VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

SPECIAL MEETING

SEPTEMBER 18, 2006

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners met in special session this 18^th day of September, 2006 at 9:30 a.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Cheryl Musgrave presiding. This meeting was called for the sole purpose of discussing and approving the MCR contract for IT services for Vanderburgh County.

President Musgrave: Good morning. I would like to open the September 18, 2006 special meeting of the Board of Commissioners of Vanderburgh County. It’s 9:30 in the morning. This meeting has been called for one sole purpose, and that is to discuss and approve the IT contract. But, let’s start the meeting with introductions to my right.

Marissa Nichoalds: Marissa Nichoalds, Superintendent of County Buildings.

Kathryn Schymik: Kathryn Schymik, from the office of the County Attorney.

Commissioner Nix: Bill Nix, County Commissioner.

President Musgrave: Cheryl Musgrave, Commissioner.

Commissioner Shetler: Tom Shetler, Jr., County Commissioner.

Madelyn Grayson: Madelyn Grayson, Recording Secretary.

Bill Fluty: Bill Fluty, County Auditor.

President Musgrave: Would you all please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Musgrave: Commissioner Nix, I know that you have spend uncounted hours working on this contract. If you would like to go ahead and lead the discussion.

Commissioner Nix: Good morning. I guess, this is something that’s taken place for quite some time, maybe over years, to possibly get some type of a system in place where the city and county and the court system are working toward one computer/enterprise, if you will, to get everybody on board. We had met with some consultants, probably over the last three months or so, looked at vendors, looked at different possibilities. I was a little surprised that we didn’t get more of a response from the vendors, more vendors, but, I think it’s part of the situation that we’re in. We were told by our consultants that we were too big to be little, and too little to be big. So, we moved ahead with our options. We’ve spent a numerous amount of time with the court system to make sure they had what they needed. We made some revisions to the contract, with the proposed contract with MRC, so that the court system could have more of what they need to move this thing forward. I think, today, we’re finally at that point where we can get this signed. I know there’s probably just a few little glitches that need to be worked out on some language, which we may need to come back and have amended. But, for the most part, 99.9 percent of it is good to go. Saying that, there I would like, there are a few people I would like to thank. Hopefully, I won’t leave anybody out. First off, the County Council for funding the project. They have been pretty creative this year with what they’ve had to do, with what they’ve had to work with, and cuts and that. So, I thank them. Two Councilmembers, Marsha Abell from the Council and Lloyd Winnecke, they both worked with us in the eleventh hour trying to get some things worked out, so, financially we could still move ahead with this today. Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel for his participation from the city. He’s hung right in there with us on some of the changes that the county’s had to make. Kevin Winternheimer, who is the city attorney, his input, with Jonathan on that. Ted Ziemer, early on, and Ted’s replacement, Kathryn Schymik, the last week or so. Kathryn kind of got the baptism by fire on this one. Judge Knight who has been instrumental with the courts system in keeping the court system secure. He does one heck of a job with that. Judge Heldt and his support. Judge Trockman, and lastly Matt Arvay, who’s lost a few nights of sleep over this. He may have more gray hair than I do in a couple of months. I don’t know, but, anyway, I would like to make a motion that we move forward with this contract with MRC.

Commissioner Shetler: I’ll second the motion.

President Musgrave: Before I call for the vote, I would like to ask Matt a couple of questions. Matt, what is the budget, what has been the budget, say last year for IT services in the city and county?

Matt Arvay: It was different. Together on the county side it was roughly $852,000 and some change, which was the core services plus the GIS budget. You have about $775,000 and change on the city side. Then there was additional money on the GIS side. So, together, I think the county spent, with the three percent, would be a little over a million dollars this year.

President Musgrave: And the city?

Matt Arvay: The city was just under that. About a million dollars.

President Musgrave: Okay, and the value of this contract?

Matt Arvay: A million dollars on the city side, $850,000 on the county side. The difference is on the reduction in services (Inaudible), provide the county, in particular, and the county courts.

President Musgrave: Okay, does that include the GIS budget as well?

Matt Arvay: Yes.

President Musgrave: Okay, so, we’re moving away from two separate budgets, and now it’s going to be one budget. As CIO how will your responsibilities change?

Matt Arvay: They won’t. They will just increase.

President Musgrave: I guess, that you’ll be doing that for roughly the same pay that you did last year too?

Matt Arvay: Yes.

President Musgrave: So, you will have expanded authority and responsibility, the same three percent raise, I think, that everybody else gets.

Matt Arvay: Yes.

President Musgrave: We will still have an IT vendor, it’s just that the vendor is a different person.

Matt Arvay: Exactly.

President Musgrave: The courts, however, will have two in-house personnel who will see to their desktop and their applications. So, we’re moving toward one sole control, greater over site, and, I guess, if something goes wrong we just call you, right?

Matt Arvay: Yes.

President Musgrave: Okay. Kathryn, is there anything, thank you, Matt. Is there anything that you would like to say about this contract?

Kathryn Schymik: I think that summary covers it. I think, you know, from a legal perspective that everybody was able to finally come together and reach an agreement that satisfies, you know, all parties seem to be, and we’re satisfied from a legal perspective with the terms of the contract.

President Musgrave: I’ll note that, as Commissioner Nix eluded to this point, that it’s probably been more than 20 years, or at least 20 years that this contract was last bid out. It has been a process, I know, that has taken at least a year from going through all of the services that are provided here in the city and the county, documenting them, bidding it out, receiving responses, and then it was bid out again hoping, again, to get more responses, and then a long period of lengthy negotiations. So, even though it was hard, I think it was worth the effort. I understand that we have a final version that came out this morning, and we have a motion and a second. Does anyone else have anything to say?

Commissioner Shetler: Yeah, let me, I did get a couple of last minute questions and stuff over the weekend from Judge Knight, and I assume by the lack of his presence here that all that’s been resolved?

Commissioner Nix: We had, once again, there was one section–

Kathryn Schymik: It’s, I believe, section five deals directly with the courts relationship with the vendor. Judge Knight is just unavailable this morning, he had obligations in court. We were communicating with him this morning, and there may be some room for additional discussions with Judge Knight. There’s just some fine tuning of some language that they may want to see. But, I think the substance of the contract will remain the same. Again, it’s just a little bit of clean up and fine tuning. We were trying to get all this done at the last minute, but, again, the substance of the contract will remain in tact.

Commissioner Shetler: He is not objecting, or we don’t have an objection to the basic concept here? Just some specific points? They are fine with us passing this today and working on resolving those small issues at a later point in time?

Kathryn Schymik: Correct. I discussed that with him this morning.

Commissioner Shetler: Okay.

Kathryn Schymik: He was aware that that was kind of the path that we were going to take, and he is agreeable to that.

Commissioner Nix: Commissioner, the point with this is that we’ve got little time, with the other contract running out. That we really need to get these people on board and get them up to speed. They need to do some hiring and get their feet on the ground. If we wait any longer, we’re going to have an interruption in services. We thought this would be, it could be catastrophic depending on how, the length it’s waited to do this. I just feel like we need to get this thing done and get MRC on board.

President Musgrave: The things that the courts are offering opinion on are the services in relationship to the courts alone. The bulk of this document deals with services to the entire city and county governmental structure. While this may seem like an effort, the words “last minute”, things getting done in a hurry, this has, this work has been in progress for at least a year. Like any contractual negotiation, it comes down to the very last, most difficult bits of it at the final, closing hours of the discussion. So, there has been solid work for a long period of time, and a number of negotiations, it’s just that the courts, from my understanding from my attorney this morning, they prefer the use of certain words, and the contract has other wording in place. So, it may be that they find that these words work after all. But, again, it only relates to a small portion of the overall contract.

Commissioner Shetler: And, was this brought up to other city and county office holders and department heads?

Commissioner Nix: The city attorney–

Commissioner Shetler: And did they vote on it? Or did they recommend it?

Commissioner Nix: The city attorney was at a meeting we had Thursday afternoon representing the Mayor, and he, basically, was there to be the Mayor’s eyes and ears. I don’t know if the Mayor couldn’t attend, but he was going to pass back any information to the Mayor if there was a problem, if he thought there would have been a problem at all. I think there was, Mr. Winternheimer had sent one e-mail with just a comment back. So, I think, it appears that the Mayor and the city attorney are on board with this also.

Commissioner Shetler: Alright. Thank you.

President Musgrave: We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, I will call for the vote. All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries. This special meeting was called for the sole purpose of considering this contract. May I have a motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: We’re adjourned.

(The meeting was adjourned at 9:42 a.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Cheryl Musgrave                                Bill Nix                            Tom Shetler, Jr.

Bill Fluty                                              Kathryn Schymik            Marissa Nichoalds

Madelyn Grayson                               Matt Arvay                      Others Unidentified

Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, President

Bill Nix, Vice President

Tom Shetler, Jr., Member

Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.