jerrel: Jane, let's turn the lights down or dim the lights so they can see better. 

Julie Von Arx: The trend for Vanderburgh County follows the trend statewide, however, unfortunately I think what we see here is increase in filings from 1992 to 2000. There is an increase of almost 100 percent. I will get to the felony disposition information in just a moment. But, again, as we consider how jail populations are impacted when you consider the numbers and volumes of people entering the system and that is a number that the courts do not control and have no say so over. They have to take what is given them and they have had to deal with almost a 100 percent increase in an eight year period. I think that is significant. Reliable data, however, was not available for us to compare dispositions during this same time period and I see that as a definite problem, but it already has been corrected by you, the Commissioners, the Council and the courts, by having better software available to them that can provide the sort of information that we were not able to get from 1992 through 1998. I believe that new system was implemented in `99, is that correct? Excuse me. However, we were able to obtain some statewide information about some filings, dispositions and pending cases from Allen, Elkhart, Hamilton, Tippecanoe and LaPorte counties. There was one interesting phenomenon that I felt was very noteworthy, but I didn't necessarily want to draw a conclusion about, and that is that Allen County's population is estimated at approximately 315,000. Vanderburgh County's again, estimated, is about 168,000. Vanderburgh County in `97 and in `98 filed more felony filings than Allen County or in Elkhart County. Elkhart County's population being about 172,000. Again, if we go back to the two issues that impact jail population, those entering the system, it has to be considered and very significant that filings in Vanderburgh County have increased at the rate that they have increased. The disposition information that we were able to track for 1999 and the first five months of 2000, again, I think that this demonstrates the work ethic that the court system has shown, if you consider that in the first five months of 2000 Circuit Court and Superior Court have disposed of almost the same amount of cases that they did in the entire year of 1999. We were able to obtain that information because of the software system that was purchased in order to provide that source of information to the court. It's problematic to me that the courts were not able to track that information prior to the implementation of Courtview 2000, but the fact that it is here now, I think, is very significant for them as judges as they try to consider implementing policy and for you in determining how well they're doing and whether other judges need to...whether we need to fund judges in the future. I think Courtview 2000 will be able to provide that type of information to you now. Some of the other issues that the Circuit Court and Superior Court have looked at and responded to in terms of the jail overcrowding issue, I felt it was important to note specifically and that is they have set trial dates at 70 days from initial hearing and according to statistical information that Judge Bower provided, they are adhering to these set trial dates and not granting continuances. Both courts have implemented holding dates five weeks prior to a trial to act as an expedited court and they call this the holding date. The holding date is used to ascertain the status of the case and at this time a guilty plea can be accepted by a defendant, and the pre-sentence investigation can be waived that is done at this time. I think those are some of the reasons why the disposition rate has increased for this year. Some of the other things that the judges have implemented are increasing the number of trial settings to 100 to 125 per month. In a ten year period this is an increase of 50 to 75 cases per month. They review the jail population weekly. They presently assign trial attorneys to indigent defendants at their first court appearance. They have also expedited hearings for petitions to revoke on probation violations. There has also been a formation of a felony process committee where I don't know if the Circuit Court is involved in that. Okay, the Circuit Court also is a participant in the felony process committee and this committee meets monthly. The prosecutor's office and the judges and the sheriff's department and probation meet to discuss whether there have been any problems particularly with felony filings and with the felony cases. Again, I think we need to acknowledge the fact that that initiative was started by the courts. I do believe that was done as a response to jail overcrowding. This is very hard to read and I apologize for that. We have some additional copies, but this research and data was conducted by the National Center for State Courts and the American Prosecutors Research Institute. This was an effort to examine the efficiency, timeliness and quality of criminal trial courts. If I may, I am going to read directly from the study, and I apologize for that, but I think this is important. 

"This study found that the timeliness and the quality of justice are not mutually exclusive either in theory or fact. Expeditious criminal case resolution is found to be associated with court systems in which the conditions also promote effective advocacy. The evidence for this study suggests that well performing courts should be expected to excel in terms of both timeliness and quality."

The data that we have displayed here speaks to the structure of the courts and their case assignment and their calendar systems. The faster courts there really is no common denominator with the faster courts as opposed to the slower courts in terms of how they are structured. So the study resolved that courts...it really doesn't matter how courts are organized, it matters more how they perform so it is very important to Vanderburgh County that Courtview 2000 provides the type of information to let the judges know if they are performing. We very definitely believe that the court's performance is probably much more important than how they are organized as this relates to court rotation though this does not specifically exist in this study or any other court system in the state of Indiana. Again, we feel that the important matter is whether they are performing or not. General recommendations for those processes that impact the jail, several of them have already been implemented and we've already talked to the courts about that in an ongoing basis as we were meeting. But we recommended back in April that there was an immediate change to the weekly jail reports that the sheriff's department provides. The Chief Deputy, Eric Williams, was already, I think, very sophisticated in terms of realizing the necessity for communication and letting the other players in the system know who was in the jail, but we refined it and modified it a little bit and as a result the other players, I think, in the criminal justice system were able to respond to what inmates were in the jail and what type of response would move them through more quickly. We also believe that this report needs to be distributed weekly and I do not set a time limit. I would suggest that this report may possibly still be around five to ten years from now. I don't see that going away. PMSI also recommends that the former two bail commissioner positions should be reclassified as two pre-sentence investigation writers realizing that this has already occurred, I can't tell you the significance that I think that this small adjustment can make. Once we identified within the jail that there were a large category of inmates who had already made it through the entire process and were just waiting to be sentenced, it is very important that the pre-sentence investigation be written quickly. So I think that the fact that those two bail commissioner positions will be reclassified and be given to Judge Heldt is very important. PMSI recommends a detailed business process re-engineering analysis of the work flow from arrest through sentencing and release and an accurate assessment of available technology solutions. There was so much duplication of time and effort expended from the Evansville Police Department, the booking in of an individual, recording all of the demographic information that a defendant must submit to and then the sheriff's department reenters all of that same information. Part of the problems that can arise and some of the scenarios that we were told about is Jimmy Jones can be entered by the Evansville Police Department and the Sheriff's Department can enter the same person as James Jones creating all sorts of problems. We also believe...I'm sorry, I'm losing my place. SCT did provide a budget recommendation during this year's budget cycle regarding linking all of the technology that is available throughout the system and I do believe that this can be said with some confidence that should that technology exist and be linked that I do definitely believe that can affect jail bed days. Again, those are suggestions that are being made that I do believe can impact the population and we're not talking about adding capacity. We're talking about making the system more efficient and using the technology that is already available. Linkages are much less expensive than suggesting that everybody needs to use the same system. PMSI recommends merging the operation of the booking process with the confining of prisoners. We realize that this is not an easy recommendation to make since we're talking about two different levels of government that are responsible for this function, however, we definitely believe the speed with which inmates enter and leave the jail would be impacted if one agency was responsible for booking and confining. There are only nine jurisdictions within the state where this function is split between city and county. Vanderburgh County is probably the largest jurisdiction where the phenomenon is still occurring. I walked through the booking process myself and was waiting to be photographed and realized that we may not be providing the most safe and secure environment for the employees who are charged with the duty of booking in inmates. I believe that needs to be looked at immediately for the safety of the employees of the Evansville Police Department. PMSI recommends that the courts need to have personnel allocated to take the information that Courtview 2000 provides, monitor the activities of the courts and help them handle technology needs as related to Courtview 2000 such as training issues, maintenance, use oversight and software integration with other agencies. I can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is for the courts to have the information available to them and if Courtview 2000...the expense was already realized by the Commissioners and by the Council when you funded Courtview 2000, and I think it is very important that we use it to our biggest advantage and get the biggest bang for our buck, so to speak, and let it provide the accountability that it can provide. The Chief Judge for the Superior Court currently acts as the case manager of that information and with his tight court calendar I believe it is...I can't overemphasize enough the importance of utilizing the court administrator to manage that information. PMSI recommends that the courts adopt disposition time goals as a management tool to inspire court performance and reduce delays. In the court study, if you could put that back up, that National Courts conducted, one common thread was available with all of those courts and that is they had all adopted some sort of performance measure and time goals for disposition of cases. The most important thing about coming up with time goals is making sure that those time goals are communicated to the prosecutor's office and to the defense bar because the courts are not only setting goals for themselves, they are setting goals--they would be setting goals for the prosecutor and for the defense bar. PMSI recommends that the county continue the collaborative efforts of the jail management committee to insure that committee's function regarding intermediate sanctions, court processes, juvenile issues and additional capacity. Again, I cannot overemphasize the importance of keeping the stakeholders together. We've seen that it makes a difference, and I think that we have to create an environment where people feel comfortable coming together and discussing solutions. PMSI recommends that the courts strategically plan to implement pre-trial conditional release programs. Other jurisdictions have found that these programs enhance pre-trial community supervision efforts and impact jail overcrowding efforts. These programs range from drug monitored release to electronic monitoring and simply monitored release. The courts would need to continue planning who would run these, how they would be operated and rules for operation. It is suggested that a pre-trial services fee be assessed to fund the program. In the event that litigation formally caps the Vanderburgh County Jail, I believe the next two recommendations will become very important. PMSI recommends that the system devise an emergency placement protocol that responds to the capacity by identifying inmates that can be moved out of the jail and a time frame to accomplish the moves. It's important that the criminal justice stakeholders continue to meet, if for no other reason than this recommendation. I think it is very important that prior to sending any inmate out of county, we insure that all of those inmates that are in the jail presently shouldn't be somewhere else. We don't want taxpayers to pay for inmates in another county if we have inmates sitting there ready to go to DOC, or if we have holds for other jurisdictions or even if we have inmates that have been sentenced as a felony, and all we would have to do is have the court change the abstract to say DOC. I think it's just very important that we identify those categories of offenders that can be served elsewhere. It is also important to, I think, to have a classification system for inmates that are possibly work release ready, misdemeanants that may be serving less than 30 days, civil contempt inmates and by talking about having a classification system, I think the stakeholders and the Commissioners and the Council have to decide if there are certain inmates that can and should be served in a community supervision program rather than a maximum secure bed and whether Vanderburgh County has reached the point that we have to determine who belongs in those maximum secure beds because we have to manage our resources. I will say that those counties that have implemented an emergency placement protocol have not spent one dime on out of county placements and public safety has been maintained. PMSI recommends that an initial hearing process be utilized during weekends and holidays when and if a court imposed capacity is placed on the jail. I realize that the courts are working very hard right now and the thought of working on a weekend or working on a Monday holiday or whenever is not something that everyone wants to consider, although they are currently running a paper court and come in on Saturdays and consider inmates in setting their bail, but I do believe that if and when the jail is capped a new day is here and everyone is going to have to work a little bit harder and when I talk about the courts having an initial hearing process that also means the prosecutor's office and the defense bar are going to have to deal with that situation. In closing, again, all I can emphasize to you is the importance of keeping this committee together. I feel that they are very much committed to continuing to look at themselves and they are very open to suggestions for improvement and I commend you for looking at this before you enter into a construction process. I have been brought in before in other jurisdictions after the decision has been made to build beds and the population has been capped and the county is being penalized and, for instance, in Cass County they were spending about $70,000 a month on out of county placements and a new jail was being built. We were able to get that out of county cost cut back to nothing, but it took all of the system stakeholders working together in order to have that occur. The jail did open and that's how they were able to, I think, keep their heads above the water until the new jail opened. Again, I cannot...I want to make sure that you understand that the courts have worked very, very hard and I think that they will continue to do so. I don't know if you have any questions.

Commissioner Mourdock: Before we do anything, we need to change the tape.

Tape change

President Jerrel: Well, first of all, thank you very much. It was very interesting and I would hope that we have some open dialogue from the audience, particularly those people that are part of the system and may have a question or some issue that they are not comfortable with that they'd like to discuss because I think that's what this forum is all about. Is if there is something that has been recommended that at this point doesn't have comfort level, we need to look at it and talk about it.

Commissioner Mourdock: If I may make a suggestion with the several recommendations that were made, since I suspect there are people here who want to speak to more than one of these issues, what we might do is just kind of hit each one and ask anyone who would like to speak, if you would like, on that issue and then go to another one. Work through the list.

President Jerrel: That would be fine. Go ahead.

Commissioner Mourdock: The first recommendation that PMSI made, of course, was regarding the daily and weekly jail reports which Chief Deputy Williams has been making. I guess, first of all, since much of that has already been implemented as Julie pointed out, are there any comments or questions about that?

President Jerrel: Well, first of all, just a question just to clarify, are all the stakeholders receiving those reports? All the judges, prosecutor, everybody gets them? Okay.

Commissioner Mourdock: So, I am not seeing anyone rush to the microphone, we'll assume that everyone is happy with those. Okay, the second recommendation that Julie or that PMSI made recommends that the revised report continue to be distributed to all criminal justice players, Commissioners and Councilmembers on a weekly basis. And again, I am going to assume that everyone is okay with that one. Third recommendation, PMSI recommends that the former two bail commissioner positions should be reclassified to two pre-sentence investigation writers. And I am sure there will be some comments there either from Councilmembers or whoever.

President Jerrel: That's already been done.

Commissioner Mourdock: I know, but the recommendation - come on up, judge, please. 

Judge Carl Heldt: Carl Heldt, Circuit Court Judge. Those two positions were funded for next year by the County Council at the last meeting. I would say in all fairness, though, that when they did that they also took away $20,000 from my budget to hire part-time people to do that same work. So we gained two full-time employees and we lost $20,000 worth of part-time employees. 

President Jerrel: Judge, before you leave can I...this is just for information, but - and it might help Council to understand better, too, who oversees the day to day completion of the forms, I mean, oversees the employees to see that the system is moving.

Judge Carl Heldt: Well, the ultimate responsibility is mine as Circuit Court Judge of the Circuit Court probation department. The probation, the Chief Probation Officer is Allan Henson and the person under him that supervises the pre-sentence reports is Karla Claybrook who is a probation officer.

President Jerrel: So she is the one that actually -

Judge Carl Heldt: She is the supervisor.

President Jerrel: Have you all set some goals for moving the numbers along in that particular category? Judge Bowers indicated something about using the short form. You're nodding your head, so...

Judge Carl Heldt: First of all, a couple of years ago we started scheduling sentencing for in-custody inmates on a twenty day cycle and to trade off, we scheduled sentencing for out-of-custody defendants on a forty day cycle in the hope that we could process the people in custody more quickly obviously and get them out. I think that Superior Court is going to that as well or has gone to as well, and we're hopeful that with the two new full-time investigators we can perhaps even shorten that twenty days down to a lower number. There is a certain limit you reach as to how quickly you can move pre-sentence investigations reports simply because there are people that need to be contacted such as victims, their records need to be checked, there may be mental and physical reports from physicians or psychiatrists or psychologists, so you can't give us a hundred pre-sentence investigators and turn them out in one day. I mean, there is just a certain limit as to how quickly you can move them. But this will certainly help. Also, as you mentioned, Judge Bowers and Karla discussed, and I think they're implementing now, doing short form investigations where they are only required to be short form. I think we can move more quickly that way as well. I think the system is moving more quickly. I know it certainly is in Circuit Court because we're getting them back more quickly.

President Jerrel: Thank you.

Commissioner Mourdock: And just to clarify, this may not be you, Judge, but you're welcome to answer if you know, what we originally had as a result of the Blue Ribbon Committee, the two bail commissioners, I understand, were reclassified. How are we doing what they were initially or supposed to be doing? The bail commissioners?

Judge Carl Heldt: We didn't think, and one of the reasons why, it was Judge Bowers' idea and I thought it was a great one, to reclassify these two. We don't think that the bail bond commissioner idea worked very well as far as reducing the jail population. The idea was for those people to be able to have the authority from the court, which they did, but then to release more people on cash bond than they were. It didn't work out for a number of reasons and so that's why the idea was broached. Let's take that money and put it someplace where it might work. It was an idea that simply didn't pan out, and that function is being taken over by the sheriff's office. It was just a matter of bonding them out if they've got the bond money and there's not that much difference.

Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah, I know the numbers that we saw from the results of those two folks, clearly what you said is the case. They weren't making any difference at all so they're being better used -

Judge Carl Heldt: It wasn't helpful. It was money spent in the wrong place, but it was a good idea at the time.

Commissioner Mourdock: Worth a try.

Commissioner Tuley: Can we follow that up with a little bit - not the bail bond, but the other, the pre-sentence investigators, Superior Court, I assume, has a similar function or...

Judge Carl Heldt: Okay, the Circuit Court probation department serves both the Circuit and Superior Courts. Our probation officers are their probation officers. They're under Circuit Court jurisdiction but serve both courts.

President Jerrel: And is, I am assuming too, we're making a lot of assumptions, but that's why it's important that all of you are here, you're getting adequate information, both courts get adequate information regularly, if there is some holdup or other on these abstracts.

Judge Carl Heldt: On the abstracts?

President Jerrel: Not on the abstracts, on the pre-sentencing prior to the abstracts being given.

Judge Carl Heldt: Yeah, I mean, if for some reason the pre-sentence can't be ready by the sentencing date, I hear from the probation officer and he or she tells me why and we go from there, but it's been pretty -

President Jerrel: Is there, maybe Mr. Henson could come up and answer a couple of questions regarding that because I think it's important that everybody knows who is in this system and is doing -

Judge Carl Heldt: Sure.

President Jerrel: How do you feel, Allan, about the system moving along better on the short form and --

Allan Henson: I think the short form has definitely improved the rapidity of which we can get out the information. I wouldn't speak to the quality of what we're putting out at this point. You just don't get as much information in a short form as you do a long form. As long as the judges feel they have enough information to sentence the person correctly or accept a plea bargain, I think that helps. The two people that have been converted to interviewers are going to help, and we have two permanent part-time 39 hour people but that still leaves us - if you divide those up, we're still basically at four part-time individuals and we normally ran six part-time individuals, six twenty-hour a week people. And with what we're allowed and what we have now, we have two full-time and two 39 hour which basically equates just four part-time. So we're still short.

President Jerrel: Well, you've got 30 more hours a week to work with.

Allan Henson: Yes, and we have $20,000 less, as the Judge pointed out, to bring other people in. We're doing real well right now, I believe. When the Christmas shoplifting season, as I call it, comes up we'll get a lot busier and we'll stay that way through mid-summer. There is a slack period when the weather turns and people don't want to be out in the winter time and in the summer time, too. So right now we're doing well. When the Christmas rush comes, it's going to be a lot harder to produce like we're producing now. 

President Jerrel: I was happy to hear there's some sort of goal setting with the people that are doing this work so that -

Allan Henson: Trying to put out so many in so many days. We're reaching for the goal, trying to get them out in 14 days, two weeks, on those in custody. But as the Judge pointed out, what we're really concerned - and by statute, we have to do certain things. The victim has to be contacted and that's not a phone call away. That's four or five phone calls over a period of two or three days. And if we can't reach them then we're required to send a letter and that letter has to returned, so it's not something we can just say we did, and oh well, we tried. We have to contact them first. As you probably know getting a medical report, psychiatric record, from a doctor is not a matter of me walking down there with a sign releasing it and have them turn over it. It's going to take time to process, to find it, so we're doing, I think, the best we can with what we have at this point in time.

President Jerrel: So we're counting on doing at least one a day, each person do one a day. Is that what you were saying? 

Allan Henson: We're looking at, we figure it takes about eight hours to do a -
 

President Jerrel: - short form?

Allan Henson: Well, to do a pre-sentence depending on the information required. Contacting the victim can stretch it out but it's not simply a matter of taking X number of pages of written material, interviewing Joe at the jail and sitting down eight hours to put the information down. Because, there again, if you can't get hold of the victim, you may be one, two, three, ten days down the line. If he's got a psychiatric evaluation, it's important for the judge to know the sentencing time, it's days down the line. We do a record check locally that shows he has an FBI record, NCIC. That record is in Montana and it's a felony and they're not part of the NCIC. We have to call them, write them, trying to get that felony record out of this other state. So not everything can be done in that eight hour time frame. But it does take basically eight hours to do the job, if you have all the information in front of you.

President Jerrel: So you can do approximately 20 a week then, or not? I am just trying to get a feel for - and you don't even have to answer because there is no way you probably would know now, but my point is, I think if we set goals and try to maintain reasonable goals, not overwork anyone, but reasonable goals, then that will be one part of the system that won't - that's the part that gets them to the abstract, that gets to DOC, and that's where I want to see them go.

Allan Henson: I understand.

President Jerrel: Okay, thank you. Anyone else?

Commissioner Tuley: Yeah, this is kind of hypothetical since you didn't - had you received that $20,000, I mean, how would you use it? Would you...

Allan Henson: We'd go back to hiring more or additional part-time individuals. 

Commissioner Tuley: Regularly scheduled or kind of as needed or how -

Allan Henson: With $20,000 it would have to be as needed.

Commissioner Tuley: Okay, so when you get into your Christmas shopping season-

Allan Henson: Yeah, we'd have to bring more students in then and, you know, at one time we had sixteen individuals. Sixteen interns which would equal eight full-time people to get the work out, and we're talking about we're doing as much in this five months as all of last year. This has been a growing problem and our staff just hasn't grown, so we hire more and more and more part-time people. But as you well know, you get them trained, get them up and running and then spring break is here and they're gone, and I am not going to work during my Christmas holiday and they're gone or they graduate, go to law school. So the turnover rate was just atrocious. 

Commissioner Tuley: Then what Joe, what we have in our packets, Joe, is as of the 14^th, we had 67 people who had been convicted awaiting sentence. At twenty a week, that's three weeks, more than three weeks, just trying to get those 67 out of there at the rate of twenty a week as Bettye kind of -

President Jerrel: Well, if you're not going to be able to do - I guess, is it really true, Allan, that most of them have all this contacting other states and that sort of thing or are most of them filling out the one page back to back form?

Allan Henson: No. It's true that most of these people are long term, hard-core individuals. That's why they're going to go to DOC. If they were just penny-ante, something from Wal-Mart the first time, they're not even going to get to us. They're in deferred prosecution. If there's a first time that's a felony or the first time it's a misdemeanor and they get charged, they're not deferred, they're in misdemeanor court. When they get to us, they've got a record and in order for the judge to make an appropriate sentencing, the prosecutor to order a plea bargain, we need to find out what that is and a lot of that is not in any - people are very mobile now. 

President Jerrel: So most of them are what you are describing then? 

Allan Henson: Yes, have records other places. Not out of the state necessarily, but from other places. We're getting more and more -

Judge Carl Heldt: I might mention this, if they were just first time class D felony offenders, they wouldn't be in jail. They wouldn't be held in jail. People in jail are people the judges don't want to release, they have the records.

President Jerrel: Or they can't make bond. Okay, questions? Thank you.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, and having completed much of the first three bullets now, I suspect people are going to slide forward on their seats a little bit here, to want a piece of each of these. PMSI recommends that detailed business process re-engineering analysis of the workflow from arrest through sentencing (including jailing) and release an accurate assessment of available technology solutions that would enhance and create greater efficiencies in managing the same process. And let me kind of start off this one, I was surprised, maybe shocked is a better word, at one of the committee meetings that I was sitting in over in the courts building probably three months ago now, when the discussion about how the booking took place starting with Evansville PD and the information is taken to this person and then it's taken to another person and then it's taken to another person, and while not in total, certainly the workflow issue is part of what this is about. And I would be curious to comments from any of the stakeholders as far as how this is either impacting them so that they would strongly support the recommendation here or any other comments they might have. Alright, I knew we'd have people coming forward on this one.

John Althoff: Good afternoon. My name is John Althoff. I've been in charge of the police department record room since 1992. Let me say up front that everything that you've heard here today is true. The system, as far as from arrests through booking to detention in the jail, is a mass of duplication of effort. It's incredible. It should be, I agree, done by the person, by the facility that's going to be detaining the individual. There is at least four interviews with the arrestee that are exact duplications. Our computer systems don't talk to each other. The imaging system doesn't talk to any of the other systems. The fingerprint system doesn't talk to anything. And our arrest numbers keep going up. We booked through 816 new prisoners last month - or 816 prisoners. Of those, 213 were new prisoners, so we're seeing essentially, 3/4 of the people we see are the people we see over and over and over again. And every time they come in we have to verify all the information on them. They're very mobile, they move, they get tattoos, they have scars, they lie about their personal (inaudible). So they get interviewed by the arresting officer. He does his initial paperwork in our computer system and brings them to the booking window. The booking clerk re-interviews them, same information, enters it into the records computer package. The same information has to be entered in the imaging system, our mug shot system. The same information has to be entered in the fingerprint system and none of these things are talking to each other. Then they go upstairs to the jail, if they are lucky and don't die of old age during the booking process, and they're re-interviewed. I have written letters, I have begged, I have pleaded for the past several years that we need to eliminate the duplication of effort to make the system work better. It's bad for the employees, it's bad for the prisoners, it's bad for the people that work in the jail. It's dangerous because every minute that prisoner it downstairs in a low security area, it creates a safety risk for my civilians who are doing the booking, for the jail personnel who have to come down and take the people upstairs and process them, and for the prisoners themselves. So, I implore you, please heed what you have been told here today because there is a lot of truth to it.

President Jerrel: John, don't answer this if someone ranking above you - if you'd rather not say - I mean, I don't want to put you on the spot - if you could, and I'm a little bit familiar with your Tiburon system and some of the imaging that's been, like I kind of know what happened to it, but maybe the rest of the people in the audience that don't deal with it, don't know, but what would you like to see happen if you could make it happen right now?

John Althoff: I think we have to revise our technology. We've put together a technology system in this county in bits and pieces and sometimes without regard to how another entity, another office, will interact with that system or the people using it. I think it's critical that we sit down together which we're working on, that's known as Project 42 currently, and devise a system that will work for everyone with the ability of systems interacting with each other. That's not so far fetched anymore. We need a system that talks to other offices, other departments, and I think that will eliminate a good deal of problems. Another thing that has to be considered is if you adopt a new system, and I hope you do, is that adequate training takes place because so often we "improve our technology" by buying something that's bright and shiny and has lots of bells and whistles and then inadequately train our personnel on the use of that piece of equipment, and I think we need to standardize our equipment, our training and our procedures and I think that will help a lot.

President Jerrel: Who specifically, now, are you talking about? You and the sheriff's department, that's two, but what software package does the city have that the county doesn't have or vice versa that doesn't work? 

John Althoff: Well, currently, our records management system is through Tiburon and -

President Jerrel: They're not even supporting it anymore, are they? 

John Althoff: We do have limited support, not like it used to be. The sheriff has a new jail package and these two systems do not talk to each other, nor can they. 

President Jerrel: Could you, if you adopted the courts package, have you ever done any cost analysis of any of this?

John Althoff: The committee has attended several meetings by SCT and we are beginning demonstrations of new systems to replace all of these current systems next week as a matter of fact and I believe we have between ten and fifteen vendors that are coming in to do demonstrations.

President Jerrel: I can't see the sheriff behind you, but does that mean that you want a different system than the one you've got?

Brad Ellsworth: I am going to let Eric defer some of that. I agree with everything John has said. Probably a little historical basis, and we'll go back to this, I believe when they had a city lockup prior to the opening of the current jail, there was a gentlemen's agreement that because they were getting out of the business of running a city lockup, that they would handle booking and that, but it's grown to that. But I agree with everything John has said but this is coming in bits and pieces. Like I said, we were facing the Y2K thing and were given the money that we had to replace at that point, that there was no way that we were going to be able to talk to - replace that with a system that came and talked to the booking procedure, the CAD or the records manager system. Now we're looking at, and I am going to let Eric come up in a second and talk about records management and how that might be able to interact with the new jail project we just put in last year. There have been joint projects with the city police and that depended on chiefs and sheriffs who were there. I know, like on the imaging system, we split that $60,000 a piece I think and tried to make that jibe between the jail and that and have had limited luck on that. But, Eric, why don't you -

President Jerrel: Yeah, Eric, is this new system going to be able to, let's say, is that going to be obsolete, this new one if the police, EPD...

Eric Williams: Well, the data system that we're talking about, the Tiburon records system, is jointly controlled by the city and county. The city, just by the agreement the sheriff mentioned, does the booking process. We enter information into it also. The new jail system we purchased in mind knowing that we were going to have to upgrade the record system at some point in the future. However, we didn't know what that was going to be so we tried to purchase the most open ended type of jail system we could get. The previous jail system, the record system, did not communicate either. You know, ideally, you'd have a CJIS system, you know, from dispatch to booking to detention to courts, that all use core similar data files. The problem that we run into is if they make an error in the record system and then we make an error in the jail system one letter difference, the error is not consistent through all the systems. It's one thing to make a mistake as long as it's wrong everywhere because then at least you can find it, correct it one place everywhere. But when it's only wrong in one spot, that's where problems all develop. Now our hope is that with Project 42, we'll purchase a CAD record system that is designed with the same open ended socket, so to speak, that we can plug the jail into that and have some form of linkage. We'll never probably use, at the rate we're going, a core database that all of them feed out of, but hopefully, we'll have a system that the databases do talk to each other and correct one another. 

President Jerrel: Because you and I had a long conversation about this about what you were going to buy, was not going to be so specific that you couldn't interface with other - and so...

Eric Williams: That was one of our primary criteria we established when we selected a new jail system. We would loved to have been able to wait and include the jail system in with the records, CAD and do it all at once so that we knew before we bought anything that they definitely were going to communicate. However, we were under the Y2K crunch with the jail system and it was going to cease to operate so we had to do something when we did it. But we did try to leave it so open ended that any good program or any decent system would at least be able to communicate with the data and at least talk to it.

President Jerrel: Well, who else talks to these two - who else do you all have that needs to talk? Let's assume that yours can talk after you get new things and -

John Althoff: Who needs to talk to them?

Eric Williams: Ideally, the big key player in there that it would be ideal to communicate with these two systems would be the courts because right now we are entering arrest information and jail information and then we're going back and manually entering information which came from the courts, dispositions on cases, bond reductions, changes. A lot of times, you take for example, personal data, the demographics and stuff like that, the courts are dealing with them ongoing and they'll get changes, and the courts records sometimes on ongoing case will be the most current. That's not reflected in our system. 

Commissioner Mourdock: And does the Courtview 2000 that we recently purchased have that upgraded capacity to bring this type of the booking process into it?

Eric Williams: There again, because we bought separate vendor systems, you are never going to have a core database that has one person file, one case file, one - but, the Courtview 2000 in my judgement is open ended enough that yes, linkages will be able to be created and talk with another because they do share some common denominators in the style of their design. 

President Jerrel: And they were one of the approved software systems that - this isn't the only place in the state that's had this problem. Okay, well, getting to those, who else, the courts...

Eric Williams: Well, obviously, everybody in the system. If dispatch had the information and it all related, -

President Jerrel: What about the prosecutor's office?

Eric Williams: The prosecutor is definitely an issue, the new public defender's office, they would have information. If everybody is updating information, that way everybody in the system shares the most current information. 

President Jerrel: And you've got a committee and you're going to report next week? 

John Althoff: We start demonstrations next week.

Eric Williams: Project 42, SCT has, you sit on the Data Board, hired Clifford to be the project manager. We've got several entities and all of those people are together and we are going to start reviewing. We've narrowed it down to thirteen vendors to provide us with a records and CAD system and one of the main criteria in narrowing it to those thirteen were that they would be able to at least communicate with the jail. We're hoping that they will be able to communicate with Courtview 2000.

Commissioner Mourdock: What does the 42 mean?

Eric Williams: That was just the number, the sequential number of projects assigned in SCT, I think. It was just one of those things that just happened like -

President Jerrel: One other area, and I've seen these so I know that it's pretty common, you may have a person with four or five different possible names on a sheet, a docket sheet, I mean, if we could pull these up by either the cause number or the birth dates or the social security numbers or something, but they have names that are all different. Is there any way you can get everybody that enters to enter--

Eric Williams: Well, there are two different problems there, consistency of entry and that is setting up entry fields that have what they call input mass on them that will only take numbers if they are in a certain order with certain characters. That's one problem getting that accomplished. The other problem is that I may find that there was a problem with Jimmy Jones and it was entered as James. I change it. By then the courts have already started their information on that and they've got it wrong, so now that change may or may not reflected there. Then the prosecutor gets a file, it may or may not get reflected there and that's the problem with having them all stuck together or communicating. When one of us finds an error, we change it and we all know about it instantly so we're not all traveling down different paths.

President Jerrel: I couldn't agree with you more. Well, this body is here to help. That's why we're doing this, so -

Commissioner Mourdock: Let me ask one radical question and I'll venture towards that dreaded C word here, does it make any sense to have both Evansville PD involved with this and the sheriff's office? I heard the Chief say a minute ago this was kind of the history that had developed from the day that there was a city lockup as well, and I think I heard Cyd even make the comment, or I am sorry, Julie during her presentation, that it was a pretty rare thing that we have both Evansville PD doing part of this and then having the sheriff's group get involved. Doesn't that -

John Althoff: One thing you have to consider is regardless of who is in your chair, who is on the bench, the guys in blue and brown will always be working together on the street and our system should always work together from start to finish.

Commissioner Mourdock: And it seems to me right now, we've got, especially guys in blue who are doing this, who might otherwise be doing other things.

John Althoff: We need to clean up our act.

Eric Williams: And I guess our radical answer to that is that no, it doesn't necessarily have to be the separate people as long as everybody is communicating. There are probably things that could be done procedurally that would streamline this but it would require actions of both the city government and county government to say we're going to shift this to the sheriff and shift this to the city so that Y people are doing Y things. My detention people are there doing detention things and if they're booking into the detention system, if these systems communicated, it could populate into those - traditionally and historically in almost every county in the state and probably everywhere else in the nation, you'll find that the sheriff, the ones that run the jail, do the detaining and the booking. It just goes hand in hand because so much of the functions are the same. We happen to be an oddball, I think we've done a marvelous job making it work but there are a lot of inefficiencies with that system. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I think you're turning politician on me, Eric.

President Jerrel: But this is the time to do something that is a significant improvement and change. This is the time and we need to do it.

Commissioner Tuley: You're talking about procedurally as in when they say the person or agency responsible for the detention maybe should be doing the booking? That's what comes to mind to me on the county side. If we absorb those people as county employees, that's a lot of money. How many employees do you have, John? 

John Althoff: I have -

Commissioner Tuley: In the booking facility area.

John Althoff: Well, everyone down there is a jack of all trades. There are multi-task positions. They may be booking prisoners one night and taking reports -

Commissioner Tuley: In that area that you're responsible for, that's what I am talking about.

John Althoff: There is a total of 25 right now.

President Jerrel: But you also go through the same process, don't you?

Eric Williams: A very similar process. Not in as great detail because we do have a relationship that allows us to share the images that they take, so we do not recapture the images unless they substantially change their appearance between the time they get captured downstairs and when they get upstairs.

Commissioner Tuley: Well, as long as it takes, they may, from what John said.

Eric Williams: We try not to duplicate as much as possible, but there is also the issue that with a new system there may be a lot streamlining that just comes to life because we may be able to populate a lot of the jail's system with information gleaned out of the new records package. 

President Jerrel: How many people do you have working on this?

Eric Williams: Our detention officers that are working the floor, traditionally, I'll have eight to nine people on the floor. Not only are they the guards walking the perimeters and doing all the other things, they're also the ones that go down and pick the people up from the city once they're booked, brought upstairs and then processed into the system, assigned a cell, issued their clothing, and all that kind of stuff and sent on. My people are jack of all trades just like his are. They perform the (inaudible) functions.

Brad Ellsworth: There's additional things that go on in the jail. For instance medical, John doesn't concern himself as much with medical questions, but if the system could communicate, I don't care if they wear blue or brown, we're kind of color blind to that, but in John's field, he had the name and the change and everything, then when they got upstairs, our guy clicks on and those fields are already filled, my guy may just ask the medical question. That's where...but to fill out their booking sheet, get all the book information, that's where the big problem is, not who owns the people, that we're duplicating over and over again.

Eric Williams: And then the final step in that process is the courts because right now we have no record of disposition. So we arrest a person, book him, go to jail, blah, blah, blah, we don't know what the courts do with them in any of our systems. We don't dispose of them. Then you have to go to a third system to find out. You look in the record system to find out about the arrest circumstances, the probable cause. You go to the jail system to see what cell they were in, what they did, their time in there, the medications, those kinds of things. Then you turn to the court system to find out what the courts did with them, whether they dismissed it, whether they are going to file charges, whether they got DOC time, or anything. There's three separate systems all doing the same thing but different segments. 

Brad Ellsworth: This stuff coming back, we have problems with this. There have been people who were released from jail, you know, a handwritten notice come back. We tried going to color coded slips for different releases on different charges, something that simple when that could be electronically done. If it wasn't for our CSX calendars that they provide yearly at no charge, and that's the thing that could be electronically sent back so that it pops up when somebody is due to be released, that his name pops up and you get a release date on that. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I'm curious, on this issue beyond the police work that goes involved and all of the jailing, from the court side or the prosecutor side, any of you have any comments regarding this part of the process as far as Julie's comments or recommendations?

Jeff Korb: My name is Jeff Korb and I am not a judge, but I do understand what the C word is, and that's for consolidation so my two questions are directed to Julie specifically. In dealing with all of these individuals, did you sense as you were discussing possibly merging this, and that's the nice thing about having an outsider come in, did you sense any turf battles going on or are we to believe Lieutenant Althoff when he says, you know, I am pulling my hair out and then you have Sheriff Ellsworth and Chief Deputy Williams saying we're pulling our hair out, but typically this county does not do real well when you talk about merging. Business sense is not common sense here. It's just throwing money, and as an outsider, that's the first part of the question, did you sense that and/or can that be merged? And the second part of the question is, you have some pretty heavy hitter cities listed there. What computer programs are available so we don't have to go back and reinvent the wheel without charging the county more money because I realize this isn't a question on your thing, so I am asking you to stretch here just a little bit. Would you be willing to work with these two agencies to recommend what you think would be the most effective, efficient system that would save us some money? And I realize what you are saying, Pat, if the county takes this on, it's going to cost us a ton but Maggie Lloyd had a great comment, we could talk about this all day long but where is the mayor going to sit on this and the chief of police? I think the key is getting the people on the streets. Taking a business approach, number one, do you sense turf? Number two, are there programs out there that are already in place that are efficient and working that we could adopt?

Julie Von Arx: In terms of the turf issue, I had Lieutenant Althoff and the sheriff in the room, I didn't have the mayor or the chief of police and there wasn't a turf problem there whatsoever. But I don't know what it would be with the higher-ups.

Commissioner Mourdock: Let me add to that, in that committee meeting John Althoff said as much there as he said here. I don't suspect there's that turf -

(Inaudible)

President Jerrel: Oh, I don't think so. I think this is too big of an issue. 

Jeff Korb: You would hope so.

Julie Von Arx: And in terms of making a recommendation about the technology, if you would look at the recommendation, I suggested that there be a study because that is beyond the scope of my expertise and I am not familiar with anyone's technology that answers that question.

Commissioner Tuley: But you could put us in contact with people that have systems in place?

Julie Von Arx: Yes.

Commissioner Tuley: That's what we need to do.
 

President Jerrel: Judge?

Scott Bowers: I just want to on behalf of the courts say that we would be extremely supportive of having the better technology integration. I've noticed that having the jail reports has been immensely helpful in terms of us changing the way we mange case flow, that's just a small example. Probation and arrest data could be merged and I think that would be very useful for both functions. One thing that I did wish to point out is that the Indiana State Supreme Court has a current initiative with the courts technology commission to standardize court computer systems throughout the state and any kind of standardization that we do, I think if you're going to link the courts to it, you should keep an eye on what is happening at the state level, and I certainly would hope that the court systems would be more fully integrated so that we can share data with these other entities. I think earlier I had mentioned to you making a hop between the jail list and the Courtview which would be a tremendous time saver in terms of what we refer to as clearing people for takeoff, making sure that all the legal entanglements with small claims and misdemeanor court and so on can be taken off of that fellow that has just been convicted of murder and need not be delayed here, for example. Thank you for your support.

President Jerrel: Anybody else?

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, the next bullet was PMSI recommends merging the operation of the booking process with the confining of prisoners, which we spoke of there in essence. The next recommendation, PMSI recommends that the courts needs to have personnel (Court Administrator) allocated to: monitor court statistical information - specifically filings, pending cases, and sentencing disposition rates, disperse reports reflective of court activities, handle technology needs as related to Courtview 2000, (that is security and training issues, maintenance, use oversight, software integration with other agencies) and aid in scheduling court staff and courtroom allocation. I guess the court, specifically, any judges wish to address that one?

Scott Bowers: It's an excellent proposal, we'll be implementing it. Our Court Administrator is currently off on maternity leave and we'd rather not violate the Family Leave Act to implement this proposal. No, this is an excellent idea and for a number of years we had to use our Court Administrator to help hear cases most of the time because we didn't have enough folks, and since we've hired two new magistrates just in the last year, then the Court Administrator now has a lot more time to devote specifically to court administration issues and the improvement in information that we've got has been a big help so far. I think there are a lot of things that we can get out of the system that we don't have yet and ideally would be procured by a Court Administrator, and as Ms. Von Arx mentioned, the chief judge has been a hands on case flow manager and it's hard to keep a regular case load and do that adequately and having somebody who is a specialized professional -

President Jerrel: Is she on Family Leave?

Scott Bowers: Yes, at this point. She will be returning at the end of September.

President Jerrel: Do you have someone replacing her now in that line item?

Scott Bowers: Not at this time because the - although the salary was open at that point, the other - well, I am not sure that there was because I am not sure if there is an unpaid leave segment to her leave. In any event, it's the kind of position where you would get - some of the leave is her taking vacation and I think some of it is unpaid leave. As to the portion that was unpaid leave, it was a matter of a few weeks and since it would involve extensive training of somebody to become familiar with the Courtview system and then leave right at the end of September when the Court Administrator returned. It doesn't seem like -

President Jerrel: Is Kelly trained?

Scott Bowers: She is familiar with the Courtview system. I do not know the extent of her familiarity with report writing which is something that I would like to see the Court Administrator involved in to a much greater degree because we can find a lot of solutions from more sophisticated understanding of the problems and that is what we want to do. That is good stuff, that paragraph.

Commissioner Mourdock: Is there anything that you feel is under that, I'll call it a job description, though it's really not that, is there anything that's here that you think ought not be here or are there other duties that you think specifically here in Vanderburgh County our Court Administrator ought to be doing?

Scott Bowers: Uh...

Commissioner Mourdock: Or are there things that person specifically, absolutely, positively should not be doing?

Scott Bowers: The Court Administrator needs to make reports to the state, and I think the sophistication and adequacy of the reports we have been making could be substantially improved, so I'd like to see the state court administration level data upgraded and that will also be helpful to us. We have talked about getting the court staff into some regular information sharing sessions and if there were some training money budgeted, maybe have a little more formal training for particularly reporters and having the Court Administrator ride herb on that would seem to be a natural. In terms of occasional uses, a pro tem, I would think in terms of meeting extreme emergencies, that would be good, but I'd like to move away from using the Court Administrator as a pro tem to the extent that we could to facilitate these other issues. However, I have not specifically addressed the scope of the pro tem role in talking with my colleagues. I have talked within the judges' meetings about these other issues and everyone is comfortable with this.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay. Julie, in the other jurisdictions or Bill that you've worked where court administrators are there, would you happen to have a formal job description for those types of positions?

Julie Von Arx: I'll provide one.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, and just please send it to Judge Bower, too. That would be very helpful, I think. Okay, any other comments on this one before we move to the next one? We need to change tapes. One second.

Tape Change

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, the next one is PMSI recommends that the courts adopt disposition time goals as a management tool to inspire court performance and reduce delays. Anyone from the courts who'd like to speak to that one? Back by poplar demand.

Judge Scott Bowers: We already do some of that in view of the limited kinds of data assemblies we've had. We haven't done a lot of it. What we primarily do is, and we've been doing this for year, is we check on how soon we are setting hearings. That's reviewed each month. We also monitor disposition by chronological age. Obviously, knowing specific disposition times will be helpful and now that we can do that, we can maybe start adopting our own version of the Trial Courts Performance Standards. Judge Knight and I have discussed those, and there are some national standards and some various state standards that were alluded to in the transparency that Cyd McNeilly put up on the various courts that had exceptional performance. I think that's useful. I'd be happy to discuss that, and I can't see that there would be a serious problem in terms of adopting them.

Commissioner Mourdock: Let me broaden that one cause I don't know the process well enough, but PMSI's recommendation on that was specific to the courts. Are there things within either the sheriff's side of that, the police department or the prosecutor's office that might also benefit by any sorts of-

Brad Ellsworth: We're perfect, Richard.

Commissioner Mourdock: You're perfect? Okay, that's good to know. Any other parts of this process where having such time goals in place would be helpful? Julie, maybe you can jump on that one, too from again what you've seen in other jurisdictions. If there are any? 

Julie Von Arx: Since the courts sort of sit at the center of all the criminal justice stakeholders, if they adopt those goals, in essence, the prosecutor's office is having to adopt them as well. I agree with you, the success of those time goals hinges upon the other players following them and adhering to them. I'm not sure that they have to be any different from what the court would adopt, but they would have to agree to abide by them. Does that make sense?

Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah.

Brad Ellsworth: One thing I would add on the question, I was kidding about being perfect, obviously we're not perfect.

Commissioner Mourdock: We knew that.

Brad Ellsworth: The one thing that we look at, and we've been looking at ever since the Blue Ribbon Committee started, is asking are we doing everything we can do? If there's one area that we constantly banter back and forth is the transfer of inmates to DOC and the trip officers. I've got a full-time officer assigned to that. There's days that I could use four people in there, and there are days that I don't need the one I have. That's the thing we constantly battle is, could I use a second full-time? Would that really help? A lot of these trips take two officers. Some we make with one just because...right now we are robbing, shouldn't say robbing, that's probably not a good word to use. We have to go to roll patrol and pull from there, we go to the courthouse and pull from there for trips. Like I said, if there was that perfect world, I'd have another officer assigned. That's something we are looking at our manpower. Would a second full-time officer in trips do that? Like I said, ask five of my administrators and we get five different opinions. That's one area we are looking for improvement in is getting those people out of jail and working with DOC on how many they'll let us bring up. I know, right now, were down to four wasn't it, Joe? Four DOC inmates? Last week it was in the teens. Week to week that goes from not even an impressionable number to where it's a certain percentage of our jail. That's an area we are looking to improve from our side. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay. PMSI recommends the county continue the collaborative efforts of the jail management committee to insure that the committee's function regarding intermediate sanctions, court processes, juvenile issues and additional capacity needs. I'll make a comment here. Julie, in your early comments you said something about once the Blue Ribbon Committee quit meeting. I guess that one kind of rubbed me the wrong way. We didn't quit meeting; we hired all of you. I say that not to be frivolous with it because that clearly was the last thing we did as a committee because we felt we were at that point where we needed some outside influence. I don't think the committee in any way, at least I hope it does not, feel that it's been disbanded. Right now we're just kind of waiting for all of this to soak in. Having said that, others on the committee especially regarding the intermediate sanctions court process, juvenile issues and additional capacity needs open that up to the floor.

Brad Ellsworth: I'll impose on Julie, again, to explain the intermediate sanctions, and if I can skip down to the next recommendation when it talks about-

Commissioner Mourdock: Pre-trial conditional release programs?

Brad Ellsworth: Exactly. If Julie would approach again and explain that a little bit, maybe some of the down sides of intermediate sanctions-explain intermediate sanctions and then if there are down sides or positives and negatives of those pre-trail releases and how that might affect failure to appears, which we seem to have a large number of, and any down sides of that for the community and for the benefit of everybody in here.

Julie Von Arx: When I refer to intermediate sanctions, I'm talking about community based programs. Particularly, we are talking about pre-trial conditional release programs. Those usually are drug monitored release types of programs where offenders would be urine tested probably monthly, could even be as frequently as weekly, pre-trial electronic monitoring or even curfew monitoring. Part of the dichotomy or the problems you have with pre-trial release programs are they give you more information that you may want to have about particular people that you have taken out of perhaps a jail setting and put them back in the community. For instance, if you are doing drug testing, you may be finding out that those people are continuing to use. Again, I think it goes back to the county managing their resources. While a person that is using drugs you probably would want to put back into a jail setting, would the courts perhaps want to even consider even getting someone into treatment and continuing them on an electronic monitoring program while their in a pre-trial phase? We have to remember that when a person is in a pre-trial status, they have not been convicted of anything and bond or pre-trial placement is to insure that they return for court. I'm not suggesting that it's appropriate that all inmates are eligible for any type of pre-trial confinement or supervision in the community. It's much like the community corrections program. You have to determine what types of offenders are appropriate in those kinds of placements. I do think, when you consider the number of outstanding warrants that Vanderburgh County has and we really have no place to put those people, if there was an effort made to try to arrest people on those outstanding warrants, I think pre-trial conditional release programs could be used. I do think it could enhance supervision for those people that are already out in the community. We would be able to insure that they are home by 11:00 every night or 10:00 or, as I said, drug testing. I just think that when a community is looking at all of their options and all of their alternatives in regard to jail overcrowding, pre-trial conditional release has provided additional supervision. I don't know if I've answered your question, Sheriff?

Commissioner Mourdock: As long as you're there, Julie, I have another one, since we are tying those two bullets together. You mentioned the collaborative efforts of the jail management committee, and certainly that includes a lot of different stakeholders, in the statics you were giving us earlier, particularly where you were comparing us to Elkhart and Allen Counties, you said the number of felony prosecutions were higher here than either of the other two.

Julie Von Arx: Yes.

Commissioner Mourdock: Comments? Stan, you're certainly welcome to jump on this one too. Comments as far as why you think that is or what other statistical comparisons you may have made that we haven't heard about yet?

Julie Von Arx: I'm glad you asked me about other statistical comparisons because one thing I forgot to mention is when considering those additional filings in those counties, those counties also have larger jails. Allen County's jail capacity is 462.

Commissioner Mourdock: Is it full?

Julie Von Arx: It's full and they're building a new one. Elkhart's jail capacity is 344 and they are also beginning conversations to build a new jail. So when you consider the volume of cases we have coming into Vanderburgh County, I don't find it odd at all that we must consider adding additional bed space. I don't know why there are more filings here. I don't know how to answer that question. The prosecutor is probably much better able to answer that.

President Jerrel: Let me ask you a question because I wrote notes, but I'm not sure. Allen County is 315,000; Elkhart is 172,000; and we are 168,000, and we have more than either one of those?

Julie Von Arx: Felony filings, yes. 

Commissioner Mourdock: And a filing, obviously one person does not necessarily just have one filing against them. One person could have three or four filings against them. As far as the actual number of people who are named in filings, do you have any ideas as to that?

Julie Von Arx: I sure don't, but even though one person may have three or four cases, the courts still have to hear those three or four cases.

Commissioner Mourdock: I understand. Right. I'm just trying to get a better hold on the numbers. The number of filings versus the population.

Julie Von Arx: We saw a big increase in filings in, I believe, in the year 1994 to 1995. There was federal funding that was supplied to Vanderburgh County for additional police officers. 

Commissioner Mourdock: That funding didn't go to Elkhart or Allen?

Julie Von Arx: I don't know.

Commissioner Tuley: You're quick on the draw because that was my next-the first thing that wanted to come out of my mouth.

Julie Von Arx: I don't have the answer to that question. I don't know if the Prosecutor would. 

Brad Ellsworth: One thing to add there about the filings is that not all filings, and Stan maybe knows, not all filings-well, they might go to jail eventually, but there isn't always a body with a filing.

Commissioner Mourdock: A bed isn't filled in the jail is what you're saying.

Stan Levco: Stan Levco. I'm the Prosecutor, and I don't have the answer to that question. There are a couple of theories, I don't know which one is true, but I don't think it's really relevant. I think the question is, how many people are we filing against that we shouldn't be? That would be one question. I checked a few years ago and possibly 95 percent we are filing against are convicted in one way or another. I'd even argue that some of those five percent are probably guilty too. In any event, which people that I'm filing against that are guilty of crimes would it be a good idea for me to stop filing against? I think the answer to that is none of them. Not only that, although there may be some relation, surely there's some relation to the overcrowding of the jail and the number of cases I file, there's not a direct relation. If I'm filing, some people say that our office files too many shoplifting cases, they don't have to go to jail. This is not at all critical of the other "C" word, the courts, because I think they do a great job. It's not the Prosecutor who puts the people in jail. Although a lot of people seem to get excited at the figures we're filing. I think, number one we are filing against the appropriate people, and number two, it's another body who's looking at them to decide which ones, if any, of the ones we file against should be in jail. The ones that are spending significant time in jail are the more serious cases which is not to say that nobody we file against is in jail longer than they should have been. Occasionally, people are found not guilty, but I don't think it's very many. 

President Jerrel: It's hard to believe though that 336,000, twice our population right now, is about the same as Allen County. Twice, just think about that. It's hard to believe.

Stan Levco: I think, and I don't have the statistics statewide, I think it's true that filings are going up statewide. Part of this was a big drug increase. Maybe they're not filing enough. I don't know.

President Jerrel: That would be something that, Julie, it would be interesting just to get some statistics from Allen County and take a look at them. That's a lot bigger place than Vanderburgh County.

Stan Levco: It's interesting, but I don't...if it turns out that another jurisdiction, I would assume that Lake County probably files more, but if another jurisdiction files differently, that doesn't say to me-it certainly says to me that I should look at it, but it doesn't say to me that I should decrease my filing by 25 percent.

President Jerrel: No, but you should look at it.
 

Stan Levco: I have. That's one reason I looked to see how many people were being found guilty. If I had found that we were filing and 30 percent of the people we were filing against were found not guilty that would tell me that we're filing cases on people we shouldn't be filing against.

Commissioner Tuley: Statistically, do you have available or off the top of your head, the conviction rate, how many of those are actual court convictions or plea bargains? Just out of curiosity.

Stan Levco: Well, by court you mean by jury?

Commissioner Tuley: By jury.

Stan Levco: Very few. Fewer than 100 a year. Most are either plea bargains or people plead guilty. I would guess more plea bargains than people pleading straight up to pleading guilty.

President Jerrel: That brings up another question. It isn't one that I'm necessarily informed about so when I ask my question, it may not be intelligent. Are you utilizing all of the software that we purchased for the prosecutor's office in order to interact with the other systems that have Courtview? 

Commissioner Mourdock: Is that part of Courtview?

President Jerrel: Yes. Oh, yeah.

Stan Levco: You'd have to ask somebody else in my office. I personally am not. 

President Jerrel: Could you check on that? And let me just say it because, as I said, I may not ask an intelligent question, but I keep hearing from the other jurisdictions that the software training that was given to the prosecutor's office isn't being utilized. When Pat asked that question is what made me think of it. That's the kind of information that Courtview will give you, if somebody uses the new software. We trained everybody to use it, but I don't believe, if you'll check, I don't believe you're using it. That would be a major, major help to everybody, if you would use it.
 

Stan Levco: Actually, I can't answer specifically, but I don't think we are and I think there's a reason we're not. I can't really articulate. I have discussed this with somebody in the office and I got an answer, but I would be hard pressed to repeat it. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Stan, let me take Allen County and Elkhart out specifically for a second, given the population differences they are what they are, and you make a good point saying that if 95 percent are being convicted or otherwise pleading, they are the one's who should have had the felony charges brought against them in the first place. If though, as Julie's numbers were showing from 1990 to 1998 the felony filings across the state in all 92 counties went up 25 percent and ours went up 100 percent, how do we take a look at that data? You said that you would take a look between here and Elkhart and Allen, and I can understand why you'd do that given the populations, but I'm just curious, are the other 91 counties not being as aggressive in their prosecutions and felony filings? 

Stan Levco: Is that what you said, 25% in the eight years statewide? 

Julie Von Arx: That's an approximate.

Commissioner Mourdock: From 1990 to 98 which I understood was the last year, statewide it's gone up 25 percent. 

Stan Levco: I don't know what percent our police have gone up. I think that's certainly one factor is we have more police. 

Commissioner Mourdock: We may have increased police more rapidly than the other counties possibly.

Stan Levco: A very small percentage of it would be people committing crimes while there out on bond while they ought to be in jail. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Would than not be true in all the counties?

Stan Levco: Other counties don't have as much of a jail overcrowding problem as we do, but that would be a small percentage.

Commissioner Tuley: There does seem to be a lot of that around here for some reason. It seems like every time I read about someone being rearrested, particularly in the last month or two, particularly when it's meth or something like that, they're out on bond.

Stan Levco: Right. With a jail that wasn't overcrowded, they wouldn't be out on bond-not all of them. Some of them would be.

President Jerrel: Just the discussion is healthy. You're an important part of the whole process, and we all need to know statistically. This information that we've been getting from the sheriff's department has been very valuable to all of us. If you could help us out too by just...we need to look at the prosecutor's office information also.

Commissioner Mourdock: Yes, come to the mike, please.

Bill Shepler: You asked the question, if we had seen raises in this throughout the state? I can't say it happened throughout the state, but if you look at the overall state numbers and the counties we've been in, there has been a significant increase of activities in late '95 and '96. I think that primarily was due to some federal funding for police officers on the street, and I think you can relate a big bunch of that. Everywhere we've been, that has been the phenomenon. If you look at the statewide numbers, that also seems to hold there.

Commissioner Mourdock: So are you saying the statewide increase of 25 percent may be actually coming from-

Bill Shepler: You specifically asked from '95 to '96 whether that was normal or not? I'm saying, as far as the state is concerned, in Indiana it seems to be normal. If you look even larger, nationally, that also seems to be normal. So they did get a bump in those areas.

President Jerrel: Everyone got a bump.

Commissioner Mourdock: And it is entirely possible, as Stan was saying, that where the jurisdictions had, meaning the larger counties, if they had more police put on the streets for whatever reason, the larger counties might have gone up 100 - 125 percent and the state average still comes out to 25 percent because a lot of the smaller counties haven't changed. Statistics, statistics, statistics.

President Jerrel: Or garbage in, garbage out.

Commissioner Mourdock: Garbage in, garbage out, right. Next bullet, PMSI recommends that the system devise an emergency placement protocol that responds to the capacity by identifying inmates that can be moved out of the jail and a time frame to accomplish the moves. I think that's an interesting suggestion and I'd like to hear about how it might be implemented from those who would otherwise have to do it. I think one thing you've mentioned, Julie, is having some sort of classification system in this regard, as far as the people in the jail and some way classified long before we hit the cap. I presume it's part of the booking procedure that there's some sort of scoring done so they would be classified? Is that correct?

Julie Von Arx: Yes (Inaudible).

Commissioner Mourdock: And what are the principle things included in that classification process?

Julie Von Arx: That's really...I guess, I don't feel that I should probably attempt to suggest what a classification system should be for your jail. That's why I think the system stakeholders have to discuss that. Who they're comfortable with. It's an easy call for those people that need to be moved to another facility such as DOC, holds for other jurisdictions. Simply changing a sentencing abstract on a felony serving time in the jail changing that to DOC. That's a very easy call. It's the other harder decisions though about those other inmates that might be put in some sort of community supervision program that I think the stakeholders have to talk about who they are comfortable with.

President Jerrel: Specifically though, I feel it should be the prosecutor and the judges but who else? Probation department?

Julie Von Arx: And community corrections.

President Jerrel: And community corrections. We are going to do community corrections next week? Well, okay, I won't mingle that.

Julie Von Arx: Did that answer your questions?

Commissioner Mourdock: Not totally. The specific criteria that are looked at as these people are being evaluated without...can you talk about those things?

Julie Von Arx: Well, what's been done in some jurisdictions is it's not a complicated criteria and a complicated point system. Many times it's just looking at what the instant offense is or category where the inmate falls in under. Misdemeanants serving their last 30 days of their sentence. Could that be served in a home detention program? Civil contempt and again, I don't know how the prosecutor here would feel about that, but in terms of looking at level of risk to the community, a civil contempt charge is not necessarily one that would pose a threat to the public. Many times those are categories of inmates that are looked to to place again in an electronic monitoring situation. The benefit that provides specifically for a person who is a delinquent father provides them with the ability to work. Again, that's just a category that is chosen a lot of times.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay. 

Stan Levco: I'll speak on this because this is totally the judges call and not my call. Legally, that's true. They are the only one's that can make that decision. I think it's a good idea, and I will be glad to meet with them, if they'd be glad to meet with me. We could come up with some sort of protocol for this. We've done this a number of times anyway. If we don't have an emergency, we can always get together on a semi-emergency basis who to release first. Certainly, we could put some official plan so we don't need to be consulted on who gets released first.

Commissioner Mourdock: That brings up a key definition, emergency. Does that mean 330?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: No.

Commissioner Mourdock: What does emergency mean then?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: I'm not going to say much but anything close to 329. I'd say 328, 327, 326, 325. You've got 29 people, if I can just, that are serving misdemeanor sentences in the jail as of, what is this date, the 12^th? I think today there is 26 in there. I mean, I've got to believe that the first people who might be potential candidates for electronic monitoring or a space at the Safe House, they are going to be adding 25 beds in the next few days, might be someone coming off the end of that misdemeanor sentence. I may be wrong. To me, they are probably not going to have a court date coming up in the near future. Probably none because they've already been convicted and sentenced and waiting release. So they are probably a perfect candidate. To me, 29 or 26 or whatever sentenced misdemeanors is quite high. I don't know, maybe Julie thinks that is normal. I don't know, but that's a substantial number for the county jail, I think, but that's just my own thoughts. Wouldn't that be an area to look at first?

Stan Levco: I haven't looked at these 29, but I know that when we did look at the misdemeanants in jail, if there is such a thing, they were very aggravated misdemeanants or they wouldn't have been in jail. So that maybe some of the one's that we'd want to get through first, but I feel comfortable, although I literally don't know who these 29 are, that the judges wouldn't have put those 29 in there unless they were some extreme case or very repetitive behavior. I think the overall question, I think it's a good idea that we ought to get together, if there is some sort of thing and the number is not 329, it's something under that. That when the Sheriff tells us we are at 320 whatever that we get together, and if we can't get together and say here's the specific seven or eight people we want to release, we've got a sheet that we've already agreed on that is the first one's that go. I think we ought to be able to do that.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay. Very good.

President Jerrel: This is a little off the wall, but it is also another possibility. Just relieving, if you didn't have the beds ready at the Safe House, let's say we will eventually have more beds but let's say we don't have those. Just to take them out there in a secure setting during the day would relieve the numbers during that period of time in the jail. So there's some other things we can do.

Brad Ellsworth: We have to be real careful in that with Paul Downing and the State DOC cause when we start calling it secured getting into (Inaudible) 

President Jerrel: I realize-

Brad Ellsworth: Then when you say it's a jail and secure then we have to meet a lot more standards by his standards because, again, that area we're opening up they will have a door that they can push bar open.

President Jerrel: But if a judge determines that they are-I didn't say any of us or you-we don't have anything to do with it, but if a judge determined that somebody's been over there for 80 days and acting okay, maybe for the last five or ten days they could go to the Safe House. That would be entirely up to the judge.

Commissioner Tuley: We could start looking there to release some of those to take some out of the jail to put out there. If you're going to have to release some. 

Bob Pigman: I'm the Misdemeanor Court Supervisor, Bob Pigman, Misdemeanor Court Supervisor for Superior Court. Since Eric started sending around his jail reports, I've been reviewing those at least every other week to do two things. To look and see which misdemeanors are being held simply on misdemeanor charges. There aren't very many. But if they are in jail at the time I review that report, I have them brought into court immediately to see either whether they can be released, and that's a discretion I'll leave with the magistrates. I don't tell them to release them or to hold them either one but just to review it. If they cannot be released, they are set for trial in front of me on my docket on Friday afternoons fifteen days from that date. So those people are handled as expeditiously as we possibly can. Now, for the 29. I haven't reviewed those 29, but I have throughout the summer, periodically taken a look at the individuals being held on misdemeanor sentences only. What you have there is a population of offenders who have repetitively disobeyed the courts orders. Either they've not done their community service, or they've not come to court when they are suppose to. They are not there on the first offense. Multiple offenses. I had one case I reviewed where the guy had 33 pending misdemeanors. Now, it's time for that young man to be in jail for awhile. That's an exception, but it's not unusual for them to have eight or nine pending matters. So if their in jail on a misdemeanor, my investigation of the matter has determined that they are not the kind of people that we can release. It has come to the point where they are defiant and they've failed the various treatment programs that are available through that court and other courts, and they're just not the kind of people we can release. Twenty-nine does seem high. That's a momentary fluctuation probably but still I've looked at that repeatedly over the summer and those are not the kind of people. Really, they've ignored every other opportunity that's been given to them. They are not there as a first time, second time, or even third time, and that's why they're there. 

Joe Harrison, Jr.: I wasn't suggesting (inaudible).

Stan Levco: And we can't send them to the Safe House right now because there is a six week waiting period.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Again, they are going to be adding 25 more beds in the next week or so.

Stan Levco: Okay, then we will have a three week waiting period. 

Joe Harrison, Jr.: What I was suggesting is if there are available beds, you would at least consider the possibility of serving two or three days? Not releasing them on the streets but having them go out there for a couple days?

Stan Levco: I'd consider anything, but they are usually there because they've not taken advantage of the situation similar to that before. They busted their sentence from probation or house arrest or Safe House. Okay?

Commissioner Mourdock: Judge Knight? 

Judge Doug Knight: I just wanted to mention what a great job Judge Pigman did in answering that question. I'm not surprised at the 29 number. I think Commissioner Jerrel sometime back sited 30 different prisoners in the Vanderburgh County Jail on misdemeanor charges that in most other jurisdictions wouldn't be in jail. I got a list of those thirty and specifically went down each and everyone of them and concluded that each and everyone of them would be in jail in any other county in the state of Indiana.

President Jerrel: Judge, before you go any further, that was before we corrected the reporting form. On the reporting form those 33 had very simple misdemeanor charges like failure to appear and nothing else or check deception under $200 dollars. They were minor, but what we didn't see is there were multiples which I didn't see which is what you're talking about.

Judge Doug Knight: Which brings me to the point that with an enhanced computer system all those will be more visible and we will be able to see what we're talking about before we even start talking about them. That will help the process that Joe's talking about. If you look at all 29 of those individuals, you are going find that they are there for additional charges that are serious felonies for which they are not going to get bonded out on the felony charge. You're not going to take a serious batterer or attempted murderer or manslaughter pre-trial detainee and say, well, you can go out to the Safe House and stay a few days. It's like it was summer camp. That just doesn't work. If they're on a petition to revoke and other serious charges, which they are, or there's a serious domestic violence, or 12 prior failures to appear. If you let him go to the Safe House, you know that person isn't going to be back. A couple of those included mental-prisoners with mental problems that just refused to attend court period. Just refused. So that's the kind of population that you're dealing with. It's a Hobson's choice when it gets to that emergency situation, it is a public safety issue that's why we have to make a decision quickly about how big of a jail we need. 

President Jerrel: Question? I just asked him and he said to ask you because I don't know the answer. If there are so many that are that bad and have that...potential murderers. Why were they sentenced as felons, and why weren't they sent to the DOC instead of in our jail. They are awaiting sentence in another case. They're awaiting a hearing on a petition to revoke. We are just talking about this sentenced misdemeanants. If they're as bad as you all are saying, they probably should have been convicted of felonies. They have pending felony cases. They haven't gone to trial on the other cases on which they are being held. All 29 of them, you think, do have that?

Judge Doug Knight: No, not all 29 of them. I'm sure there is a handful of them over there that have failed to appear in court some 12, 15, 28 times and you've got to nail their foot to the kitchen floor or their not going to come back. You've got some that are there on petitions to revoke because they escaped from the Safe House and now there's an escape charge pending against them in another case, and the misdemeanor charge they are in there for is for resisting the arrest when the police officer tried to apprehend them after they had escaped.

President Jerrel: I think I'm hearing the rumblings over here too. It is hard to-

Judge Doug Knight: It's a multi-criminal personality you are dealing with. I don't think you are going to find people there for one single thing.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Do you have a chance to look at the classification breakdown?

Judge Doug Knight: Um-huh.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: There are those classifications already in here. For instance, those that are in there on petitions to revoke, and those-

Judge Doug Knight: And it may be the same individual that's in there on a petition to revoke and in jail serving a misdemeanor sentence.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: I don't think he's got them listed in different spots.

Judge Doug Knight: We'll have to ask them.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: It's certainly possible that some of these sentenced misdemeanors might be in there on some other charges.

Judge Doug Knight: Well, Joe, there are people listed occasionally, due to human error are listed there as awaiting trial when they've already been convicted and they are ready for shipment to the DOC. That's a matter of human errors. You're not going to eliminate that. 

Eric Williams: If I could add, as the author of that report that you are looking at, this is a diagnostic tool. It is by no means, totally accurate. We put those classifications on there based on what we happen to know at any one moment in time from the handwritten information be get back from the courts. We go back to the link together. If the courts were updating that, then it would be what their true status is. We have a great rapport going with Terry Maurer in the court system. He reviews that list every week, and he finds errors in it because errors do occur. We may have somebody listed as a sentenced misdemeanor and do not realize that there is an open felony charge on there. So, yes, this week there may a handful of those people that are listed as sentenced misdemeanants but also have an open felony charge in there. We do our best to keep that from happening, and we rely on the courts and everybody else that sees that report to say double check inmate XYZ because you're going to find that there are some other court cases open or something else. So that is...all those classification codes are always in flux. They change from day to day, and those people shuffle around from category to category. That was really the goal of that report to get the information, what we think they are, in front of everybody else so they can relay back to us that's not what they are, they are really this, change it to that. We change those all the time.

Commissioner Mourdock: Just a comment regarding this bullet before we move on to the last one. It's perhaps ironic that I should be asking this question given our little vote last week. It says, as written by PMSI, "identifying inmates that can be moved out of the jail." Is that meant to infer as well, Julie, to another jail? Are you suggesting that there be a ranking process so that if we use another jail for overflow that we are talking about those beyond just the Safe House?

Julie Von Arx: That's a good question. The protocols that I've done in other jurisdictions did not include that, but since the community here has decided that is an option, that probably should be part of the classification system. Again, I would emphasis that it be the last option.

Commissioner Mourdock: I would agree with that. Okay. Final bullet, PMSI recommends that the court system should also be ready to respond to fluctuations in the jail population by holding initial hearings on weekends and holidays. I know no one wants to talk about that one, right? 

Judge Scott Bowers: I would first note that's in the event that there is litigation which formally caps this, which means the violation of the cap is the subject of a contempt ruling by the federal district court, which is a pretty drastic situation. I think that's a good recommendation for two reasons. One is, if it comes to the point where we are under federal district court order that's a hard cap subject to contempt rulings, then you need to really take some strong emergency action. That's something that could be strong emergency action which could have an effect. I think it's also good to have that in there as a contingency based upon such a hard cap because, frankly, that gives the courts a strong incentive to make sure we stay under the soft cap.

Commissioner Mourdock: Why do you read that as only being in effect after that federal action comes down?

Judge Scott Bowers: Because it says in the previous sentence, in the event that litigation formally caps the Vanderburgh County Jail, the following recommendations are given, colon, and the two recommendations are set forth.

Commissioner Mourdock: This is what happens when you have one piece of paper lying on top of the other so you keep all the bullets in order. I'm sorry.

Judge Scott Bowers: I had three years of advanced education which made me a colon freak. Most are real big on semi-colons.

President Jerrel: And I have a red pencil up here.

Commissioner Mourdock: Any other comments regarding that one? Where do you want to go from here?

President Jerrel: I'm sorry, I was using my red pencil. Is everybody in here that has a stake in this of the same mind that we...if you weren't here for our juvenile, we did the same kind of questioning and discussion with the juvenile side and now this side. I do have the sense that there is going to be a lot of cooperation and the biggest issue tonight that surfaced is accurate information form everybody and reduce duplication at all costs. So, yes?

Unidentified: Can we speak?

President Jerrel: Sure.

Clark Field: I'm Clark Field and I'm not official. I'm a lay person so I'll speak as one less wise. I do go back about 25 years to working in the jail as administer and as counselor. I led some groups in the jail and in the old half-way house when it was on U of E campus. I led some counseling groups so I have some inside information. I'm not here to beat the dead dog or to live in the past, but I do have some observations about the past that may help us in the future. I going to commend the Commission on what you're doing and the study that's been made. I think this is exciting, if we act on it now. I don't feel like you are the only one's responsible, nor the court officials, nor the jail. I think we all are in this community. I feel that I have a stake in this, too. I haven't spent that many nights in jail here, recently, but who knows what will happen in the future. Captain Moers, Commander of the Jail earlier used to tell us when I was active in PACE which was a volunteer group that visited the jail. I was president two times for that. He told us that anytime the occupancy got over 200 in the jail that bad things happened. He never wanted to get over 200, and he tried to keep it under 200. Of course, we know what's happened in recent years. Traditionally, as far as I know, 50 percent of the people in jail are innocent.

Stan Levco: What tradition are you going by?

Clark Field: They are awaiting trial. So, we say if you're awaiting trial, you're innocent.

Stan Levco: You're presumed innocent.

Clark Field: Alright. I stand corrected. I like to use the word "residents" talking about people in jail. I like to use the word resident because we do say that those awaiting trial are innocent-presumed innocent. Twenty-five years ago, a very well known defense attorney told me, when I first started working the jail, he said I can say this because I'm a Southern Indiana Dutchman. He said that you won't find much compassion in the courts in Evansville. Of course, I'm not talking about any of the local "J" people, but it does seem like we get a awful lot of harsh sentencing. I mean, first time offenders...I'm amazed when I read of terrific sentences. To me it's unreasonable, but again, I don't know all the ends and outs, and I'm sure there are reasons for that. I've really been ashamed to be a part of this community when we haven't acted on the jail and the half-way house. I really have been ashamed. Again, I don't think it's any one person's fault. I think all of us share the responsibility. Going back, and I know you are going to talk about this next week and I won't be here, but going back 25 years when I first started working with the half-way house then, it was seriously flawed. I think it was a good idea. I think it was creative, but it was seriously flawed, and I think its' been flawed throughout its history. Again, I'm not blaming any one person, but I've kept up on this fairly well. What I think...if we could follow the state of Minnesota, they have at least 20 years ago led the nation in community based corrections. They had terrific programs. They took people and trained people and helped people and kept them at home and did all these things that we aren't doing here. It seems that we need to do a couple of things. I've got two main ideas. One is to really get serious about community based corrections. Putting people in an empty warehouse that's falling down is a poor excuse. Why spend any money on something that people are falling through floors, the ceiling is leaking, and big beams are cracking. I think we ought to have a first rate community based correction program. And, I think, the judges, again, not speaking of anyone here, of course, in general the judges should be more creative in their sentencing. When you read about other cities, I've been reading about it for years, and the other courts have terrifically creative sentencing. It seems like we don't do that here. We just kind of put people in jail or prison. Again, I'm speaking of one less wise because maybe some other things are going on, but one of the problems, I think, is we don't use community services. Again, looking at other cities where if somebody comes up before some misdemeanor or some maybe first time offense where they could be ushered off to a community based-a community service like AA. I know we do use AA here. At least, we use to. I think there should be lots of other community services where we can, you know, delay maybe sentencing like we do with alcoholics and get them into some of these services so we don't have to put them in jail. Again, if we want to keep the families together, if we are family oriented, and I think all of us here would say we were, then putting people in jail and prison is a real good way to break up a family. It seems like we should do other things, if at all possible. I think those are my main ideas, and I appreciate the chance to say them even though it's getting late. Just one final thought, if we build a new jail, they will come!

President Jerrel: We've been told that.

Clark Field: They will come, and we will fill it. We will fill it for sure, and then we'll need another one. So I would, again, commend the Commissioners on looking at options to building a new jail. I think community based corrections may be the solution. Thanks.

Tape Change

Richard Helzerman: My name is Richard Helzerman and I would like to talk to you about overcrowding at the county jail. I appreciate all the things that were said today, but none of them change my opinion that the primary cause of overcrowding is failure to give the accused his constitutional rights to a reasonable bail and a speedy trial. The primary group of people responsible for this failure is the judges. The fact that the judges have the power to control the population of the jail should be obvious to all, but at least one of them admitted it. In a Courier and Press article titled, Youth Detention Under Fire, July 12, 2000, page A-10, Roberta Heiman writes, "Lensing said he could keep it filled, but my job is to do what's in the best interest of the child, not to keep a facility filled so it can break even." Judge Lensing has 25 years experience, so why does he fear that it is not in the best interest of his criminals to be put in jail after they are found guilty, but the other judges are flooding the county jail with inmates before they are found guilty? The oldest known body of criminal law that I know about is the Code of Hammurabi. It identifies many crimes and specifies the punishment for each. None of the punishments involve holding someone in jail. The next oldest written body of criminal law is the Mosiac law as found in the first five books of the Old Testament. None of the punishments for crimes defined there involved holding someone in jail. In the next few paragraphs, I will be quoting by page number from a very recent issue of one of the premier scientific journals, Science, Volume 289, 28^th of July 2000. "Many scientific studies of our modern criminal justice system show that the practice of holding people in prison does nothing to reform people. Even the legislators recognize that serving the time in jail does not cure the criminal of his tendency to do evil. Requiring sex offenders to register with local police and notify the neighbors. If they believed putting them in jail would cure the problem, when they were out they would presume they were not going to do this again. We all know that they do. Most gun control regulations forbid people who have been found guilty of any felony their right to bear arms even though they have served their time in prison. The National Institute of Mental Health held a meeting of experts in the field of violent criminal behavior. At this meeting evidence was presented that indicated that some well-meaning programs designed to control aggressive children may be worse than useless. They may be doing them harm. For example, collecting young people in group homes or sending them to boot camps or on wilderness ordeals may intensify rather than reverse antisocial behavior. Page 573 of the issue I talked about Clinical Psychologist Thomas Dishion and colleagues at the Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene, Oregon, for example, studied the development of a group of about 200 boys over five years. They found a consistent pattern. Rule-breaking children trained others in misconduct. The same thing is true of adults. When you put somebody in jail, they learn new behaviors. Boys who did not smoke tobacco or marijuana or abuse alcohol before age 13 or 14, but who became friends of boys who did, advanced in a statistically predictable way to become substance abusers two years later. The researchers found that this deviancy training produced boys that at age 14 to 16 who admitted to acts of delinquency. The same process, they argue, molds criminals and violent adults. Dishion's group believes that it's a terrible mistake to house young delinquents together. They claim this practice has the iatrogenic effect of magnifying the problem. I'm saying this to confirm what Judge Lensing has said in the article, that he'd rather keep the people at home than put them into a group home. Government supported programs are heading in precisely the wrong direction. By aggregating delinquents in group homes or sending them through the adult justice system, as many localities are doing, we are sending them to a graduate school for violence and delinquency. There are some programs that have been scientifically demonstrated to help the problem of reforming youth. One program is described on page 573. The approach is simple but demanding. The researchers recruit and pay foster families to accept the delinquent child into their homes for a period of about seven months. The delinquent, rescued temporarily from jail or confinement to a group home, must follow strict rules. The parents are drilled in rule enforcement and provided with access to round-the-clock professional support. Boys in foster care were less likely to get into trouble, spending 60% fewer days behind bars in the year after treatment. The therapeutic foster care costs $1,934 per delinquent. It's a bargain. The economists calculated that standard law enforcement costs an additional $27,000 per delinquent mainly because the boys held in juvenile detention are more likely to go to prison. One case where the judicial system has failed to protect society, and we are talking about protecting society, has happened very recently. Joseph Weldon Brown has confessed to killing Ginger Gasaway. Dismembered her with an electric handsaw and scattered her remains in three Southern Indiana counties. The slaying is the unimaginable, yet predictable, ending to a pattern of abuse seen countless times by those who counsel abuse victims. In April 1999, Gasaway petitioned Vanderburgh Superior Court for a temporary protective order. She wrote that Brown had stolen her car, tried to cash her personal check, and that she was fearful. Brown pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery, was given a suspended jail term and ordered to complete a domestic abuse intervention program, which he never did. Brown is reported to have said that he killed her to get money to support a gambling addiction. I appeared before the County Council and asked them not to approve both riverboat and horse race gambling. In 1977, Brown was sentenced to life in prison and was out on probation. Now the question we have to think if in April 1999 he was accused of stealing her car, cashing her personal checks and fearful, is that not coming close to a violation of probation, and he should have been back into the custody of the state penitentiary? It would seem to me that beating a person, stealing their car and check should be sufficient to cancel a person's probation and send them back to prison. When Brown did not complete the court ordered domestic abuse program, he should have been arrested and dealt with instead of being out free to murder her. It is possible that with an adequate computer scheduling system, Brown would have been sent back to the state to serve out the rest of his life sentence last year before he murdered. I'm willing to provide such a system, and I might say that in my original proposal to deal with the problem, all of the things they've recommended would have been included in solving that. As far as getting the systems to talk together and giving you the information you need, most of the benefits that you've gotten in the reduction in the jail have been because of data processing improvements and getting you better information, but there's still a lot more information that you need to know. In fact, the judge should have known that he didn't complete his programming. I'm willing to provide Vanderburgh County for $6,000 per month for six months and $3,000 per month thereafter for maintenance. It would provide for follow-up to determine whether or not court ordered milestones were met. This case possibly could be considered a failure of the probation system. Mr. Henson told me that his department did not put probationers back in jail after minor failures because it took too long to fill out the paperwork required. I am willing to provide a computer system to easily fill out the paperwork required by the probation department to get people like Brown back in prison when they commit a minor failure and before they commit major crimes for $4,000 a month for four months and $1,000 a month maintenance thereafter. If I could, I'd like to comment on the increase in number of filings. The number of criminal cases that happened in Vanderburgh dropped 20 percent last year, but the number of criminal filings went up. You mentioned something about they doubled here but they only went up a quarter of the time. I believe the reason they went up so much dramatically here is because those other two counties had significant gang activity from Los Angeles, but the gang activity only came into our county about 1991 and got into place where it was really affecting things in 1995. I say that from direct experience with people-young kids that were affected by it. So, I would like to say again that I'm not wanting to be soft on criminals. The system is not hard enough on criminals. I'm only concerned with people who are accused should be treated as innocent until proven guilty by trial and get them their trial. I'd like to comment also on what the prosecutor said. He thinks, and I don't say that he's not filing things properly, but I don't think he really studies and understands probable cause and I don't think the judges do either. What I am saying is that...I lost my train of thought. I shouldn't accuse them. I don't mean to be critical. I know they have such a big, big load and it's impossible. As I've told you before, you've got 10,000 arrest warrants out there. A lot of them are very dangerous people. I'd like to comment on what this gentleman said. The cap on the jail should not be 329. It should be 200. It should be below the capacity, not above the capacity because when the policeman finds someone doing something wrong, he is inhibited from bringing him in and putting him in jail that night. A couple months ago, we had a guy who was drunk. He was picked up Tuesday drunk and Thursday drunk. Thursday his brother killed him, but Tuesday he hit someone over the head with a bat. Tuesday the police were involved, why didn't they put him in jail? He was drunk. If you watch Andy Griffith, you know that the primary purpose of the city jail is to put drunk people in until they calm down and let them out again. Now a man is dead there because the jail was too full. When I talked to the Sheriff, he said that very day back in February, they had a teenager, a great big tall guy. He was as big as a man, but he was a teenager. He was so drunk that they didn't know what to do with him. There's no place to put him. They can't put a juvenile in the jail. Unless, unless...there's a whole bunch of regulations about it, and you've got to have some empty slots, if you're going to do it. You and the judges have taken an oath. You've taken an oath to give the people their constitutional rights. They have a constitutional right to a reasonable bail. The judges are using bail to keep who they think is dangerous in jail before trial and there are other methods to get them in jail besides using bail.

President Jerrel: You know, we always appreciate your comments and we're a team here. We all are on exactly the same wavelength, but we're all Evansville or Vanderburgh or Southwestern Indiana residents and we want the system to work. We have a small part of it, and the people in this room have a part in it-a much larger part, but the goal is the same for all of us. I'm confident that everyone in a chair that is occupied by a person that is responsible for the system, feels the same way we do. We're going to find a solution to make this work better.

Richard Helzerman: I appreciate that.

President Jerrel: And thank you Mr. Helzerman-Reverend Helzerman. Okay, let me ask, first of all, is there anyone else that has a comment concerning this? I think this has been very challenging. Yes. What we're going to do because we have an advertised...come up, David, we have an advertised zoning meeting so we are going to have to recess this meeting so we can proceed. Yes, David.

David Coker: My name is David Coker. I heard you making reference to a new computer system that apparently was given to the prosecutor's office. Is that correct?

President Jerrel: Well, not just the prosecutor. The whole...we spent 1.7 million dollars on a new Courtview System for the courts and the prosecutor and everybody. We had lost support for the old one.

Commissioner Mourdock: It was a Y2K deal.

President Jerrel: It was Y2K but it was going to happen regardless.

David Coker: Someone may have already asked this question, and if it is, excuse me, but I haven't seen anything in the Press about it, and that's the only way I get my information about what goes on at these meetings. You would think that over about a five year period of time that there would be a running average of the total number, the total gross universe population of people that interface with the criminal justice system in the county on a routine basis. You've got so many filings, and you've got a certain finite number of people that are there. Now, it would seem to me that after you come to grips with that, you would start asking, why are these people interfacing with the criminal justice system for one reason or another? As the seven part series that was in the newspaper last week indicated, the juvenile aspect of it alone is incredible. You have the thing of children having children and you've got broken homes and just the disintegration of civil society for all intensive purposes at one level. The thing that I saw over and over and over again brought up is the concept of alcohol and drugs. As a member of the recovery community, I don't think that any of us have done enough, to be honest with you. Surely the insurance companies haven't done enough in terms of providing the money that should be there to provide treatment for substance abuse programs that people have. Same holds true for gambling addiction as ridiculous as that might seem to some people. Then you have to begin to ask, by what percentage will just dealing with that reduce this total universe of people that are involved in this? To my way of thinking there are many different things-inputs shall we say, that are creating this problem. One of which is broken homes. One of which is education. One of which is the fact that we don't have neighborhoods anymore where people know one another. I don't know any of my neighbors in my neighborhood, very few anyway. I know a few people, but most of us don't if we live in an urban environment. Perhaps there is something about the geographical location here in Southwestern Indiana that might have something to do with this. Gordon Durnell in his book, The Making of a Conservative Environmentalist, a couple of years ago wrote that one of the things that we ought to be paying attention to is the extent to which certain chemical pollutants that are put into our atmosphere are functioning as endocrine blockers. Endocrine blockage can facilitate all different kinds of things including cancer. Maybe it might have something to do with behavior as well. I can't tell you that it does or it doesn't, but I know from my experience with the recovery community, that these kids are getting sicker younger. The laundry list of chemical abuse that I hear the kids are using in some of these treatment centers are truly horrendous at earlier and earlier ages. We've got to come to grips with why these kids are doing this and why they grow up to become adults that do such horrendous things to one another. 

President Jerrel: I think you've raised the points, and I think one of the places, David, that I suggest you do it and bring it back to us is to deal with the recent survey that the United Way did last year about this very issue that you're talking about. I'm going to have to stop now, or they're going to come get me because of the advertisement for zoning people. We are going to have a brief recess.

Commissioner Mourdock: I suspect that a lot of the folks won't be coming back afterwards, and if you're not, I just want to say to all of you from the courts especially and Julie made the point about cooperation and the way the numbers have changed over the past several months. I really do appreciate everything that's been done.

President Jerrel: County Council President wants to say a word, and he controls the money and we're going to let him talk.

Curt Wortman: My name is Curt Wortman, County Council. My little brief remark is this. When we eliminated the hickory stick, we created a lot of problems. Thank you.

President Jerrel: Thank all of you for coming.

The meeting was recessed at 6:45 p.m.

The meeting was reconvened at 7:02 p.m.

President Jerrel: At this time, I'd move that we reconvene the Board of Commissioners' meeting.

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. We are now ready for item five, department head reports. County Engineer?
 

John Stoll - County Engineer

John Stoll: First, I'd like to recommend that we award the Broadway Avenue Bridge #273 replacement to Southwest Engineering for the amount of $134,874.75. They were the low bidder on the project.

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: Next, I've got a change order on the Gregory Court slope stabilization project. It's contract VC00-04-02. This is for an increase of $50,328.56. This is to repair the additional areas that failed back on August 24^th after the heavy rains. This is primarily extra excavation and placement of riprap. 

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: Next, I've got a change order on the Fulton Avenue Bridge project. This is for an $18,108 increase. Actually this isn't on top of the previous change order amounts. What happened was the last change order which was for $87,609.60 was a lump sum price that was turned around and converted to a linear foot price per piling. The problem that was created in doing that was a portion of the piling is always cut off and it's not left. The way INDOT pays these projects is they're only paid for the piling driven and remains in the ground rather than the cut off length. In doing so that messed up the lump sum price so what we have to do is the piling that's driven will still be paid at the linear foot price from the previous change order which will be $74.88 per foot. Then we are adding back in on top of that an $18,108 mobilization charge for the crane. The net result is rather than paying $87,609.60 it's probably going to be a couple thousand dollars less. All things considered, it's the same work.

Commissioner Mourdock: So we're paying to remob to have them come in to cut off that additional?

John Stoll: It's not really to remob to cut it off. They are only being paid on the basis of what's driven so the cut offs were like 10 to 15 feet in length on each pile that was driven. Since Weddle had submitted a lump sum price and it was converted to a linear foot piling price, when you turn around and take the amount of piling driven times the unit price, it comes up less than the $87,000.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay. So I'm not sure what I'm moving here. I don't know that I can describe that all back.

John Stoll: It's just to approve the change order for $18,108. The end result would be that we are going to pay the same, it's just going to be put on two change orders instead of one.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move the approval of the change order as stated by the engineer.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. Before we leave the Fulton Street Bridge, I went out and looked today. There were two men working with piles. I wanted to see what they were doing. It took them a long time to do it. Is there a project director out there? 

John Stoll: I'm not sure if he was out there today.

President Jerrel: He wasn't out there. Let me tell you who was there so you know. There were two men putting chains on the pilings and turning them over and then they were soldering back in the pieces where the holes were on the sides.

John Stoll: Right.

President Jerrel: There was a man in the crane, and he would lift it up so they would turn over. There was some lady that looked like, I don't know what she was, but she was standing at the base of the crane and she was an employee too. I just think we need somebody. I don't know, maybe they were working fast or maybe they were hardly working.

Commissioner Tuley: Let's take it a step further. Why, now that we know what the problem is, why can't we put that-and you may have to answer this, on an accelerated schedule to get at least that area where the concern is, the rising of that creek, done. Even if we have to work second and third shifts around the clock. What do we have to do to at least get beyond that point before the fall rains come in? So that even if it starts raining, at least we can be working up on the decking. How do we do that?

President Jerrel: That's the reason I said that. I didn't see anything moving very fast. 
 

Commissioner Tuley: Now that we know, let's go in and get that done and get out.

John Stoll: The work that's going on today that you saw, that's all part of setting in the plates needed for the tie backs that will be put in the retaining wall. Weddle Brothers told me today that they expect to have all the piling driven by Friday or Monday. That work is still on the schedule that they originally said. The work that you're talking about, Pat, we've got to have the retaining wall design done before we know exactly how much of that dirt has to be pulled back out and things like that. According to what Earth Exploration told us, they should have that design done the middle of this week, and then they are going to turn around and submit it to INDOT. They are going to submit it to the Material and Test Department up in Indianapolis. That's the people that I met with several weeks ago. They have to approve the design. Then we can come back and get a change order for that design, for the construction cost of that design. Weddle Brothers is already piecing that together right now on the basis of what they know about the design. I spoke to Bill Ludlow this afternoon about that. He was trying to estimate how much of the dirt he was going to have to remove and how it was going to be paved. Some of it's going to have to be hauled off the job site. He was getting a subcontractor lined up to do the work to put the tie backs on the retaining wall and get that all in. So he's trying to piece together what he can based on the information he's been given to this point, but it all hinges on getting the complete wall design.

Commissioner Tuley: Okay. Having said that, and I understand all of that, but while all of that is taking place, why or how...I'm not sure if I want to say why can't we or how do we put in place the mechanics or whatever so that once we have all that done that we don't have them working around the clock to get that done so that before that creek starts rising with fall rains, that we're out of there? It won't be a bearing on us. We can be done by the end of the year. So I don't know what that would take.

Commissioner Mourdock: I can restate it more simply perhaps. What can we do prior to having all that design work done and approved?

Commissioner Tuley: So that once it's all done and ready to go, we have people out there 24 hours a day finishing it up.

John Stoll: As far as the 24 hour a day stuff goes-

Joe Harrison, Jr.: We need a motion to that effect.

Commissioner Tuley: So moved.

Commissioner Mourdock: To?

Commissioner Tuley: That the mechanics be put in place, and I don't know if that's changing of a contract or exactly what it is, so that the things you talked about, the design and all this, once it's in place and it's all been approved by the state and who all has to approve it, that the crews begin working more than four or five people and working one shift. They work two shifts, three shifts, whatever to get everything done below the bridge decking so it doesn't make any difference how high the creek comes up. This isn't a really good motion, and I'm having a hard time putting it into proper words.

President Jerrel: We understand. We understand.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: The thing is, the contract again is with Weddle. It's not with the county, it's with the state. You need some direction to the state that this is what you want to do. 

John Stoll: A lot of that will hinge on the costs because to work two and three shifts is going to be overtime cost instead of straight time. Then it comes back into the change order issue that the county will be paying more and so will the state. I haven't spoken to Weddle Brothers about that, but I can talk to them.

President Jerrel: Find out so we can...we can make a motion here, but we need some more information to take a look at.

Commissioner Tuley: Right, subject to cost and funding available. I guess my point is that I don't want to wait until all that's done and then start down that road. If there's anyway to do that.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll make a motion then that we direct the county engineer to discuss with the contractor and the state to find out what elements can be completed prior to the completion of the design so that we expedite the project.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Well, no. I think you're saying the whole thing.

President Jerrel: Yeah.

Commissioner Tuley: Well, it would be nice, but at least get us...what I say in the paper the other day was it looks like we could get it done by the end of the year, but it all hinges on everything down along the water level. Once Pigeon Creek comes up due to fall rains, if that doesn't get done before that happens, then we are delayed, and delayed, and delayed until that water goes back down. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay. So you are suggesting possibly that even once that design comes in that we have crews working 24 hours a day?

Commissioner Tuley: Up to a point that no matter how high that creek gets, it won't affect us completing that project before the end of the year. It may not require after you get to that point, second and third shifts. I just want to make sure that we don't have as an excuse...let me put it this way, I don't want to see as a reason--I don't want to say excuse, but as a reason that's not completed is because we couldn't get down there and get everything done before the fall rains. At least assuming that it doesn't start pouring down rain tomorrow.

President Jerrel: And that is what I saw today. We have actually two motions on the floor.

Commissioner Tuley: I'll rescind mine so he can tweak his.

Commissioner Mourdock: So I can rescind mine.

President Jerrel: I think the message we're-

Joe Harrison, Jr.: We need a motion.

President Jerrel: We need a motion.

Commissioner Tuley: We need a proper motion, but.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll rescind mine, so go ahead and take a shot again.

Commissioner Tuley: I would like for the engineer to work with the state so that we can get some cost estimates and their willingness to participate in the increased cost to put crews out there 24 hours to bring that project up to a point that everything structurally underneath the bridge is completed and done before the fall rains begin to avoid that being the reason this project cannot be completed by the end of the year.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll second.

President Jerrel: And I'll say so ordered. Now explain something to me. Why were those holes-when I went out there and looked at those beams, why do they have holes in them?

John Stoll: That's where they're going to anchor-they are going to have steel bars, I believe it's steel bars. The tie backs are going to be anchored to the piling at those locations. They will anchor it back to the north approach of the fill.

President Jerrel: Okay. They looked like they put another cap back in it that stuck out a little ways and soldered it in. I didn't ask them because about the time some woman wonders up there and says what are you doing and why, they'd probably throw me off. 

John Stoll: That's what it was. According to what Weddle Brothers told me this afternoon, they are going to have 36 tie backs on that wall. So there's 18 piles that are out there. They're going to have two rows on each pile anchored back into the north approach.

President Jerrel: If we...somebody from "our side" needs to be out there to take a look at what's going on. If it's somebody from Bernardin Lochmueller or somebody from your office-somebody needs to get out there and take a look.

John Stoll: Bernardin Lochmueller has been trying to minimize some of their hours as of late because due to the delays, their agreement is about maxed out and they are going to be submitting a supplemental agreement as well.

President Jerrel: What about somebody on your staff?

John Stoll: I really don't have anybody to put out there all the time. 

President Jerrel: Could someone just to by there and stop in and see what's going on?

John Stoll: I think we can get Bernardin to do that. They are going to prepare a supplemental so any increased hours required from their staff could be reflected in that supplemental. 

President Jerrel: Well, I just had that feeling when I was out there.

Commissioner Tuley: Based on what you say, I don't blame you.

John Stoll: I saw the same thing. I was out there about 11:30.

President Jerrel: Okay. Alright. Is there anything else?

John Stoll: Yeah. I've got a sidewalk waiver request for Eagle Plaza West Subdivision. This is located on the west side of Boehne Camp Road, south of Lloyd Expressway. They are requesting a waiver. There are no sidewalks anywhere along Boehne Camp nor are there any sidewalks over here on Pearl Drive. Sidewalks were not requested anywhere during subdivision review process.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the sidewalk waiver.

Commissioner Tuley: Second. I was going to say that they don't walk anywhere. They drive from place to place.

John Stoll: Next, I wanted to let you know that Norfolk Southern Railroad will be closing Burkhardt Road, north of Morgan starting next Monday. They are going to close it for a week for the installation of the new railroad crossing as part of the Burkhardt and Morgan project. It should close around 8:00 a.m. next Monday. So if you get any calls, that's what it's about. The new crossing will be installed.

Commissioner Mourdock: Do they have to post a performance bond with us as far as the number of days the road will be closed?

John Stoll: No. That was all federally contracted and contracts with the state.

Commissioner Mourdock: It is my fervorant hope that they are done within the timetable they say they're going to be done. 

John Stoll: Mine too with all the other detours out there.

Commissioner Mourdock: Do you know, did they have to post a bond with the state?

John Stoll: Off the top of my head, I'm not sure.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: How long is it suppose to be again?

John Stoll: One week.

Commissioner Tuley: I got a...it's not related to the county, it's inside the city, but the work they're doing on Second Street, did you see it today? They're drilling holes all down through Second. 

John Stoll: No.

Commissioner Tuley: I got on it at Walnut going all the way down to Vine. So they had one lane of traffic. I wonder if that's tied directly to what they're doing on (inaudible). The timing of it just kills me. We've got Riverside blocked off rerouting everyone down to Second Street. Now we got Second Street, on one side of the road, blocked and down to one lane.

John Stoll: I saw that Friday.

President Jerrel: I'm sure someone said, "Don't those people ever talk to each other?" 

Commissioner Mourdock: Back to the other one, I hope if they go long that the state would make the bond or something. 

John Stoll: I'll check into that, I'm not sure off the top of my head.

Commissioner Mourdock: This is one of those strange phenomenon when the state bids it, we have very little control. I guess you weren't looking for a motion, that was just advisory.

John Stoll: Just to let you know it's coming up here shortly. Next, I've got street plans for Quail Hollow Business Park and a sidewalk waiver for Quail Hollow Business Park. This is located on Green River Road, just south of the Timbers Apartments. The Timbers are right here. The street would be a curb and gutter street. They're going to stub it out to the south for future connections to the properties to the south. 

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Then you need a separate one for the sidewalk? I'd move approval of the sidewalk waiver for Quail Hollow Business Park.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: The next set of street plans I've got is for Section II of Five Oaks Subdivision. This is located on Hedden Road, south of Kansas Road. Here again, they'll have curb and gutter streets. I believe they are going with concrete streets. We've reviewed the plans and would recommend that they be approved.

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: The last set of plans is for Keystone Section 7. This is at the southwest corner of Green River and Heckel. It's a continuation of the previous sections. They will all be residential except right at the corner of Heckel and Green River there will be a small area of commercial at that location. It's recommended that these plans be approved.

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: Next, I'd like to request approval to go to County Council to appropriate $30,000 to account number 216-3930 the Other Contractual account. This is to cover the cost increases we had on the contracts for repair of West Haven Subdivision. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: Last. I just wanted to let you know that the Lynch and 164 project, the bids were received on that project last Tuesday for $7.1 million. Seven million one hundred and ten thousand some odd dollars. The contract was awarded by INDOT. The second lowest bidder was $490 less.

Commissioner Mourdock: On a seven and a half million dollar bid! Four hundred and ninety dollars difference.

Commissioner Tuley: That close?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: As far as the estimate was concerned, it was what?

John Stoll: Substantially under. Consultants estimate was $9.2 million. So it was about two million under.

Commissioner Mourdock: Rumor had it that the second place bidder went home and hit his hand with a hammer continuously just to take away the pain.

President Jerrel: That's close. Have you heard anything confirming the sewer and water movement?

John Stoll: No, I have not.

President Jerrel: I did contact...I was going to tell you because we may need to enlist your help. There was some concern that they had not followed through and included our cost of moving the sewer and the water. Anyway, I did a little talking around in various places. Anyway, they're going to do it, but we have to make sure that it stays on track.

Commissioner Tuley: Who does "they" include?

President Jerrel: EA2.

John Stoll: The utilities that Betty Lou's talking about are located in the right-of-way so, since they are not in an easement the Utility Department should be responsible for the relocation cost instead of the county. Bernardin Lochmueller wasn't having much success in getting any cooperation from the Utility Department.

Commissioner Tuley: I can't imagine who she talked to.

President Jerrel: Actually, I talked to Norb, and I talked with Russ, and he did the talking, but at any rate-

Commissioner Tuley: I thought he might have been in that puzzle.

President Jerrel: He is, he was in the puzzle.

John Stoll: I've got two other items on that Burkhardt project. First, I need to request approval to have the county attorney proceed with condemnation for parcel number 7, parcel number 8, parcel number 26. 

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: The second item is a supplemental agreement for $9,000. This would be for the survey and design of a right turn lane on Lynch Road at Burkhardt Road. The traffic study that was done by Bernardin Lochmueller showed the need for an eastbound right turn lane on Lynch at Burkhardt. That was never addressed in the original design agreements with Bernardin Lochmueller. It appears, based on their estimates, that funding will be available for that based on the amount we already have budgeted. I'd like to recommend that this supplemental be signed.

Commissioner Mourdock: Question, John. Are we approving this because funding is available or are we approving this because we think there's a need? 

Commissioner Tuley: Traffic study, I think, justified it, and there is money available.

John Stoll: Both. There's definitely a traffic need for it.

Commissioner Mourdock: Or will be.

John Stoll: Right.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

John Stoll: Originally when we were looking at it, we didn't know if there would be enough funding available. Their estimate for this turn lane because of the concrete pavement and shoulder that's required out there will be around $50,000. Since it's all locally funded, we didn't know if there would be money available. Based on the way the design is proceeded, it looks like we do have enough in the accounts to cover the cost.
 

Approval of Department Head Reports

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the County Highway's report, the Soil and 

Water Conservation District report, and the Ozone Officer's report, and Burdette Park.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

President Jerrel: How about consent items?

Commissioner Mourdock: How about attorney and superintendent report?

President Jerrel: Oh, I forgot about them.
 

Joe Harrison, Jr. - County Attorney

Joe Harrison, Jr.: The only thing I have, John, is the utility reimbursement agreement for you to look at for the Ameritech issue. I made some changes to that draft so I'll let you have that. That's all I have.
 

Tony Greubel - Superintendent of County Buildings

Commissioner Mourdock: I don't know if Tony?

President Jerrel: Tony?

Tony Greubel: Permission to advertise a notice to the public in the Courier about the Vanderburgh County surplus vehicle auction to be held October 12^th at Wolfe's Auto Auction.

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 
 

Consent Items - Click here to view them

President Jerrel: Consent items?

Commissioner Mourdock: One questions on the consent items. Who is this person? 

President Jerrel: I'll tell you who that is. That's the Soil and Water, isn't that who that is? Sondra Schmitt in Vanderburgh County changes?

Tony Greubel: That's the clerk's for overtime bond department.

President Jerrel: And overtime is in our budget. That's what it is.

Commissioner Mourdock: Do you have a question too, Pat?

Commissioner Tuley: Who is-

Tony Greubel: That's the woman that-

Commissioner Tuley: That's the one lady that they...for some reason I had her coming from way out west.

Tony Greubel: Yeah. She's up in Goshen, Indiana right now. She must have been in Oklahoma.

Commissioner Tuley: But that is the one that they wanted?

President Jerrel: And Council approved it.

Commissioner Tuley: Okay, so that's going to be added to the consent.

Tony Greubel: Yes.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the consent items then with that addition .

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

Old Business

President Jerrel: Old business?
 

New Business

Commissioner Tuley: I've got a question under new business, I guess. I'm not sure what I've been trying to read about what's going on with this health insurance through Welborn and St. Mary's and all that. Is that, I mean, is that us? Those of us that are on Welborn HMO don't have health insurance on January 1?

President Jerrel: No, you're just going to have to go to their doctors.

Jane Laib: They are dropping certain physicians.

Tony Greubel: The St. Mary's doctors are being dropped from Welborn HMO.

Commissioner Tuley: It will be through St. Mary's HMO?

Jane Laib: As long as you have a Welborn doc, you'll be okay. But all the ones that were under St. Mary's are gone as of December 31^st.

Commissioner Tuley: My doctor is under Welborn.

Jane Laib: Then you're fine.

Tony Greubel: You'll just have to go to Deaconess instead of St. Mary's. 

Commissioner Tuley: Same doctors, different hospital.

Jane Laib: Except like for me, I had a lot of St. Mary's doctors so mine are all changing or I have to change.

Commissioner Tuley: That's going to be weird because the guy doing my surgeries is a St. Mary's doctor.

President Jerrel: Which one is it?

Commissioner Tuley: Heinrich. 

President Jerrel: I think he's both. 

Commissioner Tuley: He's both, okay.

President Jerrel: He's in that surgical group and they go both ways.

Commissioner Tuley: I kept reading this and asking what in the world does this mean to us?

President Jerrel: When the smoke settles, we'll get everything settled.

Tony Greubel: Should we get quotes from another like for example, St. Mary's is starting a new HMO called Advantage HMO which will have their doctors be their HMO, and they were interested in submitting price quotes to us.

President Jerrel: I think we'll want Tony Flittner to do that because we know there's going to be changes everywhere. I mean, the shake out is not through yet. 

Commissioner Tuley: That was just a question. I just didn't know what to expect.

President Jerrel: You're probably okay. Is there any other new business?

Commissioner Tuley: Not by me.
 

Adjournment

President Jerrel: Is there a motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:30 p.m.
 

CONSENT ITEMS:

Employment Changes:
Commissioners 
Circuit Court 
Election Office
Health 
Knight Assessor 
Centre
Highway 
Veterans Services 
Sheriff
Soil & Water 
Burdette Park 
Commissioners

Travel Requests:
Knight Assessor 
Health

Commissioners:
Erin Breetzke Pink Slip

Sheriff:
Submit Weekly Reports
 

THOSE IN ATTENDANCE:
Betty Lou Jerrel 
Richard E. Mourdock 
Patrick Tuley 
Joe Harrison, Jr. 
Suzanne Crouch 
Jane Laib
Tony Greubel 
Steve Craig 
Eric Williams
John Stoll 
Judge Scott Bowers 
Judge Doug Knight
Clark Field 
David Coker 
Richard Helzerman
Judge Carl Heldt 
Cyd McNeilly 
Julie Von Arx
Bill Shepler 
Al Bennett 
Stan Levco
Judge Bob Pigman 
Allen Henson
John Althoff 
Brad Ellsworth 
Jeff Korb
Others Unidentified 
Members of Media 
 

APPROVAL:

VANDERBURGH COUNTY
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

______________________________
Betty Lou Jerrel, President

______________________________
Richard E. Mourdock, Vice President

______________________________
Patrick Tuley, Member
 

Recorded by Jane Laib
Transcribed by Jane Laib, Charlene Timmons, Teri Lukeman