The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 10^th day of August, 2004 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 9:01 a.m. by County Council President Ed Bassemier.

President Bassemier: I’d like to welcome everybody to the 2005 budget hearings. Today we have this room from 9:00 to 12:00. We ought to have plenty of time to do it. I wish everybody would when they come before us please try to make it–don’t be too long winded. So anyway with that would everybody stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Tornatta		X*
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Winnecke	X
Councilmember Hoy	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Wortman	X
President Bassemier	X

President Bassemier: Our first office on the agenda is the Levee Authority. Mr. Mangold, please state your name please and that will be on page 175.

Robert Mangold: My name is Robert Mangold. I’m the Superintendent at the Evansville Levee Authority.

President Bassemier: Good morning, Mr. Mangold. Uh, 175. Of course, this was a joint with the city. We met last week on his budget. Anybody got any questions for Mr. Mangold? You got a pretty good budget.

Councilmember Hoy: I always ask if the levee is in good shape because I was born in 1937.

President Bassemier: No questions? Okay, we’re moving to Weights and Measures. Loretta.

Councilmember Wortman: Mr. Mangold, on line item 4251 Equipment in Union Township it went from $25,000 down to $22,600. Any particular reason for that?

President Bassemier: It’s 176, the bottom one, 4251. The last one on the page.

Robert Mangold: Okay, what that is is for dredging out there that we do out there and that was the bid that was put out.

Loretta Townsend: I should have left them at home. Loretta Townsend, Weights and Measures.

President Bassemier: Loretta also always has a really good budget and pretty well keeps everything the way they are. Anybody have any questions for Loretta?

Councilmember Winnecke: Loretta, related to the Gas & Oil line item. How are you on expenditures year-to-date, do you know?

Loretta Townsend: Oh, I’ve got it. Okay, 2210. We’ve got it listed as Gas & Oil though. Right now we have as of last week, August 3^rd is when I wrote it down for the last meeting, we have a balance of $1,177.85. The way we look at it this is really robbing Peter to pay Paul, like I told Royce before, but they won’t bill us for December until January. So we look at a lot of our things like that. So we’ll be okay. We’re not going to walk and carry that, so we’ll figure a way.

President Bassemier: Anybody else got a question for Loretta? Loretta, is there anything you would like to tell us?

Loretta Townsend: A lot, but we’re not getting into it. No, not really. I think–well, we try to stay–if you notice we had to–we took out $650 in order to cover the $500 that we needed and so really we’re under what we control $150 for next year which doesn’t seem like a lot, but to us if you look down through our line items it does. Like I told Royce, we rob Peter to pay Paul and as Royce says, you better watch it, one of these times Peter is going to come up short.

Loretta Townsend: The trucks are getting old. The Ford, the newest one, for no other way of putting it is a piece of junk and it was the day we brought it over there. Half the time it works and half the time it doesn’t. The doors unlock, sometimes they don’t. The windows go up, they don’t come down. I mean, it’s just the Ford is a big mess. If we ever get another one don’t send us across the street from us over there because it, you asked, it is a piece of junk.

Loretta Townsend: I know it was the low bid, but you get what you pay for. So vehicles we may look at something next year or if something goes belly up we’ll have to. We did get us a copy machine. Lisa and I went out and looked for that and found what we needed and not what they recommended in purchasing that we get because we didn’t need a fax, we did not need a scanner, we already those and the best we could do was way above what we already had, so we found one and we bought it and it is serving our purpose. We had the money to buy the one we went with.

President Bassemier: Is there any surplus out there that you could pick up somewhere else in one of the other departments? Probably it’s wore out.

Loretta Townsend: If it is any good they’re not going to get rid of it, Ed. We found that out the hard way. They gave us a car one time from the police department and Roy and I had to call Mike’s Towing to get it off the lot down there, so we’re–no, we’re past taking hand-me-downs.

President Bassemier: Sure. Anybody else? Thank you ma’am. Treasurer’s department, page 11.

President Bassemier: She is probably running a little bit late. We’ll come back to it. Treasurer’s department. County Clerk. Am I on the right page?

President Bassemier: Commissioner, County Commissioner? Hey, alright come on down. Catherine, please state your name. Good to see you.

Catherine Fanello: Good morning, Catherine Fanello, Vanderburgh County Commissioner. I do have a memo for each of you that we passed in our Commissioner meeting last night that is some additional information that we have received since we turned in info to Bill Fluty.

President Bassemier: Catherine, is there anything you want to point out to us first?

Catherine Fanello: Not anything in our budget specifically. I think you got our explanation on any increase, but just on the–I’m not sure this is working. Is it?

Councilmember Sutton: All the mikes are turned pretty low, you just have to really speak up.

Catherine Fanello: Alright, I’ll try. In the memo Dave Rector was supposed to be here this morning, but in the memo that we passed back on July 19^th after we had already turned our information into the Auditor we had not included any maintenance for the new jail or for Community Corrections which if you are aware we signed contracts with the Building Authority to be the maintenance people out there. We had assumed that the Sheriff had put that in his budget and it came to my attention that he had not. So I do have spreadsheets for that if you have not received them. Have you received anything from the Building Authority? Okay, I will have our office run copies and bring them over to you this morning.

Catherine Fanello: The other thing is Computer Services. Greg Baker sent me an email and you can read through that of some proposed changes. Actually, the city had reduced some line items in their budget therefore causing a reduction in one of our line items.

Catherine Fanello: But then Greg alerted me to the fact that maybe you might be moving courts technology into that line item, so I just included that in there just as a reminder. I’m not sure if that is happening or not, but it is mentioned that it might happen. In the self insurance loss fund, Dennis Feldhaus, I just passed a memo out to you, I met with him yesterday and he just wanted us to be aware that maybe we need to put some more money in the loss fund due to some of the losses we’ve had over the last year especially with the jail fire. So he just wanted you to be aware of that. And then there was one change on the GIS budget. Jim Cameron had emailed me and you can read that, but it was like an extra $8,000.

Catherine Fanello: Is that our budget? I just brought my copies with me. Is that our Commissioner budget?

Catherine Fanello: Yes? I increased that budget due to the fact that I would really like for you to continue to consider to fund televised meetings for both the Council and the Commission. As I wrote you a letter last week I feel it is very important to open government and I would like for you to consider this at budget time.

Councilmember Tornatta: Yeah, um, if we weren’t considering that would that be $1,500?

Councilmember Sutton: We haven’t spent anything according to this through June 30^th and last year we budgeted a lower figure than what we had in previous years and you’re requesting $30,000 this year. What is that?

Catherine Fanello: Well, that’s to the State Board of Accounts for a county audit and I don’t think you’ve been billed for this year yet, but I’m not sure why it was budgeted so low for 2004. I just looked at the history of expenditures from 2003, 2002 and 2001 and actually they were more than $30,000 in 2001, 2002, so I’m not sure how they calculate that invoice. That would probably be a question for State Board of Accounts.

Councilmember Sutton: Do you have any idea of when that–you say it normally would have already been billed this year?

Catherine Fanello: No, they haven’t completed our audit for this year. Bill Fluty, do you know when they invoice for that? Probably later in the year, right?

Bill Fluty: It will be later in the year. They’re still working on our audit at this time.

Councilmember Winnecke: Just to make sure I understand, the amount that we have in our book on line item 3860 of $677,023--

Catherine Fanello: By $123,431 and then if you are moving forward with combining our contractual with the courts technology you would have to increase it by $249,000, the net.

Catherine Fanello: Would be the–what is that, is that 3860, would be the $802,592, but the reduction due to the city’s reduction was $123,431.

Catherine Fanello: Yes, because that came in, I believe, that discussion was finalized after we had already turned everything in.

Councilmember Raben: Do you have any feel for how long that contribution is going to need to stay?

Catherine Fanello: Right, quite frankly I think it’s time for us to take a look at that. I know the Chamber has changed their role in the–they’ve kind of reorganized and come up with a different vision and I think it’s probably time that we take another look at that and maybe we, Commissioners and Council, could have a discussion with them and actually see how long we need to keep funding that because it looks like the project is moving forward, so I’m not exactly sure what they’re using the $20,000 for, but I would be willing to take a look at it.

President Bassemier: I’m sorry, Catherine, who did you say? Is that for lobbying up in Indianapolis?

Catherine Fanello: And I think they’ve expanded the focus not only to lobby in Indianapolis, but also to lobby in Washington as well.

President Bassemier: And the ambulance service has gone up? The ambulance service–

Catherine Fanello: They did request an increase and I told them I didn’t know how lucky they would be on getting that this year, but that I would go ahead and include it, but they did send me a letter and I can forward a copy of that letter over to you explaining why they felt like they needed an increase.

Catherine Fanello: And he just said the cost of providing services has gone up and they hadn’t had an increase in quite a while, so he just requested that we bring that issue up.

Councilmember Winnecke: I forgot, Catherine, what is–let me find it again. I forgot what line item 3460 Consultant is used for.

Catherine Fanello: Actually, we use that for the Auditor’s Office and that is for cost allocation, isn’t it, Bill. It’s with Maximus, I think.

Bill Fluty: Yes, that is correct. After they do the cost allocation then I think it was $120,000 that is increased to our Miscellaneous Revenues.

President Bassemier: Okay, page 141. That’s CCD funding. That’s 141. Anybody have a question? Mr. Winnecke.

Catherine Fanello: I’m not exactly sure how many. I know they were going to use–I think they also asked for some in their General Fund as well.

Catherine Fanello: Right. But I think they’re needing a transport vehicle, one or two transport vehicles for the new facility, so I’m not exactly sure what cost they are looking at for those. They were going to bid those out. Probably Eric would be a better person to answer that question, but I told him we would include it in this budget.

Councilmember Winnecke: Okay, so do you know if–okay, we’ll just talk to him tomorrow.

Catherine Fanello: I don’t have the detail or the breakdown of what he wanted.

Councilmember Sutton: By chance, Catherine, would happen to know what the projected revenue would be on the CCD for next year? I know that’s kind of a shot in the dark.

Catherine Fanello: –tradition I think we’re about $1.6, isn’t that right, Bill? Usually about $1.6.

President Bassemier: Okay, that’s fine. Okay, anybody else? Okay Drainage Board.

Councilmember Raben: Real quick on that same line, I guess maybe I’m not clear. That $300,000 includes Sheriff cars too?

Catherine Fanello: Yes, that is all–that is all–that is the Sheriff’s requests.

Councilmember Raben: Alright, we’ve got at least one other vehicle requested. I think Superior Court is needing a new juvenile transportation vehicle.

Catherine Fanello: Well, that was going to be my offer. As you go through the budget process, and that’s why we really didn’t budget a whole lot in CCD because we know some of the budget constraints that you are facing, but I would be more than happy to sit down with one, or two, or three of you and discuss if we need to add anything else and take it back to Board of Commissioners and get their approval.

President Bassemier: Okay, Drainage Board, page 83. That’s just, it looks like it’s just the board member’s salary. Page 83, Drainage Board. There probably won’t be any questions on that.

Catherine Fanello: You’ll see an increase in the depreciation reserves and according to Dave Rector that was in the contract that it was supposed to increase on a certain date, so we did go ahead and put it in there and you might want to have further discussion with the Building Authority on that issue.

Councilmember Raben: Well, just real quick I was going to make a comment on this budget.

Councilmember Raben: This is the budget that the additional Innkeepers tax pays and I know that I brought this up not too long ago in a meeting about keeping that in place to go towards offsetting this budget and this is that budget.

Catherine Fanello: For once, Councilman Raben, you and I agree. Not just for once, but we do agree.

Councilmember Raben: Thank you, thank you. So we need to continue to move towards that and to push to keep that in place to fund this.

Councilmember Tornatta: I was just going to ask, that number was what? Around $600,000 or $700,000?

Councilmember Tornatta: If this budget stays as it is then we’ll actually be short from the monies that we get in. Is that correct?

Catherine Fanello: A little, but it pretty much covers most of your budget, I think.

Councilmember Hoy: And that’s, as you all know, a figure that goes up and down depending on how many rooms are rented. This is a good year and I’m hopeful that continues. If that continues then that will help alleviate that, but you’re right it’s a little shy.

Councilmember Tornatta: It’s just one of those things that we have to look at where in the past it has been fully covered and maybe throw $50,000 in the General Fund and we’re looking this year of possibly adding $50,000 to this fund so when we’re going through here we need to keep our eye on that.

Catherine Fanello: Maybe you could have conversation about the depreciation reserves and come to some type of agreement on that so you wouldn’t have to use any General Fund money.

President Bassemier: The Centre, page 118. Okay. Any questions anybody? Pretty well self explanatory.

Councilmember Raben: I have just one quick question, Catherine. Have you seen any updated information as far as bookings?

Catherine Fanello: In fact I had (inaudible) send me a calendar. I’d be more than happy to forward that to you, but he does feel like business is increasing over there. We had a long discussion about their budget and he is supposed to actually be getting me their budget over the next couple of weeks. How they break down because I told him that we really needed, you know, to kind of tighten up everything over there and try to run as tight as possible, but he does feel like business is increasing and he did pass along some information to me.

Councilmember Winnecke: I just have one question. What all falls under Contractual Services line 3530?

Catherine Fanello: Basically, just about anything and everything. Any kind of maintenance that we might need, any general maintenance. I think extermination fees. I’m not sure if she puts the trash pickup in there. I could get you a list of everything that does come out of there. Okay.

Councilmember Winnecke: Before the Commissioner leaves I have a question unrelated to–it’s sort of related, but do we know yet anything on information from our insurance carriers relating to the fire and what they will or will not cover?

Catherine Fanello: I do not know anything other than what we’re obligated as far as the first $100,000. I think everybody is still compiling information and I know Eric is keeping all the information, so other than that I don’t know anything at this point.

Catherine Fanello: Well, that was kind of my question and I haven’t really got an answer back on that yet.

Catherine Fanello: No, because I don’t know that we have everything in yet. I know Eric was compiling all that information for the insurance carrier.

Councilmember Tornatta: Just real quick, we’re going to try and meet with that committee that’s going to get together and talk about the possibility of the new pod on Thursday at, what did we say, 2:00 or 3:00? I think it’s at 2:00 on Thursday.

Catherine Fanello: Okay, I’ll have to check my calendar, but off the top of my head I can’t think of anything I have. Where will you be meeting?

Councilmember Tornatta: We can meet in the–try and meet in this next room over.

Councilmember Tornatta: I have talked to Royce, Lloyd, Marsha Abell, Bill Fluty, the Sheriff’s Office, and I am still waiting to hear back from some judges.

President Bassemier: Troy, could you send me something on that? I haven’t seen anything on that. Could you just maybe send a letter out and I would kind of like to go through this way out. I didn’t know anything about it.

President Bassemier: Curt, did you know about it? Special meeting, Thursday at 2:00?

Councilmember Tornatta: It’s not a scheduled meeting. It doesn’t have to be. There is no quorum.

Catherine Fanello: I want to make sure about that, because whenever Kevin was talking to us about committee meetings it depends on how you set up the committee, but he thought that, you know, they may need to be advertised or something. So I think we better check with Jeff Ahlers on that.

President Bassemier: I’d really like, Troy, if you could I would really like to be informed of any meetings or anything so if anybody asks me a question I can be educated enough on it to tell them. I didn’t know anything about it. If we can, I would like everybody, if we’ve got any meetings or something I would kind of like it to come through the President and let me share it, is that okay? Okay.

Jeff Ahlers: Well, my suggestion would be, again, well the primary test is whether there is going to be, you know, any action taken. But to be on the safe side because sometimes you get in those meetings and you don’t know what is going to occur and then you get there and somebody wants to take some action. If you’re going to have four or more I would suggest to be on the safe side just go ahead and advertise it. If you’re not going to have four then, you know, it’s not necessary, but just to be safe I probably would.

Councilmember Tornatta: Did we advertise the blue ribbon committee extension meetings or the criminal justice plan meetings?

Councilmember Tornatta: Well, nor will we here. That’s why I have set it up as such.

Jeff Ahlers: Well, I agree with you if you only have three here, but I guess what I was hearing was there may be more than just the three of you that may want to attend. If only the three of you attend that may be a different story, but I guess I am sort of hearing there may be some other folks that want to come.

Councilmember Tornatta: Well, I have talked to the Commissioners about setting up a study group to bring back a decision within 30 to 45 days. I’ve brought it to everyone’s attention last Wednesday at the Council meeting. I have just made it three councilmen because we want to stay out of those issues and mainly it’s the same people that are on the criminal justice planning in those meetings. However, we’re trying to do this expeditiously and not get a meeting every third Thursday like they have been planning. We’re trying to get some discussion going about one simple topic and with those terms and how we’re doing this there would be no reason to call a public meeting for those issues in studying this progress–process. We’re not going to make any decisions until it comes before a board.

President Bassemier: Is this going to be behind closed doors and it won’t be open to the public?

Councilmember Tornatta: Well, I’ll open the door if that will help, but I am just saying that it’s, yeah, if anyone wants to come in they can. But we have to have a meeting somewhere and it’s not a situation where we should have to advertise that meeting because we don’t do it for the criminal planning meetings.

Catherine Fanello: Well, we do on the criminal justice planning group meetings we do advertise those as public meetings. I just want to be careful because Kevin just made that suggestion after we talked about it in the meeting a couple of weeks ago and since he just brought it up I hadn’t had a chance to tell you, but he did bring it up. The criminal justice planning group meetings are advertised.

Councilmember Raben: Just to be on the safe side why not just go ahead and advertise it? You can advertise a special meeting in 48 hours right?

President Bassemier: Yeah, I had always preferred that the meetings be advertised and be open so everybody is in the know, and, Phil, I’m sorry. You was going to ask something, Mr. Hoy.

Councilmember Hoy: Commissioner Fanello already said what I was going to say that the criminal justice planning group meetings (inaudible).

President Bassemier: I always like to keep things open. We don’t have nothing to hide. It’s always better to open the doors. So if you have it we’ll advertise it? I’m sorry, Teri, I guess we need to set up a time. When is it? We probably don’t have a definite–this isn’t definite yet is it, Catherine?

Councilmember Tornatta: Yeah, it just became definite. It’s 2:00 on Thursday in that room.

President Bassemier: See, that’s what I mean. We need–first we’ve got to make sure this room is open. I’m sorry, Catherine.

Catherine Fanello: It’s okay. I just wanted to be–Kevin had just stopped me after the meeting and I didn’t know how we were proceeding, but I just wanted to make sure that we did it in the manner that he wanted us to.

President Bassemier: And this committee is what? What’s the committee’s name? What are we doing here now again?

President Bassemier: Oh, a committee to study a third pod, okay. And it’s Thursday at 2:00, okay. Anybody else got any questions for Catherine?

Catherine Fanello: Did you want to do Local Roads and Streets, Highway and Burdette Park?

President Bassemier: Let’s see, Veterans Administration is next. I know Mark–

Catherine Fanello: You want to do all those while I’m up here? I mean, I don’t mind. If Mark’s is real short maybe we should just let him go ahead and go and then I can come back up.

President Bassemier: Are you serious about cutting it on the elevator lower than what he has?

Mark Acker: Yeah, you know they have (inaudible) trip. I’m not going to make many of them at county. As a matter of fact, Catherine, I would like to commend you on allowing me to go to the Old Courthouse because it is safer. These people want to cut my salary in half. On that note, our office last year generated $17 million from the Veterans Administration. That is their figures of monies for pension, comp, educational assistance, voc rehab, the entire package. Vanderburgh County pays $17 million last year. This year closed $28 million in revenue that our office was able to generate through claims worked back to the federal government which came here and on that note I would like a pay raise.

Mark Acker: I would love to have a pay raise. Three percent, I understand we have some people asking for as much as $10,000. I would, you know, I’m not greedy. Three or four would be nice, you know.

Mark Acker: Just a little slice of the pie, you know. But, no, really our office did a tremendous job and we thank you for funding it. It helps the veterans and it takes care of their programs. Like I say, we see a lot of people and we work very closely with several of the offices including the judges and we have a good program working and I am proud to be the service officer and thank you. Now, are you going to cut my salary?

Mark Acker: Just my $500 training, okay? I’ll get that back from Catherine later. Thank you.

President Bassemier: Teri, getting back to the room next door for the third pod committee it is open Thursday from 2:00 to 4:00, so if you don’t mind go ahead and advertise that. Bill.

Bill Fluty: Is this a Council meeting? I mean, we advertise for the Council and we’re going outside of that?

Jeff Ahlers: Well, I don’t exactly know. I mean, I don’t know that a formal committee has been created, so I mean I guess the president will have to decide. I guess what I would do I think in the past, and it might have been when we met on some of the jail construction stuff years ago that we just basically put out some sort of notice saying that, you know, there may be a quorum of County Council members meeting as part of I don’t know what we want to call it. You know, some sort of committee and just notice it up and say that, you know, action may be taken. I mean, the problem we have here is I don’t think this is a formally created committee, so I don’t know how to exactly pigeonhole this. I mean, what I would suggest, you know, is just going ahead and advertising that a quorum of County Council members may be present and that action may be taken period.

Councilmember Tornatta: I’ll tell you what, if that is the case just have all the Council members there. I’m fine with that. I did it with three so it wouldn’t be a quorum, but I mean, I know Phil is interested in being there and if anybody else is then that’s fine advertise it as such, but my thought was to keep it in a situation where it was merely a study group as opposed to having a full Council.

Jeff Ahlers: I don’t think it needs to be a County Council meeting. We just need to advertise that a quorum of council members may be meeting, that there may be a quorum. I mean, if less than four of you show up then so be it, but to be on the safe side if four or more of you show up we’ve covered our bases on that issue.

Jeff Ahlers: If you want I can work with you on that, but I think we’ve done that before, like I said with the jail.

Jeff Ahlers: There have been times when different people have met as part of committees and that, I think in fact you guys did the same thing where we would all have to get together and a couple of Commissioners and just to make sure if any action is taken that it has been duly noticed.

President Bassemier: Yes, there is a good possibility that there will be more than three because when you talk about spending $5 million of tax dollars I think probably more than three will show up. So I agree we should be on the safe side and advertise it.

Jeff Ahlers: No, I don’t think so. I mean, that’s up to Mr. Bassemier, I suppose. From what I hear everybody saying I don’t think this is a formal County Council member meeting that needs to be recorded unless you want it to be.

Councilmember Hoy: It’s not at this point because our president has not appointed this committee officially. If he were to appoint it officially then–

President Bassemier: I’ll tell you what, this is really the wrong time to be doing this. I mean, we’re here for budget hearings and so–

Councilmember Hoy: Well, since we’ve talked about it this long I sure would favor a notice going out because we’re about as public as you can get. The media is here.

Councilmember Hoy: And I think they have a right to be there Thursday and I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t be there.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, I think that seems to be the original issue before we kind of got off there, was making sure that anyone who wants to attend can attend, that the public is aware of the meeting, no decisions or actions will be made, but they might have some suggestions that they might want to make that might be helpful for the meeting. So if we can address that particular issue, I think that’s what we’re–I don’t think it’s a formal Council meeting per se since you’ve got others from other offices that are involved with this, but obviously we’re talking about a public interest or topic.

Bill Fluty: We might have a problem comprising the format and wording on this particular notice.

Bill Fluty: But I’m not sure we could get it to the paper and printed before the meeting. I mean, they usually require more time than what we have right now.

Councilmember Tornatta: Not if the meeting is on Thursday as it was supposed to be.

Catherine Fanello: Just as a side note, just from what our attorney has told us, it doesn’t have to be printed in the paper. All that needs to happen is the media needs to be noticed and that can be through fax, email or a telephone call as long as it is posted here, but it does not have to be printed in a newspaper and it does not have to be recorded. In fact, we went through a little similar discussion with Kevin last night for an additional meeting the Commissioners are having. It does not have to be recorded, it does not have to be verbatim minutes. It can be a summary. You don’t even have to do minutes.

--having trouble, I guess, wrestling with, I mean, I don’t know what other entities are involved. Obviously, whatever we do, you know, is going to be to take care of Council because, I mean, its not a formal committee. So, I mean, I guess if there’s other groups that have this problem as part of this committee, they’ll need to send their own notices in that regard.

Councilmember Tornatta: You know, the reason we went with one Commissioner is to try and avoid those types of things so they can go back and be the liaison from this study group just to say these are some of the things we found out. We’re going to try and make a presentation and that’s why we were just saying, you know, we’ll take three of us, bipartisan effort, to try and tackle this issue. I’ve tried to bring in as many bipartisan entities as possible to play, and we’re going to have the judges. They’re bipartisan as well. So we’re trying to do this to make everything as even as possible to find the true degree if this thing is going to work or not. And that’s how we’ve went about it. Now I was doing that in an effort to make sure that not everybody had to be there and the thing would be very low key and no action will be taken until it was presented to the boards.

President Bassemier: Yeah, I’ll agree it was low key, four of us probably didn’t know about it.

Councilmember Raben: Let’s go ahead and send the notice. I mean, its not that big an issue if the parties involved have already been told 2:00 Thursday, let’s let the –

President Bassemier: Okay, is that fine? We won’t advertise it, Bill. I’ll let Sandie send out a notice or Jeff is going to write it up and we’ll send it out. Okay, thank you. Sorry, I was in the dark on this.

President Bassemier: County Highway, page 129. Hi, John. Okay, anybody got any questions on 129? 130? Okay, 131? Okay, 132? Tires and Tubes went up, didn’t they?

Catherine Fanello: 2220, well, all of those supply line items are set in at what they previously have been set in at. If you remember last year, and Bill remembers what happened, but all of those line items got zeroed out by the state because we did not have enough revenue in that Highway fund. So I’ve just gone ahead and set them in at what they were previously, and we’ll have to wait and see what our revenue estimates come back at and how we can adjust from there.

Catherine Fanello: Yeah, all those supply accounts are for the same reason, they’re all set in at what they used to be set in at.

President Bassemier: Okay, anymore questions on 132? 133? Letting the County Highway off easy.

Councilmember Winnecke: Mr. President, I would just ask what the computer expense is for. 3370?

Catherine Fanello: 33 – Computer (Data Management). I think that is for some software that they have out there that they actually have maintenance on and I can check on that for you.

Catherine Fanello: I found it. I’ll get back with you on that, but I think its for some software that they have a maintenance contract on.

Councilmember Sutton: Yes, item 3630 Equipment Lease and Rental, what all does that include?

John Stoll: John Stoll, County Engineer. That’s an account that Dennis works out of at the County Highway department. I suspect its for any equipment that they don’t have when they’re doing a project, like if they need a milling machine or something like that, they’ll have to go out and get it. I’m not sure what else he might have coming out of there, but I would suspect its just anything that they don’t have that they need in order to get a project done.

Councilmember Raben: We used to have a lease on a gradall. I don’t know if we still do, but that’s probably paid out of that.

President Bassemier: Okay, Cum Bridge fund, page 135. Any questions on 135? 136?

Councilmember Wortman: Line item 2530 Bituminous Materials, that’s the approaches on these bridges, isn’t it?

John Stoll: Yes. The way the Cum Bridge law is set up, you can go up to 500 feet either side of the bridge or culvert.

Councilmember Sutton: Now, we requested 50 there, but I guess if you look kind of over the progression of time, expenses haven’t been up to that amount. What all is generally included there?

John Stoll: There again, that’s one of the accounts that Dennis Hudnall uses out at the County Highway department and I’m not familiar with what all he might spend out of that account. Something we’ll have to check on.

John Stoll: I put that in there to try and do some renovations that require some additional space next to our existing office. We’re basically out of space and we want to try and move over into room 305 in the old courthouse. Back when we moved there ten or eleven years ago, that’s the same account we used for painting, carpeting, electrical work, you name it. Anything needed to renovate the space and that’s what that’s in there for.

Councilmember Wortman: And the item right underneath it, that would be additional rent you’d pay?

Catherine Fanello: I was going to say, we could look at, if we could look at moving those repairs, if you allow him to move or acquire additional space, we could look at taking those out of CCD.

John Stoll: It would depend on how its done. There are actually two rooms on the side of the building that we’re on that are vacant. One was, – well, I guess they were both occupied by the Arts Council at one point. It would just depend on whether or not we took over all of it or just part of it.

Councilmember Hoy: But you’d be moving into part of that, so that would begin to fill up that third floor, then.

Councilmember Wortman: And then the following item underneath that, 3930 Other Contractual increased that to $175,000.

John Stoll: That was increased on the basis of what we’re seeing for this year. We’ve had several large culvert projects come up. The latest one we’re working on right now is on Bromm Road and these are usually projects that are initiated once the paving schedule is (inaudible).

Councilmember Winnecke: I just have one remaining question, everyone has covered the others. On the communications, in your justification, you asked for two additional cell phones. How many people in the department have cell phones now?

John Stoll: The two additional ones were acquired, one for me and one for Mike Wathen when he was transferred into my office. We had two prior to that for the inspectors that were out on the job sites on a regular basis.

John Stoll: No, we’ve got four total. We acquired two more this year, early this year.

Councilmember Raben: I have a quick question on this. On cell phones, is everybody just getting their own plans or do we have one big pool or –

Catherine Fanello: As far as I know, the Purchasing department did bid it out and they do have a plan, I think, through Cingular. But I have noticed, as you know, the Commissioners are trying to work towards doing an audit for the entire county, that we may have some out there that are not on Cingular. So hopefully after we do this audit, maybe we can get a grasp on what’s out there, but I think he does try to get everybody to stick to a Cingular plan.

Councilmember Wortman: Okay, line item 4408 Burkhardt Road Bridge, about where is that at?

John Stoll: That’s just south of Hirsch Road. Actually, its right at the intersection of Hirsch and Burkhardt.

John Stoll: That project is recommended through the bridge inventory and it called for some repair work for next year.

John Stoll: That’s south of the curve there where Kentucky curves in the same –

John Stoll: If you continue west on St. George, go around the curve. Its on that stretch of Kentucky there.

John Stoll: One of them is north of the railroad tracks, just north of the county garage. That’s the one that will be replaced. And the other one is the one over Locust Creek which is between, probably about halfway between Mill and Allens Lane.

Councilmember Winnecke: Line 3630 Equipment Lease & Rental, I couldn’t find anything in the explanation book as to what that is for. Actually, yeah, it’s a little lower than last year, but its an amount that’s a relatively new expense in this budget.

John Stoll: That’s something, again, that will have to be checked on with Dennis because he uses that line item.

Councilmember Wortman: Line item 4824, is that intersection, is that going to include a light out there at that intersection?

President Bassemier: Catherine, on 152 again, that 3930, did you give us an answer for that? I know it was –

President Bassemier: Okay, that’s what I thought it was. Okay, anymore questions on 153?

Councilmember Hoy: I just have one more appeal for a traffic light down at Red Bank and, what is that, Upper Mt. Vernon?

John Stoll: We’ve got a flashing light being designed right now for that and ultimately, if the flashing light doesn’t help anything out then there’s a possibility of putting in a four way stop or a traffic signal would be the next step.

Councilmember Hoy: I just keep hearing from the residents out there because they think its just a place where you’re going to have a pretty huge accident. I hope not. (Inaudible – several speaking at once)

John Stoll: – it drops to 35 immediately east of Red Bank, and if you go on up to the west on Upper Mt. Vernon, but then you pass Diefenbach, there’s a curve in the road that’s a problem as well, so we’re looking at the possibility of just lowering the speed limit to 35 all the way through there.

Councilmember Hoy: That won’t slow them down. It doesn’t slow anybody down anywhere in this city. You know, unfortunately, in the county or any place else, for that matter.

Councilmember Wortman: 153, 4741 Eickhoff-Koressel, is that all, including the right-of-way, has that been bought up or what is the process there?

John Stoll: That would be for right-of-way purchases for the next phase between Upper Mt. Vernon Road and Marx Road. It would also include the right-of-way, engineering and right-of-way buying service as well.

Councilmember Hoy: I’ll raise my question one more time since this is going to be my last budget here, are you buying any extra land around those intersections? Because my take on this is, if we don’t buy the land now, businesses will develop there. Then when the traffic merits it, you know, the state and fed or somebody might get interested in putting some more money into it, put in some realtor sections, then it will be too late. We do that all the time. This is, we have an opportunity on this road to buy enough land around the intersection so that when the time comes, when the traffic merits, then we’ll own the land and that’s what I’d like to see us purchase. It just makes sense to me in future planning because I don’t see the money coming – and its not going to come because I-69 is going to go down the east side of the city. The west side is growing, we need a bypass on the west side and the feds, and I don’t think the state is going to – its not going to happen unless we do it, and one way we could make that a far better road is to own some land around those intersections. That’s something I would like for you all to consider. I think it just makes sense to do it and it may take us a little longer, but we’ll get a better road.

John Stoll: The only problem is lack of funding to keep buying what we need already to build the existing road based on the existing design. We probably spent two and a half million dollars buying the right-of-way for the first two miles and if we continue at that same pace, I don’t know how we could afford to build the road. I won’t disagree with you, but it would always be better to own more right-of-way, its just I don’t know where we would come up with the money to be able to do it.

Councilmember Hoy: I understand that. My point is that, if we come back later and redo an intersection, two million dollars will seem like pocket change, you know, in comparison to being able to do it, you know, ahead. And I know we’re tight on money, I understand that, but it’s a strong suggestion because I just see it everywhere. Every time I come back from Indianapolis and there’s a traffic light every two miles starting in Gibson County, which is kind of a waste.

Councilmember Raben: Just one quick comment. We were on the Red Bank and Upper Mt. Vernon Road intersection and I’ve mentioned several times before about extending Rosenberger through to Upper Mt. Vernon Road at some point and I don’t know, its something I think we still need to look at.

John Stoll: That project, while it could be done, would be difficult because that’s all the Carpentier Creek flood way through there. You could get the permits for the construction in the flood way, but chances are you’d have a lot of mitigations you’d have to deal with, kind of like that developer is having to deal with right now at the southeast corner of that intersection. If it was built straight through, yeah, it would be a much better route than curving down Red Bank.

John Stoll: I’m not sure, also, what impacts you might have to the businesses there at the northeast corner of Red Bank, I mean, of Hogue and Rosenberger because, like you said, it does need elevating to get it out of the flood plain. I just don’t know, if you start running those slopes out for the fill, whether or not you would actually end up having to buy those properties as well, and affect the businesses. If it did, there would be a major expense associated with that. If you could somehow miss it, then it would be less costly right away.

Bill Fluty: Catherine, you turned in a budget for four million, will you be making recommendations to cut that?

Catherine Fanello: I think that will take us meeting with some Councilmembers and with John Stoll and we can go through and figure out maybe what we can move somewhere else or take out of here, so I’d be happy to sit down and talk about it with anybody that wants to meet.

Bill Fluty: The revenue in that will probably be actually $800,000 that you do receive, and we actually supplement that with another million from COIT, so that’s the number that you (inaudible – microphone not turned on)

Councilmember Winnecke: Steve, on the large Other Employees, the request has increased $50,000 from this year. Are you proposing an increase in the hourly rate to these employees or what? Or just more of them or...

Steve Craig: What it is, with the popularity of the Discovery Lodge and that, we’ve been using part-time employees to clean it and to maintain it because we’ve only got four full-time employees on the grounds, and I also had put in there that we could give them a small raise because we start out at $5.65 an hour on a lot of them and its just hard to get people that will work for $5.65. And I think I put down for a quarter raise on most of them. But that’s what its for. If we have a really, really busy summer, I have to come back and ask for money, but if we don’t have a real busy summer I think I can make it work. But that’s what the request was for.

Councilmember Winnecke: Do you know off the top of your head how many of those people are at that end of the hourly scale?

Steve Craig: I’d say about 40 in the summer time and then on our ground crews and that, it’s the $6 an hour. In the summer, I probably have ten or twelve, and in the winter I probably keep six or seven of them because we do run a seven day operation with two of my full-timers working a weekend, they will be off two days during the week, which only gives me two full-time employees during the week. So my part-timers can fill in for what we lack in full-time employees.

President Bassemier: Any more questions on page 120? 121? No question on 121? 122? Mr. Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Steve, line 3190, the Solid Waste Disposal, what is our arrangement now with trash pickup at the park, overall, and is this a specific quote you’ve received for the Discovery Lodge?

Steve Craig: No, they charge us by the pickup and what we have is, we have one, I think it’s a three yard dumpster, and then we have three one yard dumpsters in the park. We just recently put one at the Discovery Lodge and we take a gradall that was donated to us by the County Garage and smash it down so that we get more dumps. We never go to the weight limit, but you know, a dumpster full of paper, they charge you the same amount as they do if they charge for a dumpster full of heavy material. And we used to be, I think, at 10,000 before, and I think we’re going to come up short this year and every time the Discovery Lodge is rented, it fills our dumpster up and we need to have it emptied.

Steve Craig: Its probably not cost effective to take my people that I’m paying hourly wages to and go around and separate, you know, go through the garbage and separate the cans and that. We had one where we used to put the cans, you know, a can collector at each building and that, but that became a nightmare because they leaked all over and had bees, and they were a common nuisance to our patrons. So we do not recycle any at this present time, but to get into the dumpster or get into the garbage truck and start separating, I thought it would cost more money to do that than what we would make off the recycling.

Councilmember Hoy: No, I was thinking about paper itself, for office paper and things.

Steve Craig: The office paper, we shred it, but the stuff from the picnics and that, I mean, –

Councilmember Winnecke: Steve, I have one other question. I think last week Royce asked you some questions of the park in general, but I don’t remember if you talked about the Discovery Lodge specifically. This is the first complete season you’ve had.

Steve Craig: Okay, in June we had counted up the days and right now for this year we’ve used 123 days and that includes all activities that will be up at the Discovery Lodge and that’s if we do not rent it again for the rest of the year. If we don’t make any more rentals, but as of the middle of June, it was being used 123 days.

Steve Craig: That’s a little high. I projected about 100, I thought we would do it, but with the rate, we have a couple of programs going on, Vectren had used it two days during the week. I think Deaconess Hospital has it three days during the week in October and we’re starting to pick up these larger companies that’s using it during the week. I kind of figured we’d have 52 weddings out there and it will probably hit that next year with every weekend having at least one wedding. And we’ve even had people move their weddings to Sundays, which is kind of unusual but they did just so they could have their wedding and their reception at the building, but I think its above what I even expected.

Councilmember Winnecke: And so does that 123 figure represent all the paying customers, internal programming?

Steve Craig: Yeah, the internal program, its renting out to people and go back to the part-timers, that’s 123 times that building has to be cleaned this year because we clean it every day that its used whether it be the day camp, that’s completely cleaned that evening and then the next day, you know, its clean for the kids to come in the morning and so, I mean, that goes back to where I was asking for a little bit of extra money in the part-time account because we’ll have to clean it 123 times and it’s quite a large building to get clean.

Councilmember Sutton: Along that line with the Discovery Lodge, with the popularity of it and then, I guess, how does it come out at far as balancing between what we see on the revenue side with the Discovery Lodge, what we’re charging, and the expense that’s incurred? I mean, can you give us an idea of what it looks like there?

Steve Craig: I can’t give you an exact number on the utilities on it, but I know it was running about 7-800 dollars a month earlier and then we have a crew of six kids and one of my full-timers will be up there at all times to clean it. It takes them two hours, so that’s 12 hours on the kids to clean it and my full-timer, which they’re going to be there anyway, so I do not count that as an added expense. But the maintenance of mowing the grass and taking care of the landscaping and the trees and that, too, is something that’s added on to there. That’s a quite large area that we mow and trim and maintain also.

Councilmember Sutton: Is that something maybe you can prepare for us so that we could see how that works out, the expense relative to the revenue? I know, obviously, there’s some spinoff, I think, that has occurred as a result of having the Discovery Lodge, we got increased popularity with the cabins.

Steve Craig: I can do it. It’d only be for six months. It’d be easiest to do it at the end of the year, then we can take our utilities and our, you know, the time for the whole year. I can see if I can break it down in half, but its hard to estimate how many hours that you have, you know, mowing the grass and that, but we do estimate the time, you know, the rest of the park, what our part-timers mow the grass, –

Councilmember Sutton: Well, if you could even get it through the six months, that would at least give us a feel, a general idea if we’re pricing correctly. If we’re in line, obviously, with the market, but also what we might be able to bear with the expense side. So if you could come up with something, give us a general ballpark figure of where that stands, that would be helpful.

President Bassemier: Craig, on advertising, 3440, as of June, of course, I know we’re in August, but you only spent $3,619. Of course, the kids will go back to school Wednesday, so how much have you spent so far in advertising? You won’t probably advertise after –

Steve Craig: All that money has been spent, its just that it does not get charged to us until its been aired. And so, even though, you know, the first of June we haven’t spent much, that was for advertising our day camp back in February and March to get it off to a good start. But the rest of its spent in June and July, and those bills are just coming in and we’ll pay it. All of that money will be spent on advertising. And the reason I asked for a little bit more is because according to the master plan when we got it, we should be advertising three to four times that much for a park our size and I think that advertising, you know, when it comes out you can tell because our crowds pick up and people tell you where they heard it and where they seen it and...

President Bassemier: Anymore questions on page 122? 123? Any questions? On Miscellaneous, 3990, I know its not too much, $3,000. What’s Miscellaneous?

Steve Craig: That covers expenses that our regular budget doesn’t cover. There’s stuff that comes in, we buy straw, buy shirts for the office people that says Burdette so that people can recognize us. Just various things throughout the park that come up that’s not under a line item, we take them out of Miscellaneous.

President Bassemier: Okay, any questions on 123? Okay, is that it for you guys? That’s it. Got anything you want to say, add?

Catherine Fanello: No, just if we need to meet and go over things that we can move to CCD, I’d be happy to do that. So just let me know.

President Bassemier: Hi, Marsha. Got anything you want to tell us before we start?

President Bassemier: Okay, find it ourselves. Okay, any questions for Marsha on page 1? Okay, page 2. No questions on page 2. Page 3? Page 4? Marsha, on 1990 Extra Help?

Marsha Abell: Well, I have an employee that’s going to retire at the end of December and her line item won’t be paid out until about the end of January. And I think with a new Clerk coming in, they’re going to need...that office is going to need to be fully staffed.

President Bassemier: Okay. Troy, any questions? You looked over here. Okay. Any more questions on four? Yes, Mr. Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Line item 2600 Office Supplies, what all is included in that? Is that just general things for the office – you’re looking for an increase there, so what is the thought?

Marsha Abell: At the end of this year, all of the stationary will have to be redone with someone else’s name on it. All of the file stamps will have to be changed with a new signature on them. The file stamps, I think, cost about $40 to change a name on. We probably have 30 of them, at least 30 of them out. There will be a lot of expenses changing -- everything that goes through the office right now has my name on it and it will have to all be redone for a new person in January. And we’ll do all of that after November and have it ready to go in January.

President Bassemier: Okay, anybody else, page 4? Okay, page 5? Okay, it looks like the Record Storage, Marsha, 3603?

Marsha Abell: And I would like to just, not warn you, but give you a little heads up, that’s going to go up every year drastically, and it could be that this county needs to take a long term look at storage in general for the entire facility. You know, maybe a building you want to buy or lease on your own, because every time we clean out the basement and send boxes over to Kinder, they charge us for – every box is charged. It isn’t just a base – this is what we charge you every month. Its based on how much we take over there. And we’re taking a lot over there and it gets more – it continually grows. There are a few things we can send to Indianapolis to archive but not very many because all the criminal files have to stay here in case the person is brought back here, so you might want to take a long term look at what this is going to cost. I’m sure we’ll spend every dime of this at Kinder this year, and maybe more.

President Bassemier: What about the courthouse? I mean, there would have to be some kind of safeguards, stuff like that, I mean, there should be plenty of space still over there.

Marsha Abell: We looked at that and I was willing to continue to look at it. The Commissioners sort of didn’t seem too interested in us moving our stuff over there. We would take a large quantity of that building. I personally think you should be considering the Central Library.

Marsha Abell: I think Central Library would be an excellent place to put all of my records and there are other departments that need storage for records. There’s a lot of city departments that need storage and I would think you know, that a joint city/county venture, looking at that old library would be a real profitable thing because this is going to continue to grow. It will never get any less.

Marsha Abell: Yes, those are my copy machines. We have three of them, and we sent over so far about $60,000 to the Auditor’s office in copy fees so, although that’s certainly an expense in this book, its actually a revenue generating thing, and we use it a lot to generate $60,000 already this year, you can tell we’ve made a lot of copies. We have to pay after we hit a certain amount. With our contract with the copy company, we have to pay per copy then, too, so the dollar we charge becomes less and less of a profit by our having to pay some also, but its still, copies out of my office are a money maker, because statutorily, I can charge a dollar a copy for everything.

Marsha Abell: Mr. Bassemier, we may be able to, we’re looking at being able to maybe put a little bit of Kinder’s bill into the IV-D bill account because we can charge part of that back to the state. I did talk to someone at the state about that, they’re kind of wishy-washy about it because they say that they’ve got the same documents at the state level and we all really need to have them. Of course, about the time I’d discharge mine, you know, they’d lose theirs and we’d be in trouble. So I don’t know if we’re going to be able to do that. I just wanted to throw it out and let you know I’m looking at it. I’ve done some investigation on it. It wouldn’t be a great deal, but you know, it might reduce Kinder’s bill like $10,000. If we could throw that over to IV-D and get 60% of it back from the state.

Marsha Abell: I do have one thing, I’ve got something I want to, Tracy has prepared for you. I had, and I’m doing this mainly because this is my last year and someone else is going to be doing this next year. There were two employees that we made mistakes on, I guess, and I’m just asking, I didn’t want to ask for money this year but I’d like for you to consider for 2005 to increase the Garnishee Clerk from COMOT V to COMOT VI because that was my clerical error when I went before the salary committee. I actually intended for it to be COMOT VI. The particular individual that’s in there right now has an accounting degree and she does all of the 1099's for our attorneys, which we’ve had to do now for the last two years. And if we lost her you’d have to farm it out to some accounting firm. Its too involved for any one person to be able to do that doesn’t know how to do accounting, because some attorneys get their check through us, Jeff Ahlers, and some get it through Kahn, Dees, Donovan, and she has to keep up with all of that. And with over 400 lawyers in Evansville, that is a really big task that was put on her two years ago that she didn’t have when she took that job. And that was a clerical error on my part as was the next one, and I recognized the next one right away and was told to wait until a year and its been a year but I didn’t want to come until budget time.

Marsha Abell: Two of the deputies, one of them was a COMOT VI, and her job, over and above her other deputy job, was to be the back up at Kinder, but she had a heart attack after we did that, and she could not go to Kinder, because she can’t lift. So, she made a deal with one of the other girls that sits across from her, she said, I’ll agree to my salary being reduced from a COMOT VI to a COMOT V, and then they can make you from a four to five if you’ll do my Kinder work. The girl said, okay, I will. Well, when we went before the committee, you reduced the girl from the six to the five, but you didn’t do the girl from the four to the five and increase her. So, I have, you know, she does it willingly right now, going out to Kinder, but she’s not being compensated for it, and that is a big job. The job at Kinder is tremendous. It should be, I know there are financial constraints, which is the only reason that I didn’t ask that you make a full time person out there. It is absolutely a monster, and it’s going to be a real problem for this Council in the future. You can’t just take the stuff out there and dump it on the floor. You’ve got to categorize it, and store it away, and that takes a lot of time.

Marsha Abell: Yes, I am. I’m not asking for anything that is for 2004. I’m just doing this for next year, yes.

Marsha Abell: Well, actually, they’ve both already been through job study for these same things. They were clerical errors on my part. I didn’t put those right COMOT ratings.

President Bassemier: I would think so. A new year, new faces. You’ll have a new chairman probably.

Marsha Abell: Does it meet again this year, where I could get it done before the new Clerk comes on?

President Bassemier: Curt, you’re the chairman, aren’t you? Curt? I know you are. Well, it might be a possibility. He’ll think about it, he says.

Marsha Abell: Well, I would just like to, I would like to have everything settled for whoever takes over this office.

Councilmember Sutton: Now, you say the job study took action on this in line with what you’re discussing here?

Councilmember Sutton: Well, it wouldn’t seem a need to have to repeat that. It wouldn’t seem that you would have to come back again, if–

Marsha Abell: Well, I went to them with my reasoning for these changes, and I had written on my piece of paper that I was talking to them about one thing, about the COMOT....for instance the Garnishee Clerk, I had written on my stuff COMOT VI, but everything that they saw said raise her to a COMOT V. So, it was a clerical error on my part, and I didn’t recognize it until she got her salary and she told me about it. She said this isn’t right, and then I checked it and saw that I had made an error. They agreed that, you know, that there was additional work there.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, if that’s the case, you know, you’d want to bring it back.

Marsha Abell: That’s fine. I would be happy to do that. I would like to do it before the new Clerk takes over, and have that all done for her, so she won’t have to–

President Bassemier: I’ll work with the chairman on that, and see if he can work you in.

Sue Hartig: Good morning, I’m Sue Hartig, the director of the Legal Aid Society. My board president, J.D. Strouth, and a board member, Kathy Nestrick, are passing out two handouts to you right now. One is the pro forma that I believe one of the City Council persons asked for last week, and the other is the really important thing, to let you know what we do. It’s some client stories, and it describes an eviction, an adoption, a guardianship, a divorce, and a consumer matter. That’s what we do all the time.

President Bassemier: Yeah, this is another joint budget, City and County, we met, and Sue says that they would like to stay where they’re at in the Civic Center. They don’t want to go over–

Sue Hartig: We’re a 50/50 City/County agency, and also receive a chunk of money from United Way.

President Bassemier: And that is on page 124. Any questions on 124 for Ms. Hartig? Okay.

Councilmember Winnecke: That’s alright. Just a, I guess, first a comment on the discussion of the move as was discussed at the joint meeting last week. At first blush I don’t see the need for moving your office. I see the expense to be burdensome, and I see the inconvenience to your clients as burdensome. So, whatever I can do personally, I would be happy to do on behalf of the agency, because I don’t think it makes any sense. So, please, if I can help do that.

Councilmember Winnecke: As also we discussed last week, I guess, I am challenged on the salary issue. The large increase from the General Fund, as well as the additional stipend from United Way funds. This body has, we’ve, the Superior Court magistrates have come before us, at least on one occasion, and maybe two in the last two or three years asking for additional stipends. We’ve turned those down. With all due respect to the budget position that you’re in relative to your senior staff members, I don’t know that this is the year that this body should probably look at granting such a large increase, either out of the General Fund, or, frankly, out of the United Way fund.

Sue Hartig: The increase in the General Fund is simply the step raise that the job study would allow for. That’s not–

J.D. Strouth: A 25 year step raise would actually bring it up $2,323. Then the 3% raise would amount to $2,036.

Councilmember Winnecke: Oh, I see. That was not in your rationale. I missed that. I apologize.

J.D. Strouth: The step raise was $2,323 for the 25 year step raise. Then the 3% raise would amount to $2,036.

Councilmember Winnecke: Yeah. On the stipend, I still am challenged with. I don’t know what anyone else feels.

President Bassemier: Okay, 125. Page 125, any questions on 125? This isn’t much either, the 3540, Maintenance Contract, what’s that on?

Sue Hartig: Copy machine, dictating equipment, manual typewriters, we still have to have manual typewriters to do the little green return of service card, and there are some forms that are (Inaudible) card stock form that have to be done.

President Bassemier: Let’s see, Legal Aid/United Way, 178. Any questions on 178? Okay.

Councilmember Winnecke: If I can go back real quick, I was just doing some quick math. Did I hear on the, back in the General Fund, you had the step raise as $2,325?

Councilmember Winnecke: Then the balance to get to the $65,045, is a 3% on top, is that what you’re doing?

Sue Hartig: The figure that we use should be $5,000 more than whatever the chart calls for. If you take off the $5,000 stipend, you should have whatever–

Sue Hartig: –and I did the calculation to determine off of the chart how much of it was the 3%, and how much was the stipend.

President Bassemier: Okay, 178, any questions on 178? Seeing none. Okay, 179? No questions on 179. I guess, that’s it. Do we have anything else? Okay, Sue, do you want to add anything?

Sue Hartig: No, I guess, just as a department head, my question to you would be, if something were to happen and I no longer were willing or able to be the department head, I wouldn’t lose a dime. What would happen if neither one of the existing staff attorneys wished to pick up those duties as executive director, because they wouldn’t be gaining a dime. That’s just a predicament that we’re in and what we were trying to resolve.

Councilmember Sutton: I’m sure if that eventuality occurred that, you know, we would want to take a look at it. I mean, we’re not in that situation presently, but if that were to occur, you know, we would probably need to look at it from a job study standpoint, what we would need to do to make sure that we’re in line with other offices that fall under our, whatever decisions we make. So, it’s kind of hard to tell, I mean, it could be next month, it could be five years from now, but, you know, I think clearly, I think by bringing it to our attention, it helps at least place that on the agenda for the type of things that we need to consider, in case something does happen where you’re, hopefully, doesn’t happen, you know, that you aren’t going to be able to serve. At some point in time you won’t be though, I mean, that’s just the reality of things. So, in line with other offices, we wouldn’t want to see where the person that is reporting to the top person, where their salary exceeds the top person, or is right in line. That would be out of line.

J.D. Strouth: The board did want to take a pro active approach to this. We felt like that if it was right down the road to adjust it, that it would be right today to adjust it, and then to be proactive, you know, for the future. So, in other words, the board felt like that it would be right to have a stipend for the executive director, with the additional responsibilities, to have some stipend for that. What challenged us was really looking at the future, trying to be proactive. But, rather than thinking we’ll just wait until, you know, the next executive director comes along, and then right it down the road, we thought, well, if it’s right down the road, you know, it would be right today to try that effort. Again, I want to point out, you know, we wanted to try to deal with this without costing the county a penny, and that is what we’ve been able to do. It’s not costing one penny in order to achieve this.

Councilmember Tornatta: I’m still unclear. The United Way is not paying one more dime to have this stipend. They are just allocating money.

J.D. Strouth: Actually we are going to be requesting an additional $5,000 for the stipend. Now, they do not make their awards until March. If, per chance, in March they deny the $5,000, then that will have to, we will have to readjust United Way’s money that we’re getting for their portion of the budget. We will have to reallocate that amongst that. There are certain things that are covered under United Way’s budget, such as, let’s see we have Du