The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 9^th day of August, 2005 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 9:05 a.m. by County Council President Lloyd Winnecke.

President Winnecke: Good morning and welcome to the opening session of the 2005 Vanderburgh County budget hearings. We’ll begin with attendance roll call please.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Tornatta	X
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Abell	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Wortman	X
President Winnecke	X

President Winnecke: Would you please stand and join in the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

President Winnecke: Okay, today we’ll review 21 different departmental budgets that comprise the entire Vanderburgh County budget. Today we have both small budgets and large budgets to review. Our objective is to consider each of the requests before us over the next three days before deciding the county’s spending priorities for 2006. We have about $62.3 million in General Fund requests before us. In order to remain under the state’s maximum levy, Council will need to trim at least $7 million. I would ask each office holder or department head to begin their budget presentations with their 2000 level accounts, unless you are requesting additional personnel, or if there is a personnel issue that you would like to speak specifically about, in which case you may start there. I’ll open the floor to Council questions or discussion upon the completion of each presentation. No voting will occur today. Just as a reminder, we’ll begin that process two weeks from today. Having said that, we’ll begin with Weights and Measures which is on page 84 of your budget book.

Loretta Townsend: Hopefully, you all have looked over what I’ve submitted. I know you’re going to cut something, my only request, and I told Jim beforehand, please ask before you do, because we better know where we can afford it, than what you guys do. I mean, last year it didn’t happen like that, but I know you have to from everybody in order to take a big hunk out of maybe three or four budgets. So, everybody’s going to have to give a little, but please ask us where we can most afford it. I’ll cut right to the chase, one thing that you see that’s zeroed out, which is Radio/Pagers, that’s because we switched to Communications which has our Internet, plus we went to cell phones which is 200 percent better. This way we don’t have to track down a pay phone or something like that in order to find out what’s going on if someone pages us. We found it’s actually a little bit cheaper. So, that’s the reason for that one, although I was told I should have left that money in there, then we would have something to play with, but I try to play fair with you, and I hope that in return you guys will do the same. Okay? The other thing, our rent went up $50 for the next year which I don’t think is too bad. It’s still the cheapest rent that anybody has in the city or county. The third thing is the vehicle. That’s going to come up over and over again. As you know we put in to get it out of this year’s. The last time I talked to him was, I guess was like, at Kenny Kent, they have what we need. There is nothing in that vehicle that you could call extras. It’s exactly what we need. They had four. None of them were here, I think one was in Alabama, one was in Memphis, this price will only hold as long as there’s one available. Now, he made the offer to trade out, whatever that means, I guess trade them something for whatever, for the truck that they have at one of these locations to get it up here, on the lot, so that we would have it in case you all let us, you know, purchase it. That was a week ago. I haven’t contacted the man since then, because I really didn’t know what to tell him. Now, it’s in this budget for next year. Now, the one’s we’re talking about is 2005, when the four are gone, they will become 2006, and I don’t think the price will remain. I’m positive that it won’t. I’ve talked to them at the city, finally, as I told Lloyd yesterday, she finally called, and the best they could do was make us an offer of a used vehicle. Now, they didn’t even say it was a truck that the Mayor has. Now, I’m going to take a minute and I’m going to tell you about what we have gotten before. You don’t get anything from another department that is of any use of all, or they’re not going to give it up. We’ve had four of them. The first one had no brakes on it. We put brakes on it, then that was from the City Engineer. We put brakes on it then they wanted it back. We gave it back to them, but we removed the seats out of it. Hey, I mean, you know, what’s fair is fair. The second one we had to call Mike’s Towing to get it off the lot. The third one had no floorboard up front by the driver. The other one, the power steering locked up on the Lloyd Expressway. We don’t want anymore hand me downs. We’ve got to have the kind of truck that we’ve asked for. Now, if it’s this year, or next year, I mean, the portion is 45/55, which I think is something like $11,000, they spent more than that putting a fence up around at Thunder on the Ohio. If this truck dies on the street, gas checking is over with. We can’t do it.

President Winnecke: Okay. Any other budget issues, line items that you would like to speak to, Loretta, this morning?

President Winnecke: Okay. Any questions or discussions from members of Council? Mr. Wortman?

Councilmember Wortman: Mrs. Townsend, if that new vehicle would take place, would your Vehicle Repair, line item 3580, could that be cut back? Or do you have other places for that?

Loretta Townsend: Well, we’ve got the other two. We’ve got that Ford that would probably eat half of that up.

Loretta Townsend: Because we’ve had trouble with the Ford. The doors won’t lock, the windows won’t go up and down. The antifreeze comes back, the fumes from the antifreeze, and they can’t figure out what’s wrong with it over at Meunsterman’s. Then we have the GMC. You could cut it back some, but keep in mind we still have the two other vehicles. We do use them. I mean, they are used with, oh, we’ve got almost two tons of weights, and this type of thing that, they’re used. They get, they’re used hard, but we can’t help it.

Loretta Townsend: Yeah, okay, on Printing, I wished you would leave that alone, because it looks like we’ve taken nothing out, but it’s because of the timing. It’s always like that every year. We have to order our stuff for 2006, and usually we don’t order that until at least the last of September or the first of October, which will take a pretty good bite out of that. But, it looks like we haven’t spent anything, it’s because of the time. I mean, this is August, you know, we don’t want to go out and spend it just so it will look good for you guys, and then come up short when we have to pay for our inspection books, and our 2006 stickers, and our red tags, and this type of thing. So, that Printing really, it should not be touched.

Councilmember Sutton: Loretta, what is the term on your lease agreement in your present space?

Councilmember Sutton: I know that we really haven’t seen a lot of increases on there, but it’s just been some smaller increases just kind of gradually over time, they’ve been (Inaudible).

Loretta Townsend: Last year, I believe, if I remember, it remained the same. It went up $50 for 12 months. I mean, you know, I mean, that’s not too bad. That’s like four bucks a month, you know. A little over four bucks a month.

Loretta Townsend: It’s where we belong. We have, the people have access to us, and you would be surprised how many scales are carried in to our office, which keeps us from having to get out and track them down everywhere. We have security for our vehicles. We do need that, because the equipment in them, well, in the gas truck, we don’t want anybody messing with that anyway, because they could blow themselves up.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I guess my concern was a year to year lease like that. I mean, it’s been a pretty good space for you guys, and you’ve gotten accustomed to it, and with the parking arrangements, that’s worked out well. Just wouldn’t want to put us in a situation where, if there were some changes there, that we wouldn’t have another option or a place to go. So, I don’t know if we might want to think about maybe more than a year to year, maybe going a little bit longer.

Loretta Townsend: I think we would be a lot better off. They at one time wanted to. I don’t know how the rest of them lease over there, whether they lease by the year, or five years, three years, or what. I really don’t know. I do know that we don’t discuss our rent with the rest of them. Because we pretty well got the better of the deal. I mean, you’ve got to look at that. There’s nothing available that you guys pay at all that is that cheap. But, he knows he’s going to get his money from us. We don’t actually, believe it or not, cause him any problems over there anyway. I wish we could go farther than that, but then you’ve got the Commissioners who have to sign the contract.

Loretta Townsend: So, that would be the place to start. I understand maybe that Bill Nix is the one who handles their contracts. I don’t know for the Commissioners. It’s all a new ball game as to who takes care of what over there, but I would like to so that we don’t have to go through this every year with them, you know.

Councilmember Abell: Loretta, I did talk to Phil Lawrence in Purchasing about your truck.

Loretta Townsend: He never did call me back at to this day. I had called him the day after we left here about it, and he’s never returned my phone call.

Councilmember Abell: Well, that’s neither here nor there. That’s not the story I got, but that’s okay. But, he can’t, you need to go through him for your negotiations on your truck, because he can get, if Kenny Kent is who you’re going to, they will probably agree to the QPA price that the state has negotiated, even without going through the QPA process in Indianapolis. He’s been successful in doing that with other vehicles here in town. You would still get the vehicle you want, it’s just a matter of having him do the negotiations on it.

Loretta Townsend: I would try, but honest to God, Marsha, he has not called me back. I’ve left...he wasn’t there to begin with, then I called and left it on his voice mail, and that was the same day that you suggested, which was fine with me, I don’t care where, you know, how do we get....he has not called me back as of right this minute.

Councilmember Abell: Because QPA’s are negotiated to save counties money by the state, and dealers who agree to fall under the QPA are interested in continuing that. So, I think he could be able to save us some money, if you would just call him–

Councilmember Abell: –and tell him which truck that you’ve looked at, tell him where you’ve looked at it, and then let him get a hold of them and work that out.

Loretta Townsend: I think that would be great, because what my concern is, what happens if the four are gone? I know it’s a used car salesman, or not a used car salesman, a car salesman, I’ve heard all the tales, but I’ve dealt with them, but I do believe the man is honest with the four 2005's. We don’t care if it’s a 2005 or a 2006, we just prefer it be a 2005, that will serve our purpose. So, that was my concern is the timing in it. But, if he doesn’t call me back, can I call you and have you have him call me? He might work it like that.

President Winnecke: Any other questions or discussion? Loretta, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Susan Kirk: You know, Curt’s got a pretty nice truck. Curt Wortman, you might....oh, okay. So, do you want me to go through this and bore everyone?

President Winnecke: Yes, please, starting with your 2000, specifically the line items that are different or an increase from the previous year, I think are the items that Councilmembers have the most curiosity about.

Susan Kirk: Okay, for the, well, really, I didn’t, I really didn’t increase hardly anything except out at Kinder. Obviously, that’s, let’s see here, that’s line item 3603. Even though we are going to go through the destruction of records, so forth and so on, we still are going to have more records. No matter what you get rid of, it just keeps becoming more and more and more. I just feel like we’re going to end up needing that money in that line item. So, I did increase that by $5,000. Otherwise, I’m pretty well the same.

Councilmember Sutton: Susie, back on line item 1990, Extra Help, can you talk about that a little bit?

Susan Kirk: Yes. I would, and Marsha can attest to this also, Misdemeanor and Traffic is just a nightmare down there. They have no room, the workload has increased, oh, every year. I would love to ask for another full time employee, but because there’s no space, there would be no place for them to sit, I thought it would be better maybe to ask for some part time help at least to file the shucks back. Get them out and file them back. That helps the girls, we took some money out of the a couple of different salaries and put it into part time help. It did help them down there to have someone at least file, to free up their time where they can do, you know, the entry, go to court, do their other duties. So, I put the $10,000 in there in hopes that, I know you guys don’t like to do part time help, but we need it so desperately down there. Like I said, I hope you’ll pass that, because it’s a cheap way to at least help them out, because they are standing up. They’ll be filing, so they don’t have a place to sit, because there’s not room for anybody else to sit down there.

Councilmember Sutton: The Office Supplies, I see a slight increase, a $10,000 increase there. You’ve spent almost $27,000, I guess through June 30^th here, talk a little bit about that. Are you expecting, what’s the, what are you anticipating?

Susan Kirk: Okay, already the, we’ve got Superior, Circuit, and the Clerk are splitting the cost of a new printer. It’s for our Jury View. The court system, the judges also in Superior and Circuit will be using that for their summons, to actually ask, you know, the people to come in and be on the jury. So, you take toner cartridges for that’s around $250, so, that’s going to be an increase in supplies for us just to keep that printer up and running for our Jury View. We’re just going to go ahead and absorb the cost, basically, from Circuit and Superior for their summons, of which now they do, I don’t know where they do it at, but this printer will be connected to them, and they’ll be able to get, it’s all going to be done a lot quicker, it’s just that it’s going to cost a little bit more for the toner.

President Winnecke: Other questions for the Clerk? Okay, let’s move on to Clerk IV-D, which is on page six of your budget books.

Susan Kirk: Okay, we’re pretty well staying the same there. I know that, Teri, you had called about $16,000, wasn’t it you that e-mailed me about $16,000 as far as, it’s like when someone needs to pay their child support they get the little coupon book, and people aren’t paying that. Then they’re not paying their $20 fee, you said it was like $16,000. I do want to address that while I’m here. I’ve got my girls working on that, trying to collect it to help the IV-D money. We’re going to talk to the judges and see if we can’t, you know, get some of that, but the state now, we have ISETS, and they are continually taking more away from us, not less work, particularly, but money. We get the incentive funds, of which you’ll notice when we had to do the revenue coming in, that’s going to really drop, because the state will be taking that money instead of us getting it. So, I left, I noticed a couple of years here they really didn’t spend quite that much, but I have a feeling we will, because the state, like I said, is going to be decreasing our incentive money, which helps with supplies and different things over there. But, we are going to try and collect that $16,000 ourselves, at no cost to the county. Now, I noticed the Election Office wasn’t listed on here. Do I have to come back for that? Or can I do that now?

Councilmember Abell: Susie, on 2600, Office Supplies, are you planning, are you buying a new machine with that $45,000?

Councilmember Abell: On page six, 2600, Office Supplies, requested $45,000, are you buying a new machine?

Susan Kirk: No. What we’re going to have to be purchasing, the IRS came down along with the State Board of Accounts, and they have a lot of new rules now that are going to be almost impossible to follow. We do have to purchase some new security for that office.

Susan Kirk: So, cabinets, different things like that, that we have to have like two locks, and all kinds of things now. It’s very secure, or going to be very secure.

President Winnecke: Other questions? Okay we move on to the Election Office, page 67.

Councilmember Sutton: Before we get away from IV-D. In terms of revenue on IV-D, it’s a one third split, right, for you guys?

Susan Kirk: I don’t know, Royce. I don’t know the exact split. Do you, Marsha? Do you remember what it is?

Susan Kirk: Right. What’s happening, Royce, is that normally if you do child support you can pay it, come to the office, go to the bank, you can do it electronically, well, the state now wants almost everything sent to them first, then they send it to us. Because, in other words, like say you owned a business and you’ve got 50 employees, and you’ve got two people there that pay child support, it’s mandated that they have to send that to the state. So, they send it to the state, then the state sends us a report. Instead of going the opposite direction, or the direction we used to, now it just goes backwards. The state, now that they are doing that it’s going to take more of our incentive money.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I’m just trying to get a sense of how much you’re working with on that incentive fund.

Susan Kirk: Oh, let’s see, Sandie, do you remember what I put down there? Was it $300,000, something like that. I think it was around $300,000, I think. I projected the next couple of years, probably, we will be down, I think I cut it almost in half within the next couple of years. We’ll be lucky if we’re getting half.

President Winnecke: Any other questions before we move on to the Election Office?

Susan Kirk: It’s pretty well the same. I just, I decreased election assistants down from, well, what was expended, actually $50,000 down to $45,000. I don’t know what this election’s going to be like. You’re not sure if people enjoyed voting so much last year, that they’re all going to come back because it was a wonderful experience, or if it’s going to go back to the old ways where, you know, this will be our lowest voter turn out in an election. We’re not too sure, but I’m banking on maybe a little bit lower. Let’s see, absentee teams, I did raise that some, because I feel like that’s going to be more of a trend now. They’re making it so easy for people to get absentee ballots, word has spread, and I feel like that we’re going to, that’s where we’re going to have the bulk of our work is going to be of the absentee teams that actually go out to the homes and vote people. All the rest of them pretty well stayed the same, except Assistant Canvassing Board, I would like election evening to have a few more people on hand for processing. So, to make that maybe a little bit speedier, because, obviously, we can’t count on ES&S to have too many people. Then, the inspectors, judges, clerks, attorney, that all stays the same. Precinct meals, same. Election Board meals, I put $650, I guess, is that for them to eat election day? Okay, I don’t think we’ll even use all of that. Office Supplies, keep that about the same. When you get down to Travel/Mileage, obviously that has to be a little bit more, because I anticipate absentee teams out and about a little bit more there. Postage/Freight, I went ahead and put that at $40,000, they spent $23,000. I don’t know why it was $37,000--

Susan Kirk: I’m too high? Oh, I am too high. Good. Okay, I left that about the same. Mileage, like I said, I increased that a little bit. Printing, going to keep it right there. I’ve got a call into Rob McGinnis with ES&S, he’s coming down this Friday, I want to try to redo that contract, just tweak it a little bit with ES&S, because they do the precinct kits, and I think we can do our printing a little bit cheaper here. So, we’re going to go over that, the contract, and see if there’s anyway that we can maybe, like I said, tweak that. Legal Advertising, I upped that, and I don’t even know if that’s going to be enough, because we have to print all the candidates in the paper, and this is the largest ballot with the most candidates, and as you well know it costs quite a bit of money to advertise that in the newspaper. We have to list all of the candidates. So, like I said, we may not even make it with that. Equipment Repair, I don’t think we have that much to repair over there, so I lowered that one. Contractual Services, I left that just about the same. Repairs to Building and Grounds, I put $2,000 in there, which it won’t cost that much, but we want to remove the wall that is around the supervisors desk, because the supervisor wants to be able to see and hear everything that’s going on, and not have that barrier. So, I don’t know how much it costs to take that down, but we want to do that. Then they’re also talking about, the Commissioners, like buying 23 more machines, which means, I don’t know where we’re going to put them exactly, but there will have to be something built to store those machines. So, that’s why I’ve got $2,000 there. Let’s see here, Equipment Lease and Rental, that’s the copier. Office Furniture, you just never know, that’s not much, but a filing cabinet maybe. So, that’s pretty well it.

President Winnecke: I had a couple of questions. If you could chat about line 2700, Other Supplies. What falls into that category, Susie?

Susan Kirk: Other Supplies are things other than pens, pencils, you know, the regular little office supplies. It could be like, usually like, say if we needed a maybe a fax machine, or maybe you needed a chair, or something like that. It’s just one of those little, we’ve always had it in Voter Registration, it was just kind of little oddball things that didn’t seem to fall under the regular little pens and paper type thing, that’s what I took it out of.

President Winnecke: Then, could you speak to line 3530, specifically what is Contractual Services? Is that our arrangement with ES&S?

Susan Kirk: Contractual Services, which one is it, is that ES&S, too? So, we’re paying them double?

Councilmember Abell: Well, you’re not paying them double. Part of it, we had to separate part of ES&S’s expense because the state would only reimburse us for certain things. Some things they wouldn’t reimburse us for. Contractual Services, $10,000 is for the support that night that is not included in the state’s reimbursement.

Susan Kirk: What about Kinder, where does that come out of? When they deliver the machines, which one is that?

Councilmember Abell: That’s probably, that may be under that, too. I don’t know where that was.

President Winnecke: That might, I would be kind of curious to know specifically what falls under that.

Susan Kirk: We’ll go back and look up some of the old bills and see what was taken out of....I just know, Lloyd, that that’s what, you know, I did in Voter Registration when it didn’t–

Susan Kirk: We have to pay, election day, you get your choice, we’ll either pay you $50 to rent your building, or you get a janitorial fee. Plus, the School Corporation, the janitorial fee, normally, say it was a church, it would be $15, but the School Corporation you have to actually pay those janitors what they make per hour. So, that’s why that’s in there. I mean, we have to have that. There’s no cutting, and I’m like, I would like to know if you’re going to be cutting something, I need to know what it is. Let me make the decisions if there’s anywhere we could possibly cut.

Councilmember Abell: I just have one comment. I think this precinct is a part of the state’s agreement with them, and you may have to keep those for the three years that they reimburse us. We entered into an agreement where we got certain printing and things included with the purchase, so that we could get the state to pay for it, rather than us have to buy it separate later. You might want to check that contract for that.

Susan Kirk: We have, and I know that we are one of like four counties that really got a lot from ES&S. I talked to Rob and he seems to think that we can get our own. They are state forms, so, we can get our state forms, and I think he may give right there. I’m going to see about some of his voter outreach, some of that kind of money, and see if we can’t get that down just a little bit. If we can, if the Commissioners want to buy some more machines, maybe we can use some of that. But, because my Chief Deputy and I will be very hands on, very hands on with the election process. So, anywhere we can cut, we’re going to try to cut to help us out a little bit.

President Winnecke: Before we begin with Superior Court, I would like to briefly outline one line item that is new to the courts budget, and as Judge Dietsch and I have spoken, we’re not quite clear legally if it can be in there, and I’m going to ask Mr. Ahlers to research whether it can be in the courts budget or in the Commissioners budget, where it has historically been. That’s line item 3050--

President Winnecke: –on page 105, Patient/Inmate Care, it’s in there for $1.7 million. This is for treatment of our county’s or our community’s juvenile offenders. As I said, historically this has been in the Commissioners budget, it has been moved to the courts budget this year after much discussion between various parties. Again, if we can research that to determine where the best place for that is legally, that would be great.

President Winnecke: Judge Niemeier will offer more detail in just a bit, but there have been extensive discussions between Commission President Crouch, Judge Niemier, myself, and officials of the Youth Care Center. The YCC, as you may know, currently has a ten bed facility here in town, and oversees excellent programming for our community’s juvenile offenders. However, the court is forced to send a lot of juveniles, in fact all female offenders outside of our county because of a lack of space. The point of the discussions between the county and the YCC have focused on a longer term commitment between the county and the Youth Care Center, with an expanded facility of 36 beds. There are certainly details still to be negotiated, and certainly definitive direction lies with this body because of our budget oversight. The judge can offer some insight of his own into the discussions that have been on-going, but I can tell you based on my understanding of the discussions, it appears that the arrangement may be either a savings to the count operationally, on an annual basis, or at worst, maybe a wash, and certainly a savings in terms of whether this county wanted to go forward and build it’s own facility. I would say that a lot of attention has been focused in recent years on the jail and community corrections. Now we’re talking about making a real firm commitment, a stronger commitment to addressing our juvenile offenders, an idea that I think has a positive, long term effect on the future population of our new jail. So, it will be a few minutes before we get to that, but I wanted to sort of tee that up before Judge Niemeier came up to speak. So, without further ado, Judge Dietsch.

Terry Dietsch: Okay, Mr. President, members of the Council. From a budgetary standpoint, the court has no objection to that transfer. I simply have a concern whether it’s a proper item in the courts budget, as opposed to the Commissioners budget. But, we can find that out. Heeding your admonition about not discussing 100 accounts, I would like to call your attention to that particular 100 account. Then skip to the 2620, which is Office Supplies, and we have asked for an additional $2,000. The reason for that is the cost of paper, and particularly the cost of toner keeps increasing. This is our best estimate of how much we would need in that particular account. 3050, Patient/Inmate Care, that’s what has just been discussed. 3250, Law Books, we have entered into an agreement with West Publishing, whereby in effect we are getting a discount on some of our purchases on law books. In addition to that, we have been assured that a cost increase from year to year would not exceed, I think it’s four percent. Now, we’ve encountered some problems this year that we’re attempting to work out, but our best guess is that we’re going to need that $3,000 increase that we have requested for that particular account. Printing, we’ve asked for, that’s 3410, we’ve asked for an additional $1,000. That’s really because of the juvenile order books. From time to time they have to be replaced, and they are very expensive. Equipment and Repair, 3520, we asked for an increase in that. That is mainly for the maintenance contracts on the courts recording equipment. We normally receive from the Council $12,500 in that account. Last year, for whatever reason, well, because of the budget constraints, that was reduced to $11,000, and we understood that, but we would like to have that set in at $12,500, if that’s possible. Understanding, again, that there are budget restraints. 3620, Copy Machine Lease, we have asked for an additional $2,250. The reason for that is this, we were able to secure a copy machine for the new juvenile complex through the Building Authority. One year, without any maintenance costs. However, that year runs out in July of 2006. We’re going to have to undertake that. So, the $2,250 is for the last six months of 2006. Okay, oh, Continuing Education, if you will recall, 3730, if you will recall, last year you requested that the education funds, the funds appropriated for purposes of continuing education be consolidated into one account. We had no objection to that. In other words, we have training for probation officers, we have training for judges, we have training for magistrates, we used to keep those separate. You suggested we put them together, and that’s fine, we did. Okay, we feel that an additional $2,000 is going to be needed in that account for 2006 in order to take care of the educational requirements. 3932, CASA, we’re asking for an additional $5,000 in that account, even though there’s a lot in that now. The reason for that is we have, in effect, received an unfunded mandate by way of legislation that requires a CASA person to be appointed in every CSHCNS case in the county. That’s a considerable number. That’s why we’re asking for that amount of money.

President Winnecke: Judge, may I ask, may I stop you right there while we change the tape?

Terry Dietsch: The next item is 3941, Guardian Ad-Litem, we are asking for an additional $10,000 in that account, because in fiscal 2005, we ran out and had to come back and ask for an additional appropriation. In 3980, Transportation of Children and Miscellaneous, the juvenile division has informed us that they would like an additional $4,500, most likely because gasoline prices have risen, as we all know, and, in fact, we’re transporting more juveniles. That’s the reason for that increase. Office Furniture, 4210, we realize that, on occasion, all of the office furniture and office machines accounts are zeroed out, again because of budget constraints. We received nothing in that account last year. We do have file cabinets, desks and chairs that needed to be purchased or replaced in 2006, and that’s the reason we ask for that amount. Now, 4220, Office Machines.

Terry Dietsch: That’s a hefty item, $95,000. Let me tell you why it was put in at that figure. Our liaison, Mr. Raben, and I think maybe, Mr. Winnecke, you were there also, we discussed this, we’re going to be forced to go to a new type of recording system that’s going to be compatible with a number of things, in the future namely. Probably what amounts to a mandate from the Supreme Court to have that kind of equipment. Also, it’s going to have some additional advantage, we use disks rather than tapes. We can record a lot more on disks than we can on tapes. Also, it is compatible with the type of equipment used in federal court for interpreters. We are using interpreters more and more and more, and it can be disruptive during a trial. But, there are devices that can be used where you can speak very, very softly into a mechanism and it allows the non-English speaking defendant to understand the interpretation without disrupting the proceedings. That’s something for the future. We put in our budget the figure of $95,000 because that is what we feel would be required to equip all the courts with that equipment. In all the years that I have been doing the budget for the court, with all kinds of equipment, my philosophy has been to replace equipment on an incremental basis, two here, two later, two later, so that we don’t have all the equipment getting in a state of disrepair at the same time, and have to come back periodically with a $95,000 request. I’m just simply here to tell you that if you feel it is more appropriate for us to have, say two, rather than do all these at once, that’s perfectly acceptable to us. But, we are going to need to start the replacement, and I think with a minimum of two. The only other item that I would like to call to your attention–

Councilmember Sutton: Before you get too far away from 4220, are there others who are using this equipment that you are proposing to purchase?

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, others like in the near area? What counties are using it?

Terry Dietsch: Yes, as a matter of fact I think they have one in Circuit. Almost, well, I can’t say this for certain, Judge Knight really is our computer guy, I think, at this time, an exceptional number of courts have switched to this system. I don’t know, it’s been a while since we’ve replaced recorders. Rosemary, would you know the difference in cost per unit? There’s not that much difference, is there?

Terry Dietsch: What is the cost per unit? But, at any rate, Mr. Sutton, that is going to have to be done.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay. Is this just an estimate on what it costs? Or have you had an opportunity to price this out some kind of way or another?

Terry Dietsch: Well, this is a pretty close estimate. If you look at 95...what would that run, about $13,000, 13 something like that per year?

Councilmember Goebel: Judge, did you say these devices will have the translating mechanism included now? Or that’s going to have to be added later?

Terry Dietsch: No, that would be additional. But, we don’t intend to do that right now.

Councilmember Abell: Judge, how much would two of these cost if $95,000...I don’t know how many all are, so, how many?

Terry Dietsch: That’s for the entire unit. That’s for the recording machine and the transcriber and everything.

Councilmember Abell: I have another question. Would any of this possibly be included with JTAC project?

Councilmember Abell: I would appreciate if you would just call and find out if there’s any chance they would be interested in contributing to this.

President Winnecke: Other questions of the judge on this issue or others before we move on? Mr. Tornatta?

Councilmember Tornatta: Yeah, I did have a question, since we’re hitting this for the first time through this budget hearings. On the law books, have we ever talked about buying all law books at one time, and then distributing them to who needs them? That would possibly give us the biggest discount on those books. You’re talking about buying one set, Circuit Court’s going to want a set, the Law Library is going to want a set, everybody comes to us asking us. I wondered, could we buy them all at one time, whether it’s out of the Council budget, or the Commissioners budget, put all those monies toward buying them all at one time.

Terry Dietsch: Well, but I don’t understand what you mean by buying them all at one time. You can’t buy them all at one time, because they come out periodically.

Terry Dietsch: No, no, you’re billed, for example, every year there are updates, which we call them supplements, okay? And they send you the supplements, because you put them in the back of the book. Well, they charge you for those, okay? If there are seven sets of supplements, they charge you for seven sets of supplements. Then, later on that year, they may come out with a new volume, and if they do, then you’re charged for the volumes. But, you don’t set a price at the beginning and say, law books for this year are going to cost us $22,000 and pay that. It doesn’t work that way. If that’s what you’re getting at.

Councilmember Tornatta: Well, I’m getting at if you say you’re working on a commitment with this company so that you have a certain price that you’re going to pay, okay?

Councilmember Tornatta: You said you’re working out a deal with a specific company for your law books, right?

Terry Dietsch: Hopefully, so that they will not increase above a set percentage per year.

Councilmember Tornatta: Okay. Now, if everybody got on that same plan, or a better plan because they knew that we were going to purchase more products from them at one time, would that not lower our price, or potentially give us a better deal?

Terry Dietsch: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know, we’ve not explored that. That’s something to think about certainly.

Councilmember Tornatta: That’s my point. We’re going to be asking, all these companies make these books, there’s what two or three companies that actually do this process. So, if we got on with one of those companies and said we will purchase all our books through you, and we want a set deal, maybe a two year deal, maybe a three year deal, so that we can have some type of idea.

Terry Dietsch: Do I think they would do that? No. No, I don’t think that. I don’t think they would do that. People are in the business to make money, Mr. Tornatta, as you know.

Councilmember Tornatta: I agree, but they’re also in the business to negotiate. A lot of times when you’re talking about $100,000 worth of books that we buy, you could talk about some negotiation point, if they want the $100,000 piece of pie.

President Winnecke: Judge, I had two questions. One relates to the CASA and the Guardian Ad-Litem line items, what the difference, can you explain the specific difference in those two? As I understand they’re kind of similar.

Brett Niemeier: As Judge Dietsch mentioned earlier, we received an unfunded mandate, starting in July, where the court has to appoint either a CASA or a Guardian Ad-Litem in every child in need of service case. Quite frankly, that is not possible. But, with the eye to the future, and hoping to fulfill that obligation, and also to protect cases that are going to go up on an appeal, those cases where we’re certainly going to get appealed on, we have to appoint CASA’s or Guardian Ad-Litem’s. CASA right now has approximately 80 children on a waiting list. That’s months out before a CASA can be assigned. In those cases where I feel an appeal is imminent, I’m going to have to appoint a Guardian Ad-Litem. Guardian Ad-Litem’s actually get paid for their services, unlike a CASA, who volunteers for the CASA organization. That’s one of the reasons for the increase in the Guardian Ad-Litem account. Quite frankly, their services had been increasing lately as far as what they charge the court. We don’t have as many people out there who want to do that. At one time probably, when I took office five years ago, we were getting bills at $35-$40 an hour, now people are not willing to do that anymore. Attorneys are charging us $75-$100 an hour.

President Winnecke: So, the line item for CASA, specifically, is for someone who oversees the CASA volunteers, is that correct?

Brett Niemeier: Yeah, it does not go to any volunteers. It’s just their staff.

Councilmember Goebel: Were these new requirements mandated by the state government beginning in July so that we’re paying for them now? Or will they start January 1?

Brett Niemeier: They started in July, and we’re paying for them now. Of course, we haven’t seen really much effect yet, since we’re only, you know, just a month out.

Councilmember Raben: Do you recall, in fact, if you’ll recall as recently as last Wednesday we made an additional appropriation for just this.

President Winnecke: Judge, while you’re here, you might expand on some of the comments that I made earlier about the discussions between the county and the Youth Care Center about potential arrangements with, for juvenile offenders.

Brett Niemeier: The court is very interested in developing a relationship or arrangement with the Youth Care Center to provide more secure detention for juveniles, so that they can be kept locally, instead of going to Vincennes. That’s where the majority of them are sent to right now. One of the line items that you’ll see is that we asked for another car this year for transportation. I will be glad to give up that request if you build us a detention center. You know, we have a car right now that we’re taking to Indianapolis at least twice a month, has over 170,000 miles on it. Quite frankly, I don’t think I would get in it and drive it to Indianapolis twice a month, but that’s what we’re having to transport our juveniles in. So, we would have some small savings by having our own detention center, but I think the more important question is, is what do our kids deserve in this community. If we’re really here to try to serve them and rehabilitate them and become productive members of our community, then we need to keep them here locally so that they can be, receive the services from a lot of different organizations in town, so they can work on issues within the family, try to get them straightened out before they turn 18, so we don’t fill up that new jail. I think that it’s long overdue, but we need a detention center here locally. I know President Winnecke said that we may save money, that may be awfully optimistic, I don’t know if we’re going to save money by doing this, but I certainly hope that we can at least contain costs in the future, and not spend anymore. Without any doubt at the size that we’re looking at right now, it would ultimately be a savings to this county five years down the road. Now, I can’t say that initially for this first year, but we submitted $1.7 million, I think that we can get fairly close to that, even if you later agreed to enter into a contract with the Youth Care Center so they could expand.

Councilmember Raben: One quick question. I guess, you’re going to be coming with maybe a more detailed presentation in the near future. Will that be prior to the close of budget hearings? Will we come back to this?

President Winnecke: Some of that is predicated upon the specific financial negotiations that are going on between the Commissioners and the Youth Care Center. I know Mr. Deisher has been involved in a couple of those meetings, and I think, at least on my latest conversation with President Crouch, I think they are getting closer. So, I do anticipate additional information coming forward, sooner rather than later.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I guess, I do have one concern before we address this concern. I want to explain that I’ve always been a great advocate of the Youth Care Center. I think we’re doing a lot better in regards to our children in putting them in custody with that organization than for instance Vincennes. That’s called the boys school, what do they actually call that?

Brett Niemeier: The boys school would Department of Correction. That’s Southwestern Indiana Regional Youth Village.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. But, there’s some of us that have addressed concerns in regards to spending public dollars for not-for-profits and private organizations. So, as you move forward, if you can balance it in regards to the grant, the up front money or per diem, I would like to see the per diem side of it. I think that looks cleaner, and, you know, then we’re only paying for our actual costs.

President Winnecke: I would just offer as a comment to that, I mean, I think that’s a very legitimate point. I would say that the estimates that the county has received preliminarily on what it would cost to remodel the existing jail, for instance, as a county owned and operated facility, anywhere from seven to ten million dollars, I believe are the numbers that the Commissioners have received. We’re talking about making a much smaller contribution on the front end to help the YCC move forward with it’s project. So, I think at the end of the day, if you analyze everything, its’ going to be a savings, and certainly a benefit to the young offenders who, many of whom have to go out of county.

Councilmember Raben: Again, I’m not arguing that. It may be our best option, but I would like to see it both ways. Maybe a balance between the two and see the per diem cost would be–

President Winnecke: Thank you, Judge. I do have one additional question of Judge Dietsch.

President Winnecke: Okay. Is there, and maybe it’s in the Sheriff/Jail budget, I don’t know, is there a line item anywhere having to do with equipment on this end for remote hearings from the new jail?

Terry Dietsch: Alright. I will put in a plug for the juvenile request for a new car. We made that request last year, and withdrew it because of your financial problems. Oh, and by the way, Mr. President, last year you indicated that perhaps there might be some other way to do that. Were you talking about capital funds of some kind?

Councilmember Abell: Judge, could you speak to the Computer Network Specialist at $75,000?

Terry Dietsch: Let me tell you why we did that. We did that last year, and, Mrs. Abell, you know more about this than I do, obviously, there’s a difference of opinion about computerization at the present time. We put this item in our budget for fiscal 2005, and we informed the Council at that time that we put it in there because we didn’t know what was going to happen. Okay? Nothing happened, so, obviously, we didn’t get that money, and we didn’t want that money. The same thing holds true this year. I have no idea what’s going to happen, but I don’t want to come up short, you know, and I’m not saying I think this is necessary. You know more about that than I do. You’ve worked with Judge Knight, and several other people, have you not?

Councilmember Abell: Yeah, and I was just wondering, I was not privy to where this has gone, and I thought maybe you had some information that I didn’t.

Councilmember Abell: Well, I would like to put a plug in for the courts that they need this person.

Councilmember Tornatta: Yeah, one last question, line item 3730, Continuing Education, how much money do you have in that fund right now?

Terry Dietsch: Ms. Norbury will tell you. The bulk of that money isn’t spent until the beginning of September.

Councilmember Tornatta: Okay, I didn’t know if you ever encumbered money in that line item.

Councilmember Abell: I have one more question. Judge, this is another question you may not be able to answer, but I was in the court building, and I couldn’t help but notice tremendous renovations, do you have any idea who’s paying for those renovations?

President Winnecke: Okay, let’s move on to page 170, Superior Court Supplemental Adult Probation.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, I guess, I would just ask the, on line 3930, Other Contractual.

Terry Dietsch: Oh, okay. We pay miscellaneous expenses, perhaps some testing equipment. We pay when the probation officers supervise work, public work, they are paying for that. What other kinds of supplies come out of that?

Terry Dietsch: Yeah. It’s all just simply miscellaneous items that are necessary in the operation of our probation department. You know, it could be from taking a person’s pictures, to getting cups for urine tests, anything that might come up.

Terry Dietsch: Oh, and also, as I told you in years past, from time to time, when we know we have sufficient funds, we will buy a big ticket item, like a copy machine out of this. So, it doesn’t have to come out of the General Fund. That’s what we use that for.

President Winnecke: Other questions or comments for the judge on this particular budget? Okay, thank you.

Terry Dietsch: Okay. If anyone has any questions between now and the next scheduled meeting, which is when? The 23^rd?

President Winnecke: I did forget about Drug Court. Do you want to speak to that? Page 110.

President Winnecke: Oh, I’m sorry. Drug and Alcohol Deferral, that will be a brief one. Sorry, Stan.

Deloris Koch: Thank you. We have added some increases to certain line items, starting with Office Supplies, we increased only by $200. One of the big differences is with our computers we’ll able to print more in-house. We anticipate to cut out having pre-printed envelopes, fee statements, things that are printed outside on carbon, we hope to begin printing all of that in-house, and cutting out some of those costs. One of the big differences is that with the Indiana Judicial Center regulations has caused us to create, modify and produce many more forms than we were accustomed to before. Also, with the increase in clients over the past several years, that’s meant a lot more printing, we use paper more than we used to. Also, the regulations say that we have to give copies, every form a client signs they have to have a copy. So, we are printing and copying a lot more. Another thing that has increased that is we’re demanding more frequent reporting from our referral agencies, and many of those reports come in on fax. So, we’re also using more fax paper and printing. So, that’s also going up. On Postage/Freight, obviously, increased cost in mailing, increased numbers. Again, the effort to communicate with all the agencies that we refer to, information back and forth means more mailing. The, I believe last year, I’m real sure that we had to come back and request more money to be able to pay for postage for the rest of the year, after it had been cut. The next item that we increased was for Computers, and as you may notice last year it was zero dollars, and we’re asking for $10,000 this year, or next year. We do have new computers, all of our counselors, everyone, all the staff in the office have new computers, we have Internet capability, we have e-mail. We are discussing with a consultant modifying a client monitoring software package that he has done for other counties. We’re just trying to modify it to our needs. His estimate for setting that software package up for us is $3,600. We anticipate that we can get a grant from the Indiana Judicial Center for up to $2,500 to reimburse us for that part of it. The other expense would be scanning our old cards. We started the process last year, or actually this year, but we only made it up to 1991 and ran out of money. We would like to continue to scan our old card files, so that we can destroy the old card files and have all of that on disk. We would like to start from ‘92 up to the present. Our goal is to have all electronic files on our clients. We still have to have paper files, but most everything would be in the computer, would be accessible in the computer. We have great plans for that once we get it going. It’s been kind of a slow process, but we’re still working on it. It’s a process that started last year. I thank Mr. Tornatta for his help on that. But, that’s why it’s such a large number compared to our previous, we just never had the computer capabilities before. It’s nice to be in the 21^st century by the way. Dues and Subscriptions is the next one. The main reason for that increase, other than the fact that certification for our professional counselors in our office, the costs, of course, keep going up, but the other reason is, some time ago Mark Graham is the third person in our office who will become certified as an addictions counselor. That process was started years ago. It is culminating now. All we have to do now is, he’s done all the testing, we’re waiting on the official word so that we can go ahead and pay for that certification. That means that we now will be paying for three counselors’ membership and certification fees and dues every year. The certification renews every two years. So, there will be an increase in that cost. The cost of training also keeps going up, and, of course, we have to keep everybody trained to keep the certification to be qualified to do the counseling side of it. That’s, as far as all the increases, all that we asked for.

Councilmember Tornatta: Excuse me, I would like to, just if you could real quickly, tell us the efficiencies that maybe the staff workers have seen since we kind of got you out of the typewriter era.

Deloris Koch: We’re actually just learning to use what we have. We have taken, some of us have started some computer classes at Ivy Tech, through JTAC funding. Three of the staff will go in October to get another class. We’re just in the process of beginning to learn what it can do for us, to be honest with you. We haven’t relied on it essentially. We’re still in between both systems. We’re still doing everything written, recorded paperwork. So, it’s almost more work in some ways, but we have a lot of plans for how it is going to simplify things a great deal. It will keep us up on monitoring clients a lot better. As I said, the reporting is increasing quite a bit too. Reporting, both our reporting to the courts is getting better, but also reporting from the other agencies coming in.

Councilmember Tornatta: Do you have a drop date when you think you’re going to start to trust the system, the new system?

Councilmember Tornatta: Because I know your office is a kicking and screaming group to go that direction.

Deloris Koch: Well, we’re not kicking and screaming nearly as much. We’re ready to go, but we just have a lot of details to work out on the software package to get it to the point where we can really use it to the full benefit. There will be a lot of adjustments done. Another part of the cost will be the on-going consulting services with this gentleman, Brian Slater, who will, hopefully, will be the one that will set this software package up for us.

Deloris Koch: So, we’ll be tweaking it as we go. But, we anticipate that we can do away completely with the card files. The client files we will still have to keep, anything the client signs has to be kept. Progress notes will have to be kept. At least when we close a file we have to be able to have everything in that file. We have to keep them up to six years.

Councilmember Tornatta: When you put these issues on disk, do you see that that will start to eliminate those?

Councilmember Tornatta: Okay. How many years did they go through the first round?

Councilmember Tornatta: Did you see an appreciable amount of paperwork gone at that time?

Deloris Koch: Not yet, we haven’t destroyed the old cards yet. We still have all the cards as of yet. We plan, next time we get a hold of Piranha they’ll be going.

Councilmember Abell: On this Computer/Data Management have you discussed that with the computer people here in our building at all?

Councilmember Abell: And they’ve approved this gentleman to prepare this software package for you?

Deloris Koch: As far as approved, there hasn’t been any objections. They’ve, Joe Anslinger’s been in with every meeting that we’ve had with this gentleman, and brought up certain questions and has been in the discussions. But, we haven’t officially hired the fella yet. We just now have, we’ve talked with him a couple of times. He’s showed us what it can do. We’ve talked about changes we want to make, and he’s made an estimate on the costs. That’s as far as we’ve gotten.

Councilmember Abell: You know, we pay a big amount to two or three different computer companies already, and I hate to see computer stuff start popping up in everybody’s budget. If we want to have a contract with GIS, Mark Rolley, or SCT or whoever, I think we’re going to have to stay under that.

Deloris Koch: One of the reasons we’ve talked to this gentleman is that he’s been able to set up for other court programs the same package. All he’s having to do is modify that package for us.

Councilmember Abell: I think Court View has a package that could probably work that came with the court program.

Deloris Koch: Yes, the probation....we have a little problem with getting kicked out of Court View every now and then. If I can’t have access, it’s not really going to help me much.

Councilmember Abell: I understand that. The county paid almost two million dollars for that package. So, we would sure like to use it. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Appreciate it. Prosecutor, page 37. I will just announce now for everyone’s planning purposes, after we get down through Prosecutor Pre-Trial Diversion, we’ll take a brief break. You may change tapes.

Stan Levco: Okay, I’m Stan Levco, Prosecuting Attorney. There are three items in my budget that have changed from last year that I assume you’ll want to address, so let me say they are–the first would be–it’s not a new position. An investigator for the Adult Protective Services, called APS, but it’s one that because of a grant money running out that I am asking the county to partially fund. The other would be–

Stan Levco: That would be 1450. The other one would be line item 3371 on Computer Hardware where we are requesting $15,000 for the purchase of a new server for Pros-Link with a software package for Indiana prosecutors. The final one would be 1083, 84 and 85 which are the matching grants that we’re asking you to fund. So shall I start first with the investigator?

Stan Levco: Essentially, I would just be briefly, but Gayle Angle is going to come up and speak much more authoritatively than I can. This is really an item that the Legislature gave to the prosecutors. It’s not–Adult Protective Services, although occasionally we file criminal charges isn’t really an integral part of the crime fighting part of the Prosecutor’s Office. It’s more helping adults who are in trouble. We have, because Vanderburgh County is a base center, we have six counties that we have to serve. We had a federal grant that money was cut out. We have four people in there. Two investigators, the secretary and the head of it. We’ve already voluntarily cut out the secretarial position, I’m not sure that was a good idea on my part, but I just didn’t want to ask you to have, you know, to fund two people. Perhaps I’m actually considering coming back and changing my mind on that, but what I have asked for at least for today is for you to fund the extra part of the investigator which is actually a total of only $9,574 more than you were funding last year when you were doing the matching grant and if it’s alright with you, I’ll ask Mrs. Angle to further explain that.

Gayle Angle: Mrs. Angle is my mother, actually. Thank you. Good morning. First of all I want to thank everybody that I have talked to in the last couple weeks for taking the time to meet with me to give me an opportunity to tell you just how important this position is, not only to the Prosecutor’s Office, but to the community. As you can tell with the letters of support that we’ve received, we received a lot from people who are affected by what we do. But most importantly, for the endangered adults in our community, outside of children probably the most vulnerable population that we have. These individuals include elderly, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, the mentally disabled. Those people have lived and worked in our community all their lives. As veterans they have served our country and we see a lot of veterans in what we do. I think they deserve–actually I think we owe them the right to be safe and to be protected in living in this community. When they are no longer able to take care of themselves or they are being abused or neglected by care givers and family members we are the agency that is called in to look into these situations. Without the adequate staff my biggest concern is that without that staff we lose that ability to intervene quickly in these situations and as a result I think people will continue to suffer needlessly and some people may even die. That is a big concern. We are understaffed as most agencies are understaffed, I understand that. However, the services that we provide cannot be duplicated by any other agency in our community outside of law enforcement. Believe me, when the Evansville Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department is on a scene where they have an 85 year old woman that can’t get out of bed living in an horrible situation, they want us there. My investigators who are here have the expertise and the training to be able to assess these situations. The beauty of it right now is that we’re able to get to those situations very quickly. Without the adequate staff that’s probably not going to be possible. The position that we lost is a key position in that it’s our support staff. That person answers the phones. Sometimes up to 20 and 30 calls a day. One day last month we received over 60 calls in one day. That person allows us to be able to be out in the field to do the work that we need to do. She enters the data that is required by the state to continue to get our funding that we already have. Up to this point we have entered almost 750 reports just in this year. Just reports from the Bureau of Developmental Disability, group homes, nursing homes. We’re all required to enter that data. So that is almost a full-time job in itself. I think the most important thing though is that it’s that human voice that we have in the office. We don’t have a voice mail. When people call and they want to give us a report it’s important to talk to someone. Sometimes it takes up to 15 to 20 minutes just to fill out one report. We have to gather a lot of information when we do our investigation so, you know, that’s a key position that we’ve lost and we’re going to have to restructure the way we do things in the office just with three of us. My investigators, we cover six counties. It’s about 2,200 square miles. The furthest we go is Derby, Indiana, 96 miles away where they’ll ask you what kind of car you’re driving if you need directions. So we go into some very rural areas and far away. We can put on 500 to 600 miles a month just on our cars just in mileage. Anywhere between 20 and 30 investigations–I’m sorry, it’s 30 to 35 investigations a month. That’s about a 38 percent increase from last year. The population that we serve is growing. You know, they’re living longer. The population between 80 and 95 will increase 56 percent in the next five years. You know, this is the bulk of the people that we see. Since the first of January we have done 76 investigations of people just in this age group. So the lack of adequate staff in our office in my professional opinion, I think, will put lives at risk so the money that we’re asking for is not a lot to maintain, I think, the safety of these individuals in our community.

Stan Levco: On 3371 Computer Hardware, this is a server that is already in place, but is apparently on its last legs. If you ask me a technical computer question I will refuse to answer it and ask Mr. VanCleave to answer it.

President Winnecke: Any questions of Mr. Levco on the technical question to which he has no reply?

Stan Levco: Okay. On the matching grants this is–we requested this last year and you didn’t see fit to give it to us last year, but I’m going to request it again this year. On 1083 which is–actually there is no change in that. That’s the drug program, I’m not asking for an increase in that. In the 1084 Victims Witness I am asking for $23,516. This is a deficit we’ve been running. It’s a very bizarre thing that’s happened is the reason is because we had a person in this position the last couple of years she worked in the Prosecutor’s Office her retirement benefits, the county has determined that her retirement benefits are coming out of that. So that’s bleeding that fund and it has been for a number of years. On the 1085 Stop Domestic Violence we’re asking for an increase of $7,995. That also has been operating at a deficit.

President Winnecke: Questions of Mr. Levco on any of these matching grants or other issues? Okay, thank you.

President Winnecke: This budget, I think, is pretty–is flat aside from salary increases.

Councilmember Abell: Mr. Levco, what is the collection rate, percentage, that your office is doing and reporting back to the state that gives us some refunds on these IV-D cases?

Councilmember Abell: No, I mean, the report that they give about how successful you are in setting up paternities and those type of things that relates to whether or not the percentage comes back to us. There is a report.

Stan Levco: Low and I hope we are remedying that. I think we’ve had a change and I think we will, but it is low.

President Winnecke: Other questions in this budget? Okay then I think we can go to Pre-Trial Diversion, page 172.

President Winnecke: Again, this is pretty straight forward. I don’t know that there will be any questions or issues here. Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Levco. Appreciate your time.

President Winnecke: At this time we’re going to take a ten minute break and we’ll reconvene at uh–we’