The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 11^th day of August, 2008 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. by County Council President Marsha Abell.

President Abell: I would like to welcome everyone in the audience, and also our T.V. viewing audience to the first day of our budget hearings. Being ever mindful that there are cities across northern Indiana that are laying people off and reducing services, we’re going to attempt to keep our budget in line and not do either of the above. So, with that said, we will get started. The first person on the budget hearings is the Treasurer. Ms. Tuley?

Z. Tuley: I believe I left everything exactly the same as this year, per your request. There was an adjustment on the bill printing. Other than that, there are no changes.

President Abell: You said on bill printing? Are you getting to print the same bills that you were last year? Is the state making you do new ones?

Z. Tuley: They’re going to want that new form. There has been another Treasurer that came up with a different version and actually got all of the information on one piece of paper. The only problem with his version is that when you rip off the remittance form, you’re ripping off the information and submitting it back to the Treasurer. So, the taxpayer, if they wanted to keep that information with the comparison on the back, they would need to make their own copy of just that one side, which isn’t exactly a bad plan, because, from my experience, a lot of people do want that information anyway. The legislators just, they wanted it, and they insisted that it be made available to the taxpayer, which is not a bad thing, information to the taxpayer is good. I believe that the Association may be getting behind him in order to present that so that there’s not two pages, or the cost of the postage because of the weight, and it will speed up the process. I like it. When I saw his version it was very impressive. He’s also a print shop owner.

President Abell: He sort of knew a lot more than the legislators. That’s not difficult. Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Z., with the, I guess, new streamlining from the state, as far as Assessors and all that, are we going to have a uniform billing system for the entire state, instead of each year trying to change?

Z. Tuley: It is intended, at this point, that the vendors that are going to produce tax and billing services for each county be required to be certified by the state as to their abilities to perform tasks and to keep up with any legislative changes that may come out in the future. At this time, there is not one single vendor selected. There are various vendors that are going to be appealing to the DLGF for certification and going to go through that process. I think competition in this area is a good thing. I think it may hold costs down. Typically competition does, not always.

Councilmember Goebel: I know we have a long morning, but the point you make of competition, I think, would be good. It would be the same form they’re competing for, or does each vendor have his own form?

Z. Tuley: Right now the tax bill itself has been designed by the DLGF, and that comparison that goes with it was designed by the DLGF. Those forms are the ones that they are requiring.

President Abell: Anyone else? If you want to turn to page 152, this is in the reassessment budget, and it’s the same as last year on your help, is that correct?

President Abell: Any questions? Thank you, Ms. Tuley. County Clerk? Well, we’ll skip over the County Clerk, and we’ll go to whoever is here next. Prosecutor?

Doug Brown: He should be here in two weeks, I believe. Hopefully, I can answer your questions.

President Abell: I’m sure you can. Anyone have any questions of the Prosecutor?

Doug Brown: You should have all been provided a rationale for our 2009 budget where we’ve outlined any changes that we have from last year. Basically, our budget is the same, requests are the same. There are a couple of big differences though. One would be in our Drug/Law Enforcement program–

President Abell: Does anyone know where that is in their yellow book? It’s not in the yellow book?

President Abell: Is it on our desks? Since you say it was provided, I want to make sure everyone has it.

Councilmember Sutton: This is what I’m looking at. They have the same thing (Inaudible).

Councilmember Sutton: No, it’s in our yellow book, if you just follow...it’s department 108 is what it’s termed as.

President Abell: Okay. Well, that’s what...you said it was there, and then they said it wasn’t. Okay. Now, everybody has it, so.

Doug Brown: The first one can be disregarded. We were going to be transferring our, at the time we made the budget out, our head of IV-D to the regular office, but we had another person (Inaudible) quit, so he’s going to be staying there, for the time being at least. So, that request for a salary increase will not be made at this time.

Doug Brown: Yeah. At the bottom, I’m kind of skipping around here, we are asking for, and a request to cover our domestic violence prosecutor, and that’s just purely on seniority. He took it over last year, and he’s almost a 30 year employee, so that is just simply a request to get him up to speed with his matching seniority. Directly above that is, as we have for the last, every year, I think, we’ve requested additional enforcement officers for IV-D. You’ve given us an additional one each of the last two years, and it’s been great. We have, with the one we added two years ago, it increased our collections of current support 53 percent, and back support 55 percent, and our total collections went up approximately a million dollars that year. Last year you gave us another additional enforcement officer, we had similar increases, everything went up about another million dollars. The reason I’m pointing that out is, if there’s something to cut from our budget this year, we could live with you not, I know the situation that the county is in, if you would want to, I would understand you not giving us an additional enforcement officer. I wanted to thank you for what you’ve given us in the past, and just point out that is an area we could trim. We’re doing great with our additional staff. We could always use more staff, but I just wanted to point that out.

President Abell: How does your staff compare in the IV-D Prosecutors across the state?

Doug Brown: Well, as far as the total ranking, I think we’ve moved up nine spots since last year. Our collections continue to increase. Just on pure numbers wise, as far as cases per employee, we have 975 cases per staff employee. Elkhart has 920 per employee, St. Joseph, 670, and Allen County, 800. So, I mean, our employees are doing a great job handling more cases than similar situated counties and our collections continue to increase. Our biggest request we have is because of the Byrne grant, and it’s a federal problem, disappearing with our drug program. We’re going to be asking the county to pick up the entire budget for four employees in our drug program. You’ve contributed to the matching portion of that grant for years. Last year we made the Council aware that this grant was drying up, and that we would be coming back and making this request. Dan Miller, the head of the drug program is here today to answer your questions and give a small presentation regarding that.

President Abell: Okay. Anyone have any questions before Mr. Brown sits down? Okay.

Dan Miller: Good morning. I’m Dan Miller, and I’m currently the director of the drug/law enforcement program with the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s office. A coordinated team approach is an effective tool to prosecuting drug dealers. Since 1989 the Prosecutor’s office has had a team of prosecutors devoted solely to prosecuting drug crimes. Our division has made great progress over those years. It has been funded by a combination of federal funds and county matches. In the most recent year, the drug division has received its funding through the Edward Byrne state justice assistance grants, which are awarded through the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute. Those grants fund multi-jurisdictional drug task forces, which our office helped perform with the Vanderburgh County Sheriff Department and the Evansville Police Department, and which we are currently an active participant, and hope to remain so for the year to come. Unfortunately, Congress has reduced spending on the Edward Byrne justice assistance grants by 67 percent, and that is even after reducing it for the past two years in a row. So, we are asking for full funding of the Prosecutor’s drug division staff, which includes three attorneys, who do drug prosecutions full time, and one secretary. Last year the county funded those petitions to the tune of $132,308. This year we are asking for $258,923. You all did receive a two page description of what our office does and what our request is. That is the paper that is outside of your yellow book that I saw someone pick up. Yes. That basically describes, in part, what we do. Some highlights, we file, our division alone files anywhere from 750 to 900 cases per year. Last year that represented approximately 33 percent of all the felony files in our office. I find it interesting when I talk to other prosecutors that our case load in the drug prosecution unit exceeds the entire felony case load of many Indiana counties. Our drug prosecutors are not just 8:30 to 4:30, or 8:00 to 4:30 prosecutors. They work around the clock. We are available to all law enforcement agencies in Vanderburgh County 24 hours a day, seven days a week to assist in search warrants and answering questions that come in about drug crimes and certain procedural issues. We also are very involved in the community, involved with the drug court, forensic (Inaudible) programs, as well as getting out in the community to the south sector, to the Evansville Police Department sector meetings, listening to the concerns of citizens who attend those meetings, and we’re working through the weed and seed efforts as well. We think that we perform a very valuable service to the citizens of Vanderburgh County. We’ve done so for the last 18 or so years, with the help of the federal government; that is not coming this year.

Councilmember Winnecke: I have a couple of questions. Dan, aside from the three deputy prosecutors dedicated to this division, do other prosecutors file and execute drug cases from the prosecutors office?

Dan Miller: Only misdemeanor marijuana cases in misdemeanor court. We do not file those cases in misdemeanor court. Other prosecutors are involved in that. But, in terms of felony drug cases, no. Those are entirely the realm within my three deputies and myself.

Councilmember Winnecke: And what would be the, how would the division have to be re-structured if the entire funding only totaled the $132,300 versus the full amount that you’re requesting? What would you do?

Dan Miller: I’m not sure what we would do. My guess is that I couldn’t devote three people to what is currently being done. Given the activities and the duties of the other deputy prosecutors, I’m not sure we could do what we are currently doing as well, because there just would not be time.

Councilmember Winnecke: Do you have a feel for whether that would be one attorney and administrative support, or two attorneys and, have you thought that through?

Dan Miller: I have not. When you’re dealing with, last year it was 816 cases, and it’s going to be that or more this year, it’s hard to understand what I would do if I didn’t have any help.

President Abell: Is that 816 cases divided among three different deputy prosecutors?

Dan Miller: Yes, but, I mean, that is still an incredible case load. Not all of them go to trial, but a good number of them go to trial, and my deputies now are preparing for at least three trials a week, all the time.

Councilmember Sutton: Did you say, you said 816 cases, so, what’s the conviction rate, I guess, with that number of cases that you’ve got?

Dan Miller: I don’t have that number. When we talk about conviction rates, that includes pleas of guilty–

Dan Miller: –as well as trials. Our conviction rate at trial is better than 55 percent. Our conviction rate when you include plea agreements is higher than that. There are some cases we do lose, through motions to suppress. You will be hearing from the Public Defenders later, they sometimes are a thorn in my side. But, we, I think we do very well. I don’t have an exact number, and I’m not sure exactly where to get it, but I could find the number for you.

Councilmember Sutton: So, when you say the 816 cases, is that a 2007 number? What are you using as a year span to come up with that number?

Councilmember Sutton: How does that compare to previous, the past two or three years? Is that on par with what you’ve been doing before? Less, more?

Dan Miller: It is mostly on par with what we were doing before. I think, two years before I became the director, we had a year in which we had over 1,000 cases that we filed. My highest year was around 900. The year before last, 2006, I think we filed somewhere in the area of 836 cases. So, we were down a little bit last year.

Councilmember Sutton: And, is this grant being eliminated totally nationwide? Or is there certain class, certain size of cities, and are there no other funds that are available out there?

Dan Miller: Okay, that’s two questions. The grant is not being eliminated. (Inaudible) I think, 1.8 million dollars for the coming fiscal year to distribute. I don’t intend to stop applying for that grant. However, they’ve told us that prosecution expenses can only be 20 percent of the grant that we’re applying for, which is a multi-jurisdictional drug task force. Last year, our total award was $95,000, 20 percent of that was $19,000, and that grant got cut 67 percent for the coming year. They have not posted that grant yet. So, I’ve not yet applied for it. But, if I apply for it and am successful in applying for it, as I have been, realistically, the most I can expect in prosecution expenses from that grant is $6,000. That would not come anywhere close to a salary. Now, the second part of that is, yes, I have my eyes out there looking for other grants, and I even checked this morning, and so far I’ve not found anything that we qualify for.

Councilmember Shetler: What is Congress’ rationale for cutting back on this? Are they diverting funds into a different area of crime?

Dan Miller: That depends on who you’re talking to. A few years back they were not satisfied with the statistics they were getting. This was not necessarily Congress, but the Bush administration was not satisfied with the statistics that they were getting. At that point, my reporting changed, because I wasn’t being asked for what apparently the administration wanted. So, we began reporting different statistics, because I was being asked to report different statistics. They have, I think they have allocated money to other things. I’m not really too familiar with all the rationales for where all the additional money is going, or the money that used to be funded to us is now going.

Councilmember Shetler: I’m like Royce, I would be interested myself in knowing what the success rate has been then, statistically, particularly if that may be some of the rationale of why if their feeling is, if maybe the program isn’t as efficient or productive nationwide as it ought to be, and if we’re measuring up locally, beyond those statistics. Perhaps that could tell us a little bit, you know, there. Because, when you’re telling me we’ve got three attorneys that are doing 810 cases, roughly, that’s 270 a year, and that would tell me that they’re doing basically one a day. I assume a great majority of those aren’t even going to trial, but they’re just handled without going to trial. So, it doesn’t sound to me like there’s a lot of pressure there, but I would be interested in knowing, you know, more of what goes to trial, the success rate for those that do, and, etcetera. Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: I know, you probably were not in the position you are today, but, unfortunately, most of these grants, and I think it was discussed over many years with Stan, so many of these grants, while we approve them today, it’s always been somewhat known, it’s been a standing, a long-time standing agreement that, you know, when these grants dry up, that, you know, sometimes you suffer the consequences and lose them. My recommendation here, while it may not be totally what you want, but I’m going to throw out a recommendation, you know, we’ve been on the line for $132,000, as an example, last year. We could, I would think we could at least do that this year. So, I might ask you to pick out the individuals that we could fund within that $132,000. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to pick up all of these positions. I mean, it’s highly unlikely because of the situation we’re going to be in next year, and maybe even worse in the year after. So, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind maybe getting back with us in the next couple days and let us know the two individuals here that we could fund within that $132,000. You know, let’s get that far, and then we’ll see how to proceed through the budget, and see if we can add anymore of these individuals.

President Abell: Mr. Shetler, I think Mr. Brown also wants to say something. He stood up.

Doug Brown: That’s a difficult question for Dan to answer, because we would have to look at the total office structure, and we would take into account seniority and a lot of reshuffling. So, I mean, I can give you an answer, but just not give you individual’s names, about how many deputies total we might be able to get out of that amount of money (Inaudible) years experience, but I’m not going to be able to tell you any person.

Councilmember Raben: Just something to....right. Some sort of configuration for us to go by.

Doug Brown: For whatever it’s worth, I mean, that, I don’t know if you could break it down to a case a day, but that is an excessive case load for anybody. We could check some of the other drug departments around the state for you and try to get a comparison like that, that might help. But, I would also say, each week our office work, in both Superior and Circuit Court, to develop a trial list of what is, the likely trials that could go during any given week, and the drug program, at a minimum, always gets half of those trials, and there are weeks where they have every trial, literally, in both courts. So, I mean, they are the busiest portion of our office, by far.

President Abell: Just a minute, Mr. Shetler, I have a question for Mr. Brown while he’s at the microphone. Last week you alluded to the fact that you wanted (Inaudible) salary, and that you would take it out of what you call your discretionary funds. I would like to know what the balance is in that discretionary fund account.

Councilmember Shetler: On that, on the funding that’s got salaries and FICA, and PERF, etcetera. What about health insurance? Do these guys get any health insurance?

Councilmember Shetler: Okay, so, that’s an extra cost that should be added in here?

Doug Brown: That cost has not been added into that figure. So, that is, that’s an additional cost for the county to pick up. That is not part of that figure that we’re giving you.

Councilmember Shetler: Alright, so, the program actually costs us more than the $258,000, plus the health insurance as well on those employees?

President Abell: Other questions on any part of the budget for the Prosecutor? Okay. Thank you.

President Abell: We’ll go back to our schedule. I noticed the Clerk was here. Ms. Kirk?

Susan Kirk: I apologize for being late. I can’t run as fast as I used to with these little short legs.

President Abell: She has a rationale for her proposed budget on the first page of your yellow book. Anyone like to ask Ms. Kirk any questions? Or do you have something you would like to tell the Council?

Susan Kirk: I know the only thing that usually comes up, that’s our big cost, is our storage fees, and our microfiliming and stuff. I think, I don’t know, Council will have to make their decision, if we, we are in the process of really trying to destroy records, which costs more money. If we spend the money up front now, and maybe the next two years, and get caught up, in the long run it will be cheaper. But, you know, I know that money’s tight. So, that would be the decision that you will have to decide. Do you just want to leave it the way it is? Or, do you want to give the extra money now, so that we can continue to destroy the records and get some of that cost down.

President Abell: Are you talking about the item number three from $80,000 to $100,000? Is that–

Susan Kirk: It’s a nightmare that’s never really going to end, because we have so many new cases filed every year, but, like I say, as you go along, it’s a decision that we need to make as to whether or not you want to spend the money now to destroy them to kind of even that out, or just let them accumulate and not spend the money to destroy them, but just continue storing them.

President Abell: And, obviously, due to the sensitivity of the cases, you are having to have them actually destroyed, not just thrown in the trash can?

President Abell: You have to destroy them. You can’t just throw them in the trash can.

Councilmember Winnecke: Susie, what’s the, in a best case scenario, if you had all the funding that you would need in this area, how long would it take you to kind of purge the old records and be kind of current?

Susan Kirk: I’m guesstimating, if we had the money, probably three years, because it is, as Marsha can tell you, I don’t know whether any of you took the opportunity to go out to Kinder to see what that looks like, but it is just a monumental task. It will probably take us three years to actually get the things that can be destroyed, according to the statute, and get them out of there. So, a three year period of maybe asking for another, like $20,000 more than what we would normally do, just to take care of Kinder. We have to pay them to pull the files, and then, of course, whoever gets the lowest bid to shred those records. Some of the records, you know, we have to keep them forever. So, they’re not going anywhere. But, I would say three years, because it’s going to take my staff that long just to, you know–

Susan Kirk: At the rate we’re going, right. Any spare moment that’s what they work on is going through that list of records and the retention schedule.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I just want to make sure that maybe it’s just one of those semantics things that we’re not just arbitrarily going in and just destroying records, but, you know, kind of just for our listening audience would you just, there’s certain records that no longer need to be retained, that need to be eliminated for space purposes, and then there’s others that you have to keep for an indefinite amount of time. Maybe if you could be a little bit, clarify your statement a little bit on that.

Susan Kirk: Yes, the state has what they call a retention schedule, and on that retention schedule it tells you, there are some records that you have to keep for three, some ten, some 20, some forever. What we have to do is, we have to go through every case that we have, and see where it falls into that retention schedule, which is, you know, there’s, I don’t know, Marsha, you got any idea of how many hundred files are out there? It’s a warehouse. It’s huge. So, no, it’s not a matter of going out there and saying, oh, okay, let’s just pull these boxes off this section and get rid of them.

Susan Kirk: It isn’t. These files are intermingled with other ones. Some of the cases, you know, you may file today, they may sit dormant for a year, then they’re re-opened, and some of these things go on and on. So, it isn’t sometimes a matter of going to one place for one case and pulling one file, you know, it may have started here in Superior, it may have been transferred to Circuit, so, it’s a very complicated thing. But, no, it isn’t just going out there, pulling them off the shelves and just moving them out. You have to go through every file to see where does this fit on the retention schedule. Someone pulls that file, puts it in the area where we’re going to destroy the records. So, it’s really time consuming. I wish it was just really easy to just–

Councilmember Shetler: Does the statute allow us to do imaging on any of the files?

Susan Kirk: Almost every case that is filed, we do, you have to put it on a CD, and also on microfilm. Now, we have gone back and tried to get some of the older cases on microfilm and CD so we can rid of them. Because you can’t get rid of them until that is accomplished. So, we are trying to even back date on some of those that we can get rid of, do the CD, microfilm so that we can get those cases destroyed. But, yes, everything is.

Councilmember Shetler: I guess, maybe I’ll rephrase the question a little bit, are there some cases that you must maintain hard copies of, paper copies?

Councilmember Shetler: Right, and you cannot image those in lieu of a paper copy?

Susan Kirk: Well, actually, we have to keep the hard copy and we have to image them also.

Susan Kirk: So, we have it basically three different ways, hard copy, CD, microfilm, according to the state.

Councilmember Raben: I don’t, Susie, I don’t really understand exactly how, I mean, are you filing these cases by date, by, is there a classification? Or, I mean, how do you file?

Susan Kirk: We file by case number. Within, a case number is reasonably long. One of the first two numbers that you see is going to be what type of case it is, and then there’s the year, like this year, ‘08. We file by case number and try to keep them in order by case type, whether it’s small claims, Circuit, Superior, Juvenile, Misdemeanor. So, by number, by year, by number, by case type.

Susan Kirk: Yes, by year, 2008. Say you start off 2008 and the very first, just to make it easy, the very first case you file is case number one, then two, three, four, and you do the same thing in Superior, Circuit, Misdemeanor, Juvenile.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. Maybe I didn’t pick up on the answer, but is it by case type that these records can be destroyed, or what? I mean–

Susan Kirk: Some cases, depending on what it is, like Small Claims cases, say, for instance, maybe you only have to keep those for ten years.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, going forward is there a plan, maybe filing those case types separately where we’re not going through large files, sorting through for the ones we can destroy? I mean, can you develop a plan where those files can be totally separate, so ten years from now we can identify those files and say these are the ones to be destroyed? Where we’re not burdened with, you know, going through case by case files.

Susan Kirk: That’s the goal. That would be the goal. Eventually, I mean, it’s out there now, it’s e-filed where they file by the Internet. Our only problem, I mean, it’s there, it’s there to use, but one of the problems that we have is that some people still like paper, and I don’t want my Clerk’s office–

Councilmember Raben: Let’s don’t put these in the same box with ones we can never destroy. Let’s figure out a system where–

Councilmember Raben: You’ve got a yellow box and a brown box, you know, as an example, or something that you can go through and very quickly identify those boxes where we don’t encumber a lot of cost, outside of shredding.

Susan Kirk: We’ve been doing that for the last three years. Filing them to where we will know, actually, this section can go. They won’t have to rifle through files. We are doing that, but, my gosh, I mean, it’s like a piece of sand on the beach, since we’ve been doing it for three years, because it’s just huge. It’s just huge. So, like I said, three years probably just to get it organized to where we’re up-to-date on the retention schedule. Three years ago we started filing, just as you said, Jim, trying to do it to where we knew this was the ten year section, the 20 year section, the best that we can. So, it’s just, like I said, it’s a huge task.

President Abell: Because you still will always have to look at every file, because people misfile things. If you misfile a felony into a small claims and you destroy it, you’re going to have a very unhappy judge if that case gets pulled back (Inaudible).

Councilmember Raben: –but, if the boxes you’re getting ready to destroy are easily identifiable, and there’s ten of them, instead of 100 percent of all the boxes you’re fishing through. I mean, yeah.

President Abell: Well, I think they’re pretty well to that point, but things do get misfiled.

Susan Kirk: They do, and I agree. If you have a box that you know you can destroy, it doesn’t take long to go through it rather than, pulling one here, one there, one over there, and, hopefully, maybe one of these days it will be manageable.

President Abell: Mr. (Inaudible), did you have a question? No? Anyone? Ms. Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Do you, currently, when a case is closed, do you today, put it on disk and microfilm, or whatever the other thing you had to do was? Do you do that today as you go?

Susan Kirk: Yes, we keep current, plus we are trying to catch up with some of the old ones.

Councilmember Sutton: Yeah, just one last question, you’re asking for an increase on storage. Now, do you have more coming in than you have going out?

Susan Kirk: I would say probably this year we may be running 75 percent, that we’re gonna, say 100 are filed, new cases filed, we can get rid of like 75. So, we’re 75 percent of getting rid of what we’re bringing in. That will be probably for the next three years. Then you will see that diminish quite a bit, to where, you know, we will have it pretty well caught up. So, it will just be new cases filed out there. Like I said, if we can ever get to the e-mail, the e-filing, to where we do not have paper, because we e-file, you can automatically put that on the disk, get that on microfilm, and there is no paper. But, people still, we still like that paper. But, that is coming, it is coming. It may be, who knows, ten years from now that may be the only way you can do it. They won’t even allow you to use paper anymore.

Councilmember Goebel: It might be an improvement. Do you have someone working full time just on this, in this area? Or do you have different people pulling and shredding?

Susan Kirk: No, we don’t have, I don’t have a full time person for that. I have one of my employees is an archivist, and she, along with another of, my Supervisor of Administration, work on it more than anyone. We also, I also have each of my supervisors, because this is such a huge task, trying to check their cases with the retention schedule. So, there’s probably five working when they have the time, to decide which cases are falling where on the retention schedule, and when we can get rid of them. But, no, there is not a full time person for this. That’s why it’s going to take a few years to get this job accomplished.

President Abell: Let’s go to her IV-D account, which is on page six. Questions? I have a question, is this what, is this the total of what you are assuming you’re going to spend out of, in IV-D? Or, is this what’s left after you get reimbursed from the state? In other words, is your record storage actually $15,000? Or, is it like $30,000 and you’re going to get reimbursed half of that?

Susan Kirk: Well, as far as our storage, or Clerk fees, it’s two dollars per case, and we do, what we use that for is for our microfilming and our CD’s. That’s what we use that for. Are you looking at–

President Abell: What about the IV-D money that you get back from the state, do you use that for any of these expenses too?

Susan Kirk: That’s, well, that IV-D money, most of that, no, that’s all used pretty well for microfilming and CD.

President Abell: Actually, the expenses here are greater than this, but you’re paying a lot of it out of IV-D?

Councilmember Shetler: I’m just kind of, and you may not be able to answer this question, and, maybe Judge Dietsch can, is this a decision of the Supreme Court on how the records are kept? Or, is this a legislature issue?

Susan Kirk: When you say how the records are kept, you mean how they are stored?

Councilmember Shetler: How they are stored, or, you know, kept for a period of time.

Susan Kirk: You know, the only thing that I really know from that part of the state that handles that is that they prefer records, the only thing that I know of is that they say they would like to have it in a climate control optimum. I don’t think there’s, I don’t know of anything in particular that says you have to store them this particular way.

Councilmember Shetler: No, I meant, I didn’t know if it was coming down from the Indiana Supreme Court to say that these records need to be kept for 20 years, and this for ten.

Councilmember Shetler: Or, if that was a statute by the legislature that actually develops that criteria and what needs to be stored.

Councilmember Shetler: Basically, I want to know who we might want to talk to about electronically storing these, you know, in the future, particularly if we’re talking about environmental reasons.

Terry Dietsch: In answer to your specific question, that’s determined by the Administrative Rule of the Indiana Supreme Court.

Susan Kirk: There’s no election next year, but, I love good news, but I will say this, for the year after that, Council needs to be aware that the ES&S contract runs out. So, the things that were included in the contract, the on-site help, I mean, there’s, I don’t know how much, almost everything we do is pretty well, except printing, we do have to pay some printing costs over and above what’s in the contract, we’re going to have to pay for. Just as a sample, ES&S charges $1,500 every time one of their staff comes down to Vanderburgh County, a day. Now, we do have days left. I did take, and I think Mr. Shetler probably remembers this, we had the precinct kits that were costing a fortune, and I got rid of that part through that end, with their support, that $1,500. There was also some voter outreach money that’s left, I’ve thrown that in there with the contract. I’m waiting to hear back from ES&S to see if they are actually going to accept what I’ve asked them to do, but, yeah, in 2010, it’s going to cost, the budget is going to be big. It’s going to be big.

President Abell: That will be a negotiation that the attorneys will do, and we might be able to call our own shots on some of that too.

Susan Kirk: Well, that’s something that, like I said, be sure to keep in mind, because that’s going to be a pretty good size.

Councilmember Shetler: 550? Is that going to be adequate? Because I know there’s been some talk and discussion about that in the past that, you know, we had tight lines, Presidential election, four years ago, that’s here again, so, are we going to be in good shape on that?

Susan Kirk: I’m, it’s kind of a wait and see right now. I mean, at the time that’s all Vanderburgh County could order, because that’s all we had room for. I think we’re going to move to the old, I don’t know what you call that now, the old jail, not the old, old jail, but, you know, the libraries being open, now, grant you, that does take some of the Ivotronics out of play for election day. Although they’re ready to go out, that’s kind of what we use for back up, but, that’s really helped. It’s, we’ll try it for this general election, it will be our first big one, and, I think, if we that the libraries are keeping our lines down on election day, I don’t see any reason why we should order any more Ivotronics. If that’s not the case, then, if we have the room to store them, then that’s something that Council can make a decision on it. You know, you have to weigh how many times do we have record turnouts? I mean, all of us have been around long enough, we can go back, not very often do we have record turnouts like in 2004, where they had to stand in line. Do you want to spend the money to purchase more machines, in case we have record turnouts? Or, do we just want to kind of plow through those bad times, and not buy anymore machines, and get back to the regular voter turnout? That’s just, you guys, you’ll just have to make that decision.

Councilmember Goebel: I certainly don’t think you want to discourage people from voting, like last time, because some people on lunch hour simply couldn’t wait any longer and left. But, I would hope we could explore more remote sites for early voting. It seems like that went over very well this spring, and I think a lot of people would vote early, and it might take a load off without buying anymore machines.

Susan Kirk: It is, but, now remember, when we take those machines out, it’s not that we can’t prepare them and get them ready for election day, but, the more you have, the more you’re cutting it close, because we bring those machines back into the Election Office the Friday before the election. The inspectors come in like Saturday, that very next day. Now, they’re not picking up the machines, but they are picking up the supplies that go with the machines. Those, the supplies are programmed, the little PEB’s for certain machines. So, we have to be careful about doing too many more early voting sites, or we may have a little bit of a shortage election day, trying to get all of those ready to go, in case we need them. I would love to be able to, you know, I wish all the libraries were brand new and beautiful, because that has just worked out, again, fairly well.

Susan Kirk: Well, we’re willing, but remember again, that’s more staff, just remember the money, don’t get mad at me if we ask for more money. But, please do try to prepare for 2010, because it’s, any way you look at it, that budget’s going to go way up.

President Abell: Susie, do you have voter outreach money left? I know you said you have $1,500 and you’re trying to negotiate, could you possibly, I know that the machines, time when people vote, could you like do some kind of voter outreach and say these are the hours in which we have low voter turnout, you might want to think about voting between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m., or whatever the hours are?

Susan Kirk: Well, like I said before, I’ve already asked them to take that outreach money and put it on something a little bit more, like our printing costs and having them come down. But, I think that’s a great idea. I think maybe if we could get the news media to help us with some of that, I think that would be great. I think they would probably do some of that, and not cost us a dime, maybe. But, yeah–

President Abell: Because my husband voted during the heavy period and he walked right in. He voted at 2:30 in the afternoon. So, you know, there are times when you can get in.

President Abell: Public Defender. I’m sorry, Voter Registration is next. They won’t be long, Mr. Owens. Page 70. Good morning.

Steve Owens: I think the only, maybe in terms of importance, perhaps, despite the request not to make a request for any new positions, you may recall in 2007 we proposed a plan to the Public Defender Commission which called for us to phase in a number of positions, and bringing the Juvenile Court into compliance, and to make sure that our Felony Division stayed in compliance. As a result of that, we added an attorney in 2008, and we are now requesting a paralegal and investigator for 2009, which will bring us to the third phase of the plan that we proposed to the Commission. We would be, at that point, technically, still an investigator short, or the Commission has assured me at their last meeting, that as long as we have contract investigative services that are also available to us, that, notwithstanding that we only have two full time investigators, assuming this position would be approved, that we would be considered to be in compliance with the Commission standard. So, in terms of importance, I would think that’s the most significant request that we’ve made. Probably the second most significant request would be the increase in the Pauper Expense line item. We have increased our case loads from 2001, then we had about 1,200 felony assignments, to a little over 1,700 last year. Our Appellate numbers have exploded. Last year we did, total for the whole entire year, roughly 20 some odd appeals, this year we have already hit that number, up to the end of June, and I don’t see any indication that it’s going to let up. That Pauper Expense line item has, was initially set in back in 2001 at $50,000, and it has since gone all the way to zero, and it’s come back up last year to $20,000. We have been attempting to make up the difference through the Supplemental Public Defender Account. We’ve been successful in doing that over a number of years, but we are reaching somewhat of a critical mass in that account. So, as long as we are operating at that level, we probably will have either one of two options, one is we start refusing cases, which is going to make the judges very unhappy. Or, two, we’ve been coming back to you asking for an increased appropriation during the course of the year. I don’t know any other way around it. I have submitted an alternative proposal, which we have floated on a couple of occasions with various members of the Council in the past. I don’t know if you’ve had an opportunity to look at that. It is a way which we, given the current state of the Supplemental account, that we could maintain all of our non-personnel related items at 2007 levels, and still provide all of the services that they need to do in 2009. I said 2007, I meant 2008 funding levels.

Councilmember Winnecke: Steve, what if, I read the letter that Mr. Wiese sent to you, what’s the, what is the mood at the state level for communities that are facing decreased revenue as a result of other actions the legislature has taken that may prevent us from being able to complete the phase-in that we had previously thought we could provide?

Steve Owens: Pardoned cooperation, perhaps. We’re not the only county facing this, Marion County’s got issues, Allen County’s got issues. They would like to see us come into compliance. They stressed that at the June meeting. I assume that if the Council is unable to fund these positions because of the property tax reform, that in September I’ll be back before the Commission with an alternative proposal of some sort. They have been fairly receptive. I would say maybe a little more receptive to the problems than they have been in the past. They’ve had a change of leadership. There’s also, you might remember, there is some on-going discussions at the state level to have the state take over all or some portion of indigent defense. We don’t know what they’re going to propose to the legislature in this next session, but I think you’ll see something coming in to have them take over some portion of that. Now, whether the state can afford to fund that, I don’t know.

Councilmember Leader: Would you explain the Pauper Expenses for the general public watching us on television, please?

Steve Owens: Pauper Expenses, currently we pay out of that all of the mental health hearings that we get appointed to, we pay conflict counsel, we pay appeals, and any other things that our attorneys are unable to handle under their salaried positions that they get. If they get maxed out on their case loads, we have to farm those out. Right now we’re running pretty (Inaudible)our numbers. So, most of that expense would be mental health appeals and conflict cases.

President Abell: Other questions? Mr. Owens, what is the balance in your discretionary fund?

Steve Owens: I don’t call it a discretionary fund, but, today I can’t tell you what the balance is right now.

Steve Owens: We have been using that. I mean, we’ve paid storage, (Inaudible), we use that fund for that. We use it for 2910 expenses, conflict cases, appeals.

President Abell: Well, maybe you could give us a report of what you use it for, if you’ve got that written down. The Sheriff is good enough to give us one on his discretionary funds–

President Abell: –and I’m going to ask for that from all the departments that all have discretionary funds.

Steve Owens: And, I’ll be able to give you the balance as of probably last week.

President Abell: That would be fine. Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes, Mr. Owens, on your rent number, was that provided to you? Because I see an increase there, was that a number that you guys came up with, or are you anticipating something different?

Steve Owens: That was the number that was provided to us. (Inaudible) current budget, I think you’ll notice that it went up a little bit, because the number that they gave me for square footage was a little low.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, an extra $14,000. A $14,000 increase there. Then, I know this is something that’s kind of hard to anticipate, but trying to get an idea, are you, there’s isn’t anything requested under the death penalty line item, and, you know, we had a pretty substantial amount that went out for that particular expense this year. Is there nothing now that you anticipate in 2009 that’s pending?

Steve Owens: There’s nothing pending right now. I would anticipate that we may have some minor 2009 death penalty expenses. The case is about ready to be briefed. We send the brief to the Indiana Supreme Court, and it will take them some period of time to make a decision. If that decision is to affirm conviction, we have to file a petition for cert to the United States Supreme Court, which I would anticipate would come in 2009. But, again, depending upon the, depending on where we are with that Supplemental Public Defender Account, I would anticipate we might be able to pay that money out of that account as, in lieu of coming back and asking for an additional appropriation.

President Abell: Mr. Owens, could you get a memo to members of Council on what case that is? I don’t want to bring that up today, so we’ll know which case we’re talking about that you think may be ready to go. Also, any other case that you may think of that we might be looking at.

Eric Williams: Do you want me to answer the obvious one first? There’s $12,000 in Commissary.

President Abell: That’s how much is in his fund. So, we don’t have to ask him that. Okay, would you like to continue?

Eric Williams: Sure. I believe my budget is flat, other than the personnel numbers. We put in basically the same numbers that were approved for last year’s budget, across the board. Again, we will continue to do everything we can to save fuel costs. Inmate food is one of those that we constantly come back for, and that’s one that’s pretty much out of our control. But, in general, we’re going to try to live by the same budget that was approved last year.

Eric Williams: There’s one line item in the personnel, but we can talk about that, it has to do with the Sheriff’s pension (Inaudible), and that’s what I was going to talk to you, Jim asked me to (Inaudible).

Councilmember Shetler: I don’t know how you have things set up there, as far as the patrols and stuff, but, do you have like dedicated, you know, squad cars or patrols that go into given areas of the county?

Eric Williams: The county is divided basically into four sectors, east, north, south and west, basically the four corners. We generally have somebody assigned to those sectors. We do what we call directed patrol and random patrol. Random patrol being you stay in your sector and drive around in areas that you think need attention, and you answer calls as they come in. With directed patrol, that’s when we monitor things like vandalisms, high frequency occurrences, then we direct our patrols to stay in those areas and stay around. But, in general, the sector car, or the sector patrol unit would respond to a call that comes out now, and the neighboring one would be his backup, but we really don’t limit that. Basically, we try to put a car on a call as soon as we can. So, we’ll take them from anywhere. I don’t know if that answered your question.

Councilmember Shetler: I think so. I guess, basically, the follow up question that I would want to ask then, is that if the Mayor’s attempt at annexation is successful, will that allow you to reduce any number of–

Eric Williams: You know, (Inaudible) the annexation, you know, as it is occurring is not going to do much to reduce it. It’s a really small chunk of the county that’s being patrolled. In fact, it will create some difficulties, and I think that’s what Council President Abell is talking to the city about with some exchange of patrol jurisdictions, because it just cuts out a pie from my, what we call district two, which we still are going to be responsible for those areas along the river and down in the southeast part of the county, because those are not under consideration for annexation. Quite honestly, the run volume that we’re seeing is occurring in the far, far west and the far north, way far away from the actual city limits. You know, a lot of the subdivisions, and I hate to use Sheriff Ellsworth’s term, but the cornfields never did call 911, and the houses do now. So, we are spending a lot more time in the far reaches of the county, which are really not going to be affected by the annexation. My hope is that the run volume that is reduced by the city’s annexation, will allow me to better respond to those calls further out in the county.

President Abell: And it went up, it was budgeted at $9,220 last year, and you’ve got it at $17,500 this year, oh, I’m sorry, Councilmen, it’s on page 20. It’s line item 0199. Are you taking on more part-time help, or going to work them more, or pay them more, what’s the–

Eric Williams: I can’t, my guess is without knowing the numbers by heart, that that is the Part-Time Clerk that’s handling the sex offender registry, that we asked for the increase in.

Eric Williams: The sex offender registry, and that’s where we back feed the money that we’re obtaining from the registry into that account.

Eric Williams: And put it back into the General Fund. I think that’s what I approached you earlier this year about, to put her at work a few more hours a year.

Eric Williams: She’s working the same as she’s working now. We’ll be repealing money from the, I don’t know the exact word how that fund works, but we’ll take money that we’re receiving from–

Eric Williams: –the sex offender registries, and put that back into the General Fund–

President Abell: Want to go to the jail on page 26? Any questions about the jail?

Eric Williams: It’s full. I just thought I would throw that in, in case somebody was going to ask. Our continued daily population is hovering right in the, right underneath 500, so in a facility designed to house 512, operationally we’re at capacity on a regular basis. But, it is continuing to operate much as planned. The facility works very well. I think we’ll continue to increase our efficiency in different areas, especially with the addition of another video arraignment court. The last six months that’s helped, and we’re going to continue to strive to expand that. Anything we can do to reduce the number of people that we’re moving is a great savings and security benefit. With the addition of the dentist now coming to the jail, that’s going to help. We’re going to be able to use the same dollars, probably see more patients, but we’ll also not have to transport people outside the facility. That helps. I have a contract before the County Commissioners right now that will roughly be the same money, but it is an x-ray service that will come to our facility to do the x-rays, as opposed to hauling them to the hospital. It doesn’t happen that frequently, but it does happen, and it’s usually a fairly large ordeal. So, trying to look for those kinds of opportunities to keep it in-house as much as possible.

Councilmember Goebel: I was going to ask, so, thank you. So, this year, at least, we’re going to stay on two pods, instead of three?

Eric Williams: You know, if you built the third one, we could fill it up I’m pretty sure. You know, there is a lot of opportunities still out there for federal inmates and state inmates to house those for fee. But, right now we have nothing in our facility other than our own local inmates.

Councilmember Goebel: This was just a question of curiosity, we had drug officials up earlier, do you have an idea just, roughly, the percentage of your inmate population that has drug related–

Eric Williams: I can’t narrow it down to drug related, but the statistic that I generally quote in the tours of the facility and public speaking is that you can see our facility generally ranges about 80 to 85 percent of our inmate population are there for some addiction related reason. They were either involved in the sale of drugs, they are on drugs, they are producing drugs or alcohol, you know, drunk driving, there’s some facet of their case that you could take back to some kind of addiction related issue.

Councilmember Winnecke: Eric, real quickly, what’s the Jail Expense on page 31?

Eric Williams: Jail Expense, that is the account that used to be zero for several years, and then last year the laws changed. I’ll provide you with the Commissary report, I think you’ll find from that that we spend that almost entirely on jail and Sheriff’s office things, and we don’t have to come and use General Fund dollars to use that for. A lot of that has historically been generated from the inmate phone fees, and that’s not been any big secret, but with the changes at the state level, those phone fees were greatly reduced, especially when we moved into the new facility and had to re-negotiate how that all worked. When those reductions occurred, I approached you in my first budget and asked if you would put some money back in there to help us purchase things like flip flops, bedding, soap, sheets, towels, those kinds of items in the jail. So, basically, those are just the basic expenses to help keep the place operational. I’m not asking for an increase in there–

Eric Williams: –but, as you can see, my Commissary balance is running relatively small compared to historically.

Eric Williams: The receipts are not like they used to be in that account, the expenses are far greater with this new facility. So, it is what it is.

Councilmember Goebel: Just real quickly, Medical Expenses, right in that same category, looks like our expenses, county-wide, are going down. Is this because of the (Inaudible)--

Eric Williams: I would give credit to my staff. I’ve got a medical staff that knows that I have to come up here and ask and beg for money. I make sure that they know how uncomfortable and unpleasant it is, and they take that very seriously. They do everything they possibly can to save dollars, while still providing the required, necessary health care to our inmates. We have taken some initiatives to try to do some things differently. The dental clinic has been one of those that we’re re-evaluating constantly. Our pharmaceutical expenses and how those come about, and trying to find the best case, or the best way to provide the pharmaceuticals that we need to provide to the inmates. I give credit if there is a reduction, and the other thing is, I have to be honest, is luck. You know, if you have a year where you don’t have any substantial injuries, or you don’t have an inmate with some serious, severe problems in there, that helps the budget. Right now, I believe we still have an inmate that’s on dialysis, and that will filter out in the budget in the coming months, because that’s a very expensive process, and we’ve got to provide that, and it comes at our expense.

Councilmember Goebel: Does the new layout of the jail actually help hold these costs as well?

Eric Williams: I don’t know that it helps hold the cost down, but it helps us deliver the services much more efficiently, with fewer staff members. The layout allows us to bring the medical, or the inmates that require medical attention to the medical staff, as opposed to wasting a lot of time with the medical staff traipsing around through the jail to see people individually. We’ve got some other things going on, you know, we continue to participate with the University of Southern Indiana’s nurse practitioner grant, they have a large federal grant that allows them to come into our facility. We co-sign on that and they provide some services that is educational for them, but it is beneficial to us, because that is more medical staff that are in there helping provide services that we otherwise we might have to go outside and do. So, I’m constantly looking for those kinds of deals where, you know, it looks like a win-win for both sides.

President Abell: Any other questions? I have a question, and I have three line items that I want to ask you about, and I have a feeling that they’re all three connected.

President Abell: Yeah, well, on my book it’s page 30, it’s at the very bottom of 30, Civilian Overtime, went from budgeted in 2008, $2,000, to $35,000. Civilian Overtime, Civilian Shift Differential went from $2,000 to $6,000, and Civilian Uniform went from $375 to $2,750. I assume those all three are related.

Eric Williams: Yeah, and I can’t give you a specific answer, but I will (Inaudible)on the increase on those, often times it’s going to be related to the Teamsters bargaining agreement and the selections that they make on how they receive their compensation. But, I’ll get you a specific answer on those three line items.

Eric Williams: For your information that, again, is the grant basically that we get from the state. I hesitate to use the word grant, because I don’t really have any choice in it. That’s the state’s basic way of reimbursing us for not sending misdemeanors to prison. It’s based on a calculation that is legislatively enabled. You can find it in the statutes on how they calculate that number and distribute those funds.

President Abell: Community Corrections, page 95. Any questions on Community Corrections?

Eric Williams: This is, again, the Community Corrections, it’s basically the same as the other ones, we did not ask for anything additional in there other than the salaries. This is one that I take the greatest pride in recently, is that we’ve been able to continue to keep our pledges of paying for food and things like that, and a significant number of salaries out of our User Fees. Our User Fee collections continue to be higher than they have been in the past. I took a lead from some of our other office holders and contracted with a collection agency that does it basically for free. I think it’s the one that the Treasurer was using, and maybe the Clerk’s Office. They also have an arm of their division that handled community corrections. So, we’ve brought them on board, and we know they’re making progress, because our phones are ringing off the hook. So, that’s a good thing. So, we hope to keep that budget in shape. One thing after meeting with the Department of Correction grant auditors this past week, they brought some things to light that would allow us, and I’m going to try to get back to you before you finalize this budget, it would make no net effect really in this, but changing the line items that are in there, which down the road would maybe allow us to use more state money to pay for some of these salaries. It was at their suggestion, but we would have to change the personnel that are in here. Because of the way the county, because of the way we hire and fire employees, I shouldn’t say fire, but every once in a while it does happen, but the way that we transition employees and have to pay for them out of the line item, and let that line item sit–

Eric Williams: –if we could do that in the grant side of it, that would free up our line item on the county side for a longer period of time and use their money to take care of that. So, but, we would need to put the employees that transition more frequently, and, basically, the Confinement Officers, as opposed to our Case Managers in the grant. So, we’re going to try and work out some numbers that make that just an even swap.

President Abell: Your last one is on page 179, Misdemeanor Offender, is that right?

That’s a small budget. Does anyone have any questions for that? I think you’re finished, Mr. Williams.

Eric Williams: And, I’ll get an answer for you. Can I just e-mail that to you, or do you want me to (Inaudible) the Council?

President Abell: I won’t keep anything from them. I’m having a request for a five minute break. Five minutes, is five minutes, okay?

President Abell: Five minutes is up. What did I do with my agenda? Oh, here it is. Is everyone ready to resume the meeting? Okay Judge, unless you have changed jobs with Marilee Fowler, I have a feeling you’re going to have to sit for a few more minutes. Page 186, Convention and Visitors Bureau. Good morning.

Marilee Fowler: Good morning. Marilee Fowler with the Evansville Convention and Visitors Bureau.

President Abell: Do you have any, your job is such a fun job, maybe you want to tell us some of it.

Marilee Fowler: It is a fun job. This has just been an incredible summer. You never know year to year what to anticipate, and, of course, with the economy everybody’s a little frightened, we didn’t know if we would have travelers. It’s been a phenomenal summer. Our revenue from Innkeepers Tax last month was the second highest that’s ever been recorded. I think a lot of it’s due to what’s happening in Owensboro with the closing of the Executive Inn, but I think there were a lot of good things going on here already. So, I wrote this budget with some changes in it, some declines in different areas of our budget, but, again, the uncertainty of what next year will bring. So, I feel very comfortable with this, but I think it’s been an exciting year so far.

President Abell: I notice your Travel and Mileage went down and Gasoline is going up, that’s pretty good.

Marilee Fowler: There were different areas under that line item; airfare, hotel accommodations, other things, rental cars, a lot of that falls into Transportation. So, there were some ways that we could make some cuts in that, and then kind of shift to some of the other areas that needed a boost. So, we were very excited that we could do that.

Councilmember Raben: Marilee, mine came to the four salary lines. As an example, 1130, the amount for this year is $30,894, this is $36,000?

Marilee Fowler: Well, I think the suggestion was a two and a half percent increase for salaries, plus then that’s just the proportion for the other items that we have to show as an increase as well for the FICA items.

Councilmember Raben: No, this is one individual. I guess, it’s Service/Leisure Sales Manager.

Marilee Fowler: If you’ll remember, we came back to you at the first of the year to increase two different people’s salaries, and that reflects, comparing last year to this year. You approved us, you approved letting us make those changes in January. So, this reflects that change for the new budget in ‘09.

Marilee Fowler: That’s what we’re proposing. But, when you see that line item was changed last January.

Marilee Fowler: Whatever the difference is between $36,388 and two and a half percent.

Marilee Fowler: Yes, 1160. We did the same thing for her. Hers was way under what it needed to be, and she’d taken on a lot more responsibilities as far as our computers and technology. So, we had made those changes back last January, but this print out does not reflect what those salaries are.

President Abell: Is that the same with line item 1200, Sales Executive III? It went from $32,900 to–

Marilee Fowler: We shifted that from that fund because we don’t have anybody in that position currently.

Marilee Fowler: So, we took it from that particular staff salary and bumped these other two up.

Councilmember Shetler: I’m just, I guess, a little bit confused. Is this department something that should be under the county’s personnel, and go through the regular policies on personnel as far as being underneath the scrutiny as other departments are?

Councilmember Raben: That’s been on again, off again. I think we’ve changed this budget, what, twice in the last ten years? Initially, they had their own program, then they asked to go on to the county’s program, and then recently, maybe two or three years ago you asked to, they wanted to go back to the way they used to do it where they incentivize their people–

Councilmember Raben: –you know, based on their output, their sales and what have you. So, I mean, we’ve been there and we’re back to the old way now.

Marilee Fowler: It’s very hard when we write these budgets in the summer to say six months from now if these sales people have accomplished (Inaudible) objectives, they have certain criteria they are to meet every year as far as sales and calls and people they bring into Evansville. So, we like to look at this that they certainly will be encouraged to get this incentive, this increase, but they do have to meet their goals and objectives.

Councilmember Leader: Hi, can you explain to me what the $100,000 for Contractual Services are?

Marilee Fowler: That would be for our legal fees and our accounting fees. Those are monthly, but those two go together for those services.

Marilee Fowler: That’s for things that occur that don’t fall into the contracted services that our legal service provides. There are things that come up that fall outside those boundaries, so, we always have to have another line item that those things would cover.

Marilee Fowler: I was trying to think of something that might happen. Maybe some kind of research, maybe new legislation that’s passed, and we need to have our attorney interpret it to see if we are following with the line of the law. So, it may take extra time on their staff side to do those types of things. So, it’s just things outside of our contract.

Marilee Fowler: It can be all kinds of things. It could be the printing of some of our collateral materials, our visitor guide, for example. It could be some of the services that we have to provide when we’re hosting an event in town, and every time they come, they anticipate that we’re going to help them with things based on what they’re going to generate in Innkeepers Tax. It may be VIP gifts, it may be hosting a, you know, when they’re here, picking up their expenses. So, it’s a variety of things that are required when we bring these events to Evansville. We look at what they’re going to generate, based on how many room nights they’re going to be staying. What is generated and what portion comes back to the Bureau for us to do that, and that’s a portion. As we get more and more meetings and conventions, that line item needs to have more money in it. We’re going to be very short probably this year.

Councilmember Raben: I’m finished with questions as far as the budget goes, but, Marilee, I know we’ve discussed this, I’ve discussed it with board members, again, I’m looking for the renewed commitment on the penny that we lose in a year that helps us offset the Centre operations and, again, I’m looking for your renewed commitment that you’re going to help foster that through and –

Marilee Fowler: The board is very comfortable with that, that we move forward that it stay at the two percent at this point in time, I don’t see that they would be opposed to changing that at all.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, as far as you know, the board isn’t working with the legislature as of yet on getting that penny back, but –

Marilee Fowler: I certainly will. I’ll put that on our agenda for our next meeting.

Councilmember Goebel: I have one question. On the sports complex, your request is for 765, is that for the baseball/softball, or is this for other ventures?

Marilee Fowler: That’s baseball/softball. Our plan has, you know, kind of got sidetracked last year so we’re very optimistic that in 2009 we’ll be able to move forward and that will be the money that we need to start the program to do the ground preparation.

Marilee Fowler: We are still looking at some other sites besides Wesselman Park. A particular site has not been determined yet, we’re still kind of in the research and talking to the Airport Authority as well as the mayor.

Councilmember Goebel: You don’t want to disclose that I wouldn’t think, at this time, is that...

Marilee Fowler: At this point we’re still looking – we’ve done some architectural renderings and things to see what we anticipate our needs to be – we’ll work on those sites, and as soon as we know if that is agreeable to the other parties and we can select one and move forward.

Councilmember Goebel: Okay, as far as the Wesselman location, did we have any expert from Audubon Society or someplace like that to say that the complex location there would actually do more detriment to their environment than the existing facilities?

Marilee Fowler: We have not formally met with their board. I’ve had some individual conversations with several of their board members and they’re very open to hearing our plan and discussing it and looking at further opportunity. I personally think it would increase their visitation. When you have that kind of people and family and children in that kind of environment and they have time between games, what a wonderful place to explore. At this point in time, the mayor has just asked us to put that project on hold. So I think that could still, may be in the mix, that that could be a consideration based on what their interpretation would be and if it would work for them.

President Abell: Any other questions? We’re all eating up here. Mr. Sutton raised his hand, but I saw his mouth moving. Are you ready?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes. On – kind of related to that same topic, there is a line item that’s Sports Sales & Services. Can you explain what that is?

Marilee Fowler: Yes, we have one person on our staff that she pretty much wears three hats. She does sports sales, she does military reunions and she does the motor coach. And so this was an area, as we looked to evolve that market, the sports market, we decided there were specific things it needed that we hadn’t had in other areas of our budget, and it’s for her to do trade shows, it’s a chance to bring some of these people that put on sporting events to Evansville that we host them in Evansville. So again, it’s the same thing as Convention & Meetings Sales, it’s just specific to these kind of events.

Councilmember Raben: I didn’t know if we had moved into the Capital Development account yet or not.

President Abell: Well, I think some people have. We’re just kind of doing it all together here. Any other questions? Marilee, I don’t see the Museum on here anywhere?

Marilee Fowler: We’ve got those final payments to the city for the African-American, for the Goebel expenses and for the LST. Those will all be completed in the ‘09 budget, and then we’ll make our first payment to the Museum in 2010.

President Abell: Anyone have any other questions of Marilee? I think you’re free to go.

President Abell: Oh, wait a minute. Are you going to offer her a piece of candy?

Councilmember Winnecke: No, I’m just the middle man. I just want to make sure I understand the status of the baseball/softball complex. We’re asking for 700 and whatever thousand dollars for next year, but as far as you know, did you say the project – you’ve been asked to put it on hold?

Marilee Fowler: We were asked to put it on hold and that was how we could – that money that we had in the 2008 budget, then we could divert it to help the BMX track.

Councilmember Winnecke: Right, I understand that. But for 2009, what’s your feel for where the project is in its life? That’s where I’m getting mixed messages. First, I heard you say we’re still looking for locations, now I heard you say it’s on hold. So?

Marilee Fowler: We, the mayor asked us to look at alternative sites and that’s just what we’ve done. And what we’ve done is taken those alternative sites and had architectural renderings done on those sites to see if what we want to build would work. We weren’t sure if the land was there. So we are just now completing those architectural renderings. We will meet with the mayor. I know another one is the airport authority, you know, we’ve looked at the golf complex, that could be a possible site. So, as soon as it’s agreed upon which site is best and everyone is comfortable with it, we will make the announcement and start the ground preparation.

Marilee Fowler: We’d like to do it in 2009 and probably have our first events in 2011.

Councilmember Sutton: But the thought still surrounds the scope of the project, those initial drawings being the same unless the site dictates that you have to do something different?

Marilee Fowler: Right. We want it to be at least eight fields which can be multi-use. They can be softball and baseball. You can convert one field to the other, and the space depends upon whether we can add that ninth field, which would be specific to Babe Ruth, so that’s part of it and we want to make sure there’s ample parking and we know that’s a big, big part of that. That’s one of the issues we still hear about the Goebel Soccer Complex, is parking, so we want to make sure there’s ample parking. We want to make sure there’s concessions, we want to make sure there’s plenty of restroom facilities, and we want to make sure there’s a playground there for the smaller or the other children to have things to do while big brother or sister are playing ball.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, the other increases on the capital, can you explain those?

Marilee Fowler: Okay, the Soccer Complex is $100,000. That was money that we still owed the city of Evansville. They went ahead and put the money in place to get that complex finished and completed. That’s a payment we owe them to finish our debt to the city on that. The African-American, we still owe $250,000. That was a $500,000 commitment we made.

Marilee Fowler: This is the last payment. And then the payment to the city for the LST dock is $223,000. So those will all be payments that we will finish making to the city in 2009. And again, all those projects, the city went ahead and put the money up front to build them. We were just now in a pace to repay them. And the city was kind enough, I think last year when we came to the County Council to help buy that additional land at Burdette Park, that adjoining land that we helped buy, a couple of these payments got put on hold. We went to the mayor and asked if we could delay these payments so we could help purchase that land and he agreed to that. But we intend to pay it all back.

Marilee Fowler: It always depends upon how the cash flow is and what other commitments we have. We will be making two payments toward those projects in our August board meeting, so they will receive those payments in September. So hopefully, if we can pay them off even earlier, it may be –

Marilee Fowler: No, those are the committed payments. Those are what we have to pay whether we pay it in February or we pay it in October, it depends on cash flow and they’re very kind to work with us on that.

Councilmember Sutton: Can you talk about what the thought process is there for that or is there a particular plan for that?

Marilee Fowler: Well, we have very long range plans. Obviously, we want to build the sports complex, we made the commitment in 2010 and 11 to help the museum with their big projects, but it’s invariably, somebody else will come along with a project that is very worthwhile and we feel like we need to somehow assist them, so we figured, if we can set aside $250,000 every year from this Tourism Capital Development fund, then if one of these projects comes along, there will be a reserve that we can help projects. A good example, again, goes back to the land that became available that adjoined Burdette Park. If that happens again or another project, there is money there that we can do that and still accomplish our goals as well.

President Abell: Other questions? I just have one comment. As you’re looking at sites for the baseball field, I hope you’d be mindful of a particular area where our youth can travel via public transportation.

Marilee Fowler: Yes, I think that’s so important that children can get there, it’s still in the heart of the community and that they can get there if mom and dad can’t take them.

Councilmember Shetler: Not a question, but I guess maybe a point. Every month we get these, I think from the Treasurer’s office telling us who is delinquent on paying their Innkeeper’s Tax and stuff, where the funds come from. When you send out brochures or advertisement and stuff telling people what we have available to stay in, do we have a listing of –

Marilee Fowler: Well, the visitor guide, we publish annually. So if in January, we take a look at that, and we see a hotel that’s been delinquent for a year, they’re automatically removed from that document. But that one is one we print once a year. But on our website we’ve got a little bit more flexibility. If somebody is delinquent two or three months, we can take that off immediately and then put them back on once their payments are made. So I think that’s an important factor and it’s kind of something we do look at. Again, part of our agreement with our legal counsel is that they automatically send letters every month to every one of these hotels that are delinquent. So we do stay on top of that and then the money will come in and obviously, they get behind. So we’ve had wonderful response working with the Treasurer’s office and our legal counsel in getting those monies collected.

Councilmember Shetler: That’s my second question, I didn’t know who really was responsible for actually making collection, if that’s the Treasurer’s office or you guys.

Marilee Fowler: The Treasurer’s office does the collection, but we follow up with letters to let them know that this is not acceptable. And our board is very supportive of us in doing that. There’s been some times when a hotel, it might not be a big hotel, but they’re delinquent. And it may be more money – I mean, it may be more work than it’s worth, but we feel it’s still very important to do that because it sets a precedent to all the other hotels that they do need to – they collect it, and they do need to pay it back to the county.

Councilmember Sutton: Something that might be a little bit helpful is just kind of explain to the general public what the Innkeeper’s Tax, how that’s divided and who gets what.

Marilee Fowler: The Innkeeper’s Tax is an eight percent tax that’s collected on every hotel room as a guest stays there every night. That eight percent then is split three ways: two percent goes to the county for the operation of the Convention Center, for their operation expenses; three and a half percent goes to Tourism Capital Development. It’s brick and mortar projects with a tourism emphasis, and that’s why we’ve been able to help so many great projects. The Pagoda is a good example, the transportation center at the Evansville Museum, the Reitz Home, the LST dock, the Goebel Soccer Complex, the African-American Museum. I mean, its been money that’s come back to this community in so many wonderful ways. Right now we’re helping the BMX build a new facility at Burdette Park. We just helped with the welcome center as you enter Mesker Park, that one we’re real proud of to see happen. And down the road, then we’ll be helping the Evansville Museum with their new expansion and hopefully build the sports complex. So that’s where that money is going to and it’s very, very dedicated to brick and mortar projects. The last two and a half percent comes back to the Convention & Visitors Bureau for our operations and sales and marketing programs. So I think it’s very well split. We certainly do help three different entities and it’s money that our local taxpayers don’t pay unless they’re staying at a hotel. It is paid by out by visitors and they, again, reap the benefits as well as build them, providing many more things to see and do in Evansville. Thank you.

Councilmember Leader: Do you want to address that one percent that was taken away from us?

Marilee Fowler: It hasn’t been. It’s still at two percent. I think it’s up in 2009.

Councilmember Leader: Right, I mean, it affects what we’re talking about today.

Marilee Fowler: Correct. And what we do is, we continue to look to see how the convention center is operating, if they still need that additional resource, we will work with the legislators to keep that two percent in, probably for another five years, and take a look at it at that point again to see if it’s still needed or if it can be diverted to other areas.

Councilmember Leader: Would you mind, I know we get your board minutes, but after your board meeting, would you mind emailing us to let us know about the discussion with your board?

Marilee Fowler: I feel very comfortable they’re going to support this because we’ve had just informal dialogue and they seem very open to making sure that money stays in place. So I don’t see that to be a problem.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, my only problem with that is, is I’ve been asking for the last couple of years that we get that put back in place and, I mean, we’re running into the eleventh hour now. We need them to take action as soon as possible, and if the Centre turns around in the next twelve months, which I don’t think it would, that would be one of the greatest turnarounds in history. So –

Marilee Fowler: Exactly. And I think it is something that we need to keep in place and at the point that the Centre is operating in the black and doesn’t need that additional resource, then we can obviously use it for other things. But we will get that legislation in place. And again, I feel very comfortable they will support that again this year.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, we just wanted to make sure that you at least kind of gave a good explanation on how that money is spent here in the community because I don’t think people realize the impact that those dollars have. Most of us don’t see that extra percentage unless you stay in a hotel here, but the importance, the emphasis upon tourism on hotel stays and conventions is more than just a feel good thing, but it does provide true things in the community that we can see that add to the cultural and just the mix of the community.

Marilee Fowler: Everything that we do with that money, I think, comes back to benefit all of us as citizens. We all get to enjoy these things on a daily basis, but it’s our visitors that help us pay for those things and yet it gives us reason to get those visitors to return time and time again as well, improve them, enhance them or add more. So it’s a win-win every way you look at it.

Councilmember Shetler: I mean, maybe I’m being a little bit more direct on it. Is it possible that the next time we could read in the minutes that a resolution has been put forward to the board that they will keep the two percent in place?

Marilee Fowler: And our board meets on the 26^th of August, so I will make that an agenda item and we will get it to you as soon as they pass it.

President Abell: Thank you, we appreciate that. Anything else? Thank you, Ms. Fowler.

President Abell: Okay, Judge Dietsch, it’s your show. Are you awake? Oh, Drug & Alcohol, I’m sorry.

President Abell: I’m sorry, Drug and Alcohol, page 107. Would you give your name, please?

Councilmember Raben: Madam President, it doesn’t appear as if there is any changes outside of the salary increases.

Deloris Koch: I would suggest, if you’re looking for a place to cut, Treatment Costs could be cut by a thousand, two thousand. I don’t anticipate that we would need that full amount for the next year. We’re not presenting, we’re not hiring anyone to do classes at that this point.

Councilmember Raben: Nothing other than that’s an interesting cut as we listen to eighty-five percent of our Jail is housed with drug or alcohol related –

Deloris Koch: We aren’t actually paying for treatment. Part of that money was set to pay instructors and materials when we have classes at our office, but we refer people out to other agencies and we haven’t had classes in our office for some time, so we don’t have to pay those treatment costs.

Councilmember Leader: Hi, would you say they go to Stepping Stone classes or the Mental Health Association?

Deloris Koch: There are several agencies in the area that we refer clients to for treatment services and for education services.

Councilmember Leader: Instead of holding them within your office. Do you think you can continue to expand that?

Deloris Koch: Well, that’s our general way of operating. We did have a few underage classes that we did at our office. We’ve lost some instructors, other agencies have been able to pick that up and so we’re not needing it as much as we did in the past.

Councilmember Leader: So how are those paid for then? Does the person pay for their own class?

Councilmember Sutton: And if they can’t, they don’t have the ability, they can’t afford to pay for their services, what do they do?

Deloris Koch: Well, that’s when we use agencies like the Stepping Stone where there’s state funds that can help pay for services. Generally, it’s a pay as you go. They have to pay a small percentage or small amount each week or every month otherwise we have to send them to the Stepping Stone or agencies that can get state funding to help,

Deloris Koch: How long is our lease? That’s interesting. We have a new owner in our building and we are still operating on the old lease, he’s never given us a new lease, to operate with. So we’re still paying the same rent that we’ve paid for years and years and years. I anticipate that that will go up at some point. So far, his board has not – they, so far, have been satisfied with what we’ve paid under the old lease. So I don’t know when that will change.

Councilmember Sutton: Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything but now they’re seeing this on T.V., I guess we may be hearing from them.

Terry Dietsch: Terry Dietsch, senior judge Vanderburgh Superior Court. On two separate occasions this morning I heard two people say if such and such action were to occur, the judges might be very unhappy. I’m going to assume, therefore, that that means, generally, we’re a happy group. And it’s my fond desire that after the budget hearings are completed, we’re going to be extremely happy.

Terry Dietsch: On our general line item budgets, from year to year, we generally stay just about the same. We’ve gone down in a couple accounts this year and we’ve gone up in a couple accounts, but to no great degree. The accounts that I would like to call to your attention, with the exception of one, primarily have to do with the juvenile division. Let’s start out, I would like to call your attention to line item 4220 entitled Office Machines. Our initial request in that line item –

Terry Dietsch: – was for $57,000. We would like to reduce that request to $4,000.

Terry Dietsch: And the reason for that is, we thought by virtue of some legislation, that we were going to have that additional expense. We’re going to resolve that problem in another way.

President Abell: Would you explain to the other Councilmen? I know because I’ve talked to you, but –

Terry Dietsch: It had to do with digital fingerprinting. And initially we thought that we were going to have to undertake the expense for a separate unit for the court. However, after discussing this with the city police department, they are going to undertake that for us so we won’t need those monies. Line item 3050, which is Patient/Inmate Care, Judge Niemeier has made a request this year that it be set in at one million dollars. Now, I informed you the last time I appeared before the Council that the Department of Corrections is going to undertake a lot of the expense that we normally incur. And that is true. However, the reason this amount is requested for 2009 is because the last quarter billing from the Department of Corrections for 2008 will not get to us until 2009. And those quarterly billings, and Mr. Fluty, I think probably can corroborate this, have been running between 350 to $400,000 per quarter. So that’s why we’re going to need that amount. In line item 3722, which is Medical Expense and Drug Testing, and that’s also a part of our juvenile division, ordinarily, it was not that high. It is that high this year because pursuant to the contract that the Council and the Commissioners entered into with YCC, certain medical expenses have to be paid. For whatever reason, those expenses for 2008 were put into our line item rather than some other line item, so that means, I suppose, that we’re going to have to pay those out of this line item for 2009. We have no way of knowing what those medical expenses might be, but so far this year, if memory serves me correctly, they have been about $7,000. So that’s the reason for that line item.

Councilmember Sutton: Judge, is there a way to track that down to see where that may have been transferred from? Where that expense had been carried? What line item, what budget?

Councilmember Sutton: Out of what fund? I mean, I’m just trying to get a sense of –

Terry Dietsch: There was no fund. The contract entered into between the Council and the Commissioners and YCC, indicated in part that certain medical expenses incurred by the juveniles while they were there would be paid by the county. For some reason or other, the Council decided that those expenses should be included in our line item.

Councilmember Sutton: So that’s part of Patient/Inmate Care, is what I’m assum-ing?

President Abell: I think we need to tell the Commissioners that they need to keep track of this and we need to be able to see the bills and know what we’re paying.

Terry Dietsch: Well, I think more importantly than that, if you will read that contract, certain expenses have to be approved by the county, perhaps expenses above $500. Who makes that decision? The contracting parties or the court? I don’t know.

Bill Fluty: I believe before it was paid out of Patient/Inmate Care. Now Patient/Inmate Care is inside of the juvenile budget, I believe?

Bill Fluty: Superior Court’s budget and that’s where those medical expenses – I think they took care of them this year but a couple of those needed to have a separate line item so they could be tracked, so now they’re – you’ll just have that new line item so they can track the medical expenses per the contract, I guess, is what we’re saying.

Terry Dietsch: Yeah, and before that, the Patient/Inmate Care line item was in the Commissioners budget, not the Court’s budget.

Bill Fluty: Correct. I think a couple of years back a couple of the Commissioners felt that since they didn’t know who was being sent, what juveniles and couldn’t track them, and those bills came to the Commissioners, then were sent to juvenile to actually see if those, which kids were sent and verify the cost. So they changed that, how many years ago?

Terry Dietsch: Yeah, regardless, it comes to our in basket and that’s why we increased the amount in that. Now, that still leaves the problem, as far as I’m concerned, about who okays what medical expenses. Now if the County Council and the Commissioners determine they want the court to do that, I guess we can do that. We’re certainly no better qualified than the Council or the Commissioners to make those decisions. But at any rate, that’s another –

President Abell: Well, I think it’s more of – I think rather than okaying the amount, it’s just whether or not that person is someone who is over there. I think that’s about all you can do.

President Abell: Yeah, but other than what I don’t think there’s anything we can second guess about it anymore than you or anyone else could.

Terry Dietsch: So if it’s your desire that it remain this way, that’s fine. That’s fine. Judge Niemeier sent a rather lengthy memorandum to the Councilmembers and he also submitted a rationale for certain accounts. I’ve touched on a couple. Item 3052 on the Youth Care operating cost, that’s pursuant to the contract, and as you know, that increases each year, so that’s the request for that. Line item 3932 CASA, the request for fiscal 2009 is $111,602. Ms. Abell has a memorandum regarding that and I think if she shares that with the Council or perhaps you all got a copy of it. Then you can determine whether the request is appropriate as a result of that memorandum.

President Abell: Councilmembers, I called Judge Niemeier and asked him to explain the CASA. The expense on CASA, if you’ll look at it, at 111,000 is a jump over last year of 96, but my big concern is that it started out at 39,000 and it’s growing much greater than any of the other expenses would indicate. And I think we need to know exactly what’s going on. So, I have not read the memorandum yet because it was laying on my desk when I got here, but I will read that. I also asked him for information regarding the incarceration, which is also covered in his memo. So once all of you have had an opportunity to digest it, if you want to send me an email or call me about it, we’ll discuss this between now and our final meeting.

Terry Dietsch: Line item 3054 Home Detention. Judge Niemeier has requested an amount of $50,000. It is my understanding that he will be able to use a global positioning system which the Sheriff is currently using. However, it will be more costly than the system that is currently in use. However, if, in fact, that would defray the cost of incarcerating juveniles in some of the non-Department of Correction institutions that we (inaudible) normally sends them to, then this might turn out to be cost effective.

President Abell: If he’s doing it cheaper with other people, I don’t know why we don’t utilize him for this.

Eric Williams: Sheriff Williams. I apologize, I didn’t hear what you were even talking about.

President Abell: They were talking about using the global positioning system for tracking –

President Abell: Judge Niemeier has asked for $50,000 to do it with the juveniles and I apologize because I haven’t actually read his entire memo, so I don’t know exactly how many people, but it looks like it says it’s an average of 23 kids on house arrest would cost $49,950. And I understand you can do it cheaper than that.

Eric Williams: In Community Corrections we use a company, B.I. for our electronic home detention. Currently, we don’t use GPS positioning, but that’s a project we’re working on to replace our current system with all active GPS bracelets. The technology has improved substantially. We’re pretty comfortable with that now. The costs have come down, so we think we’re going to be able to do it in-house for our electronic home detention people at about the same cost as we’re doing it today. We’re estimating that that’s going to be about $8 a person. I’ve talked to Judge Niemeier and said that I’d be more than happy to include them in our system. It makes us no difference. In fact, there may be some cost advantages to boosting those numbers when we finally get done with the project. If we can prove that this works well, that we would be able to offer it to the courts as a – for lack of a better word, a bond alternative, also, to help free up some space in the jail for some of those people that are really not flight risks substantially or not there for very significant crimes, but have a bond that they’re not capable of making.

President Abell: What was Judge Niemeier’s response when you asked him? And you told him that you would be happy to take on his –

Eric Williams: He’s the one that inquired with me. I told him, I said, we don’t have it negotiated out yet. And from time to time, Judge Niemeier has placed juveniles on our system. Like I said, I can’t speak for him but the offer is there, it’s offered to any of the courts or anybody. I’d just as soon, I mean, personally, I think it makes more sense for one place to do it, that if everybody is going to use that kind of service in the county, use the same service. But, you know, I can’t speak for everybody else, but I’m more than happy to help.

Eric Williams: I’m struggling, I’m trying not to cry. But that is what we estimate the cost is going to be based on all the information that we’ve gotten from the various vendors out there. We felt that was a fairly safe budgetary number, while that’s not locked in stone yet until we get a contract in place with the vendor. But we’re pretty comfortable it’s going to fall right in that range, which is, to answer your question, $8 a day per inmate. That doesn’t include monitoring fees, but it’s our intent to monitor them in-house anyway.

President Abell: As opposed to 50 – well, 50 – yeah, 3,000 times twenty-three –

Eric Williams: It’s also important to note that that’s going to be the – that will be the cost that we pay. Now, each person and every entity that uses it may have a different structure. That’s just what it’s going to cost me. But within my operation, the people that are on that are required to pay that fee themselves. So it doesn’t really cost us anything, it’s part of the fee to be on the program. And we’ll adjust our fees accordingly based on how those numbers come out. Now, juvenile court may have a different situation where they can’t ask them to pay those fees. I don’t know, but for inside my operation, that fee is borne by the actual people on the system.

President Abell: I think it’s something we need to work on. Did you have a question, Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: No, I just, in your estimate, Sheriff, would this 595 figure that Judge Niemeier gave us, that doesn’t count the tracking, it’s just for the mechanism, or...

Eric Williams: Well, there’s several different models out there. Some of them have the ability to have an outside agency monitor them and send up some alerts and send you information. We’re currently monitoring our own anyway and we want to transition over. We think there’s a lot of value in us monitoring it so we can make some discretionary decisions based on violations, because it is just a tool, it’s not black and white, you know, every time it beeps at you doesn’t mean somebody is going to have to go to jail and we need to dispatch cars. And if we can keep our people in that loop, it makes us much more efficient in responding to them and getting information back to the case manager, whatever. So if juvenile court were to come on board with us and they added a few of these, twenty of them, monitoring those from our side of it wouldn’t be that big of an addition to what we’re already doing. But that’s a decision they would have to make.

Terry Dietsch: I think those are the items I wanted to call to your attention. If you

Councilmember Shetler: I don’t know if it’s a question or not, Judge, but, I guess, the point, it does seem, and I like the idea of having it on a monitoring system of some sort and be able to cut our cost down of people, and I also like the juveniles to have a chance and not have to be incarcerated if it’s possible, but it seems like both areas are going up and I’d like to, I guess, be able to see a little bit of a savings that could be had if we do go with the GPS, that I would see a like kind savings over in the other.

Terry Dietsch: Well, that type of savings, Mr. Shetler, becomes a bit of philosophy. Like I say, assuming that the GPS tracking system would diminish the number of youngsters that had to be in a facility. It might prove to be cost effective. We won’t know, of course, until we have a track record on it. That’s the best I can do for you.

Councilmember Sutton: I was going to ask, are there some areas, we had a couple others that have come up that mentioned there were some areas where they felt like they can make some adjustments and cuts in their budgets or any areas in yours that you can see where there’s some adjustments that can be made?

Councilmember Sutton: Right, in your, you’ve got several lines so I don’t know where you’d want to...

Terry Dietsch: We’ve made some cuts in some and your president is our liaison, and each year she comes over and we go over the budget together.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I’m just working off what I see here. So I don’t know if there’s been some cuts or adjustments made that maybe weren’t discussed here. I’m just working off what we have.

President Abell: There were some things they wanted that didn’t make it to this table, if that helps you any.

President Abell: More than what you see here. It didn’t make it to this table. They got hacked out in the meeting that we had.

Councilmember Raben: Just a few questions on some of the salary lines, Judge. Some of these may be related to step increases, longevity.

Councilmember Raben: And then last, if you want to just discuss the Court Reporter.

Terry Dietsch: It was my understanding that the Council was not going to allow any personnel.

President Abell: Any other questions? Comments? Judge, thanks for staying as long as you did. We appreciate it.

Terry Dietsch: Thank you. Oh, and who knows, a great pumpkin might actually appear this year.

President Abell: Well, don’t count on that. The wicked witch of the west might, too. That is more likely to happen. We are all to be back here tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. Anything anyone wants to say before we leave? I’ll see all of you in the morning at 9:00 a.m. We are recessed.

The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 12^th day of August, 2008 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. by President Marsha Abell.

President Abell: We would like to re-adjourn, reconvene, we would like to adjourn, actually. I said it correctly the first time. We would like to reconvene the budget hearing for the 2009 budgets. Could we have roll call, please?

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Leader	X
Councilmember Shetler	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Winnecke	X
President Abell	X

President Abell: This is our second day of the budget hearings. Yesterday went pretty well. I’m hoping that today goes equally as well, for all of you department heads out there. Before we get started, I just want to note one thing, a little note of pleasure, is the United States is leading in gold, not gold medals, but in medals at the Olympics. (Applause.) Good for our country. The first person on our agenda is Weights and Measures.

President Abell: Page 84, Councilmen. Does anyone have any questions? For the viewing audience, we’ve actually already gone over your budget through the joint budget hearings, but does anyone have any additional questions?

Councilmember Raben: This is a budget that outside of fuel, which they have no control over, is pretty much constant.

Loretta Townsend: Yeah, I told Lloyd what our plan was, and we really haven’t gotten an answer from him.

Councilmember Raben: But, it’s pretty much constant with last year. I would just say good job. They bear a lot of the elements all year long, checking gas pumps and what have you. You do a great job. Thank you.

Loretta Townsend: Well, thank you. Well, we actually, if there’s anything that has gone up, it has been the salary. When you talk about fuel, like I said at the joint hearing, what we did, what I did in that category, I tried to cut back on certain line items to put it into the line item for the fuel. So, I mean, that’s what we tried to do, rather than ask for any additional. I don’t like coming up here asking for additional. I like to live with what we get. Sometimes it’s impossible. I do know that you’re going to have to cut somewhere. Like I told you before, this is not our first rodeo in this, and there are certain things, like in printing, that we have not used a lot out of this year, because it isn’t time yet. We have to purchase our 2009 stickers, maybe, perhaps, some more books, different inspection books, but, you know, things like that, just because it shows a balance in it doesn’t necessarily mean that that is the correct balance, because there’s always things floating out there like a check does, you know. So, if you would, and I’m asking again, ask us where we can cut the best. If anywhere, and I don’t even know about this, but without looking down here, I would say, possibly Postage, because I tell you what I’ll do, if you’re going to cut Postage, between now and the end of the year, we’re going to buy every stamp we can get our hands on and make them last through next year.

Loretta Townsend: We tried that for awhile, but we’re a lot better off (Inaudible).

Loretta Townsend: We used to send them over there, and they would end up, they would come back to us because they missed the stamps, they would, the things wouldn’t be sealed, I mean, it was a free for all, and we said, crap, we’ve got something to mail, there’s a box on the corner, you know, (Inaudible). We stick our own stamps, and we also have a lot of those forty-one, what is it, forever stamps? That ought to last us for awhile.

Loretta Townsend: What we have, we switched them around. Or, the Computer Services switched them for us. That sort of reflects part of the Internet and that type of thing. I think the fact, that was a small thing to me, but–

Loretta Townsend: That’s the reason, they’ve got our Internet service over into that. We’ve got like three things going, we’ve got communications going out of that, telephone out of that, and I really don’t know what they’re doing with the thing. I mean, you know, as long as it covers both of them, I think at one time they told us over in the Auditor’s office, Teri said that we could take it out of this one, or take it out of that one, whichever one’s running the lowest, and then we’ll switch over to the other one to take it from to keep it going. So, we make some long distance phone calls, but they’re usually like to Indy, and, well, different distributors or (Inaudible) people or something. Our long distance phone bill sometimes is like two dollars and something. Sometimes there’s nothing on it.

Councilmember Shetler: The Deputy Inspectors, are they in specific geographic areas, or certain disciplines?

Loretta Townsend: No. No, they all do the same thing. I mean, we don’t, is that what you’re talking about, Tom?

Councilmember Shetler: Well, I’m asking if they do the same things, or if they work in different geographic areas? Let me, for example, does number one go to the north side, number two goes to the west side, etcetera? Or, do they have like, one guy’s in gasoline pumps, another guy’s in the meat scales, or whatever?

Loretta Townsend: Oh, no. No, because like if we go out and check gas pumps, we may be there, all of us, myself included. I don’t sit in there, I go with them. I mean, I’m included as an Inspector. Like I got a phone call not too long ago from another county way up north, and they’re pretty much in the same population range as what we are, and what they wanted to know was how we did ours, and what the salaries were, they were in the same thing, they were doing their budgets, and, of course, I mean, you know, it’s common knowledge, I just went ahead and told her what we had over here putting in for. And, I asked her, I said, well, where’s your, I’m not going to call it their female inspector, and I said, where’s she at? I’ve talked to her, you know, because I’ve known her for a long time. He said, well, she’s in a meeting. You mean, she’s not out working? No. I said, well, what does she do in there all the time? He said, well, she’s the Director, she directs, I guess, you know. I mean, so, but we can’t afford that, and I wouldn’t do it anyway. I don’t like being in there. But, what we do, it depends on what we are doing. Sometimes it takes every one of us, and it’s not like, okay, I’ve got two of them right now out at the airport doing gas pumps out at the airport, not the trucks, they’re already done, but Hertz and Avis and all those have gas pumps out there. I’ve got two of them out there, I made him come with me, and I’m going to make one of them come with me next time that I have to come in here to see how, what we have to do to get the money. You know, they don’t know, but, no, I don’t divide them out into districts, because we may be somewhere else this afternoon where it will take three, if possible, that’s why we got three vehicles, because we do separate. It just depends on what we do. I can’t have, like the Health Department or the Prosecutor, they only do this and that and that, they’ve got to all do it all. Wherever we might send them.

Councilmember Shetler: Maybe you could just kind of run through the different things that your department’s actually responsible for. You know, other than the fuel, that we realize.

Loretta Townsend: Okay, not too long ago I made a copy and sent to each one of you. I’m pretty sure you all got it, that showed, and it was about this thick.

Councilmember Leader: Mrs. Townsend, I think though for the general public to have a little understanding what Weights and Measures does would be a really good idea.

Loretta Townsend: We don’t need to be out hollering. Except to certain people. Truthfully, in my opinion, I think the public knows better what we do than some of you all do. I really do. They pretty well know what we do. We do gas pumps, we do fuel from the time it’s down at Transmontaigne or the Marathon docks down there coming in on the barges, we measure that fuel, we go from there to the delivery trucks that picks it up and takes it to the stations, we check those meters on those, including the airport out here, because they will not let them fuel planes up unless we’ve checked those things very closely. We have to do a two time check on those. From the trucks it goes into the gas pumps. So, we’ve got that fuel measurement from the time it comes down the river until you drive off from the station. We do grocery stores, all kinds of scales from the little narcotic scales, pharmacy scales, right on up to 120,000 pound scales like at the Fligeltaub, the landfill, Mulzer, all of those. We do all the hardware, propane, oxygen, freight scales, including the Post Office, God, I don’t know, everything, delis, barbecue joints, carry out places, produce scales, which helps, because they do bring some of those to us and we don’t have to flush them out of the hills, you know. You’re asking me categories and I can’t even remember all of them. Then we have to do taxi cabs at least twice a year. What else have we got? Timing devices, which includes your public laundromats, your car washes. I’m trying to think. Other wholesale meters, like that’s at trucking, Ryder rental. I can’t think of all of them, but you all have a list, because it was including the locations and, you know, that’s what was sent to you. Now, what you did with it, I don’t know. Like I said, I think the general public knows better what we do than you all do.

Councilmember Shetler: Well, the purpose really was like Donna had mentioned, is to let the public know, since it’s being televised and kind of inform people what Weights and Measures, because sometimes we do overlook the value of your office, and just wanted to point that out to the public what does go on there.

Loretta Townsend: Well, we’re a small office, in size, I mean, as far as our wants and our, just like that deal of bringing up our rent last time. I sort of bickered a little bit about it, but facts are facts. What we pay for rent over there includes utilities, plus, I think if you look down the budget some of these others that are outside of this building pay more for clean up services than what we pay for everything. Of course, a broom doesn’t bother us. I mean, you know, it fits our hand like everybody else’s. So, we do our own clean up. We don’t ask for furniture. We know where the furniture is at if we want it. We’ve gotten that before. So, and I can’t help but say, and like I told Jim before this started, let me up there one time with their budgets.

Loretta Townsend: Oh, I know. I know how to say no is, too, Marsha, like you do. Some of the requests are absolutely ridiculous. They don’t even stop and think any other direction. Just go and see if I can get it, you know.

Councilmember Goebel: I’m just kidding. You don’t have to talk about it. I just wanted to know, Loretta, do you ever speak your mind?

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, Loretta, on your line item 1750, you’re requesting $4,000 for the Clothing Allowance, can you speak to that? That’s a new line item there for you.

Councilmember Sutton: I know it’s part of what you guys do, you guys get pretty dirty, but you guys hadn’t requested that–

Loretta Townsend: Okay, I’m going to try, and I’m probably going to have to have some help. Sandie, I think, knows this, because I don’t quite understand it myself. You know, my guys request it, and I request it. I’m not going to back out of it, they wanted to join the union, for a couple of reasons. Nothing to do with what goes on in our department, because we’re, if there ever was a family deal, that’s what we are. If something is wrong with one of them, we circle the wagon and surround them, and we take care of each other like you would your brothers and sisters. So, it wasn’t nothing like that. Now, part of the contract included, what was it, Sandie? Clothing allowance or something, which, but also we still have to, what, furnish their clothing or something, isn’t it, their uniforms?

Councilmember Sutton: Are there any other union contract related items in here? I’m kind of looking through–

Loretta Townsend: I don’t think so. You know, I think that’s the only thing that there is. I mean, and you want to know something, okay, here we go again, I’m going to speak my mind, my guys don’t make enough money as it is, and I know you’re not going to up the salary much, but compared to what everybody else does, these guys do not make enough money. Now, if they could pocket that $1,000 then that will help it come closer, closer to what actually they should be making. Now, I don’t know if you’re going to like that or not, but that’s the way I feel about it. My guys, you compare their salaries to what they have to do, and they do it all the time, you’ve got three people plus myself taking care of the whole freaking county and everything, and this does not just include taking a pad out there and a pen and doing your job. This includes hauling waste, gas cans, fuel, climbing on top of stuff. So, if that other thousand dollars is going to get them up closer to what they’re worth, hey, I’m all for it.

President Abell: Any other questions or comments? Thank you. Page 79, County Commissioners.

Jeff Korb: Good morning, Jeff Korb, County Commissioner President. I’m going to go through a list of line items, and then if you all have questions, and I’m sure you will, we can come back to those. The first line item is 1300-3021, it’s the Hillcrest Home. In having lunch with some of the administrators there, they have indicated to me that potentially they could live at their 2008 levels. They’re going to their board of directors tonight to discuss that. I don’t want to take their money away from them. I personally was surprised when they made that indication to me, and they made that offer. That was not something that I had requested. So, I’m not going to ask you to strike that in your budget at this point, I’m letting you know that they have indicated that they are willing to go to their board and to ask if it’s okay if they stay at the 2008 levels. However, let’s just wait until we hear back from them, if that’s at all possible. The next line item is 1300-3140, on your list, and that is with our telephone system. As we have that listed it is at $230,000 for the request, I’m very comfortable with repealing that back to the $200,000 level of 2008. Really, what we’re looking at there is we’re in the process of having on-going conversation with AT&T. We’ve not been given any hard numbers from them. Though while we are saving money on the new telephones that we’ve purchased in terms of hardware cost, there have been some increases in the rates. So, we are in the process of coming up with that, if, I guess, my thought, since this is my first time to do this, I would just simply say if we have to come back for more money, we have to come back for more money, to appropriate that for the telephone systems.

Jeff Korb: I did have a meeting with Marissa Nichoalds earlier this year, there was confusion about the bill and how that was being charged to each department, and we feel like we’ve gotten a much better handle on that, with the help of Matt Arvay. So, we feel good about that. So, anyway, from an offering, I think we can live at the 2008 level. We can try that, just know that if we go over that budget we’ll be able to back those numbers up later on in 2009. The next item on your line item is 2031-3996. This is something that you would like to hide. I would like to hide, but it’s the 600 pound gorilla. That is a $600,000 payment that we had for the voting machines in Vanderburgh County. Obviously, my understanding, and I think I’m correct on that–

Councilmember Sutton: Can you, before you jump to that other page, let’s go back–

Councilmember Sutton: Let’s go back, Commissioner, let’s see on Telephone, you said you’re gonna try to, I’m looking at your run rate on that–

Councilmember Sutton: –not sure how you guys pay that out. Is it billed quarterly, you know, two times a year? Looking at where you are right now, you’re going to be way above what you did this year.

Jeff Korb: Well, I mean, and that’s kind of where we are with this. I’m happy to play the shell game, and say, well, let’s just keep it at $200,000, and we’re going to have to come back. What that entails, Councilman, is we have been given a lot of credit throughout the years, and my understanding is we’ve exhausted most of those credits with AT&T. That’s why, at this point, I know this sounds odd, but it’s still a real moving target with them. So, we are still in discussions with them, where we are in terms of what our annual costs are actually going to be on that. So, are we going to go over the $200,000 this year, potentially, yes. Which means we’ll definitely, probably be going over that in 2009 as well.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, that’s what I’m trying to get an idea of. Where I’m seeing you now, how much more are we expecting to go over? Then, I guess, if we’re just going to plug in an arbitrary figure, I mean, that’s not quite the way we do it here, but, just trying to get an idea on what your billing cycle is.

Jeff Korb: We are billed on a monthly basis, and to be quite honest with you, we were in a position earlier this year where the phones were almost cut off in the Civic Center because the bills had not been paid. Marissa, if you would like to come up and help address that, that would be great. Say your name.

Jeff Korb: What you do. Councilman, would you repeat the question again, please?

Councilmember Sutton: Right now with what we have, this is through June 1^st, you guys have already spent $169,000 of the $200,000 budget. How, on your billing cycle, are you paying monthly, quarterly? Because at the rate that you’re going, you’re going to blow through the budget that you’ve got.

Marissa Nichoalds: Right. We pay AT&T monthly, and then we have certain departments that have a telephone line item that we also bill monthly, and we get reimbursed for that.

Councilmember Sutton: So, at the rate that we’re going, we’re talking about 300, you’re going to be $140,000 over your, what you’re budgeted?

Marissa Nichoalds: It’s quite possible. I would have to look at those numbers again. I could provide something to you.

Jeff Korb: Really, Councilman, I don’t think we’re going to be looking at those kinds of numbers, and, again, that’s why we’re, because we had some front end charges coming up that we had to pay back bills for. Which is what we incurred earlier in the year. So, we’ve been playing catch up. I think that if you look at where we are at this point, what we’ve spent so far this year, that is not going to be an accurate descriptor of where we are for the rest of the year.

Jeff Korb: Again, those numbers are not coming from us, those numbers are coming from AT&T. So, once we get those hard numbers, I would be happy to share those with you. I really think that because Marissa and I have had this conversation in the office before, with the people from AT&T, and also with Matt, because of the back bills that we had to pay, that is what has brought us up so quickly over our budget at this point, but we don’t see ourselves smashing through the $200,000 this year. I’m not going to say that that’s not going to happen, because anything can happen. I’m just saying that as we have been having our discussions with AT&T, we’re fairly comfortable that we’re going to be within that $200,000 limit.

Councilmember Leader: Mr. Korb, could you ask Marissa to please separate those back bills out, show those as a separate item, so we can understand?

Jeff Korb: Sure. Marissa, did you hear that? Okay, great. That is not a problem for us. We’re happy to do that. Yeah, no problem. Any other questions? No. The next item then is the one, did you find it, 2031-3996?

Jeff Korb: That has been, apparently, all paid off, and so we no longer have that obligation.

President Abell: If that’s where you were leading, I’ll just stop you and we’ll go on.

Jeff Korb: That’s exactly where I was leading, and I want to share with you those line item numbers so we don’t have to sit there and mess with them.

Jeff Korb: The first line item is 2031-3538, and we had appropriated an additional $50,000 for the Old Courthouse. Again, I’m just being honest with you, if you all cut that, I totally understand that, and I’m confident you will. The next item is 2031-4122 for Buildings and Equipment. We had appropriated $300,000 for that. The next item is 2031-4130, Park and Playground, and we had a portion, $200,000 out of that.

Councilmember Winnecke: Could you, just briefly, it would probably help us if you would explain kind of the rationale behind the increase in each of those three line items that you just chatted about.

Jeff Korb: Sure. With the Old Courthouse contract, we are looking at just any kind of improvements that we can make within the courthouse facility. We are in the process of applying for a grant, a major grant for that facility through the state government, which is kind of exciting actually. It’s tied in with all of the improvements that we’ve already made. The next item was the $300,000 for Buildings and Equipment, we had discussed with Mike Duckworth, the Superintendent of the Garage, that potentially putting in a three bay facility to maintain our own vehicles. To be honest with you, that is not something that we need at this point in time. So, in further discussions with Mike, he says, hey, that’s something that we don’t need, so we’ll just take that out of the budget. So, that’s $300,000 there.

Jeff Korb: Which is where we were, if I remember correctly, this past year, is that correct?

Jeff Korb: And the final item is Parks and Playgrounds. That’s just something that is an on-going expense for us. What I would like to call a loss leader in our community. In talking with Steve Craig that there are some improvements that can be made for that. Last year we had budgeted $100,000 for that, if we could stay at that $100,000 level, we would be very grateful for that opportunity.

Jeff Korb: Well, this is just, yeah, yes, primarily at Burdette. He wasn’t asking for that entire amount of money for that, of course, but that’s where we just threw that in there.

Councilmember Winnecke: Could Mr. Craig address some of the proposed improvements that he would like to spend this $300,000 on?

Jeff Korb: Well, again, in all fairness to Steve, he is not wanting the entire $300,000 to do that.

Councilmember Winnecke: I understood that. But, some of it, how much of it is earmarked for Burdette?

Steve Craig: Steve Craig, Manager of Burdette Park. If you want I’ll run over it real quick and tell you what all of them included. It kind of looks like with the money and that, we’re only going to be able to do what’s really necessary, but some of them are necessary. The one, the renovation of the main office building, it was built in ‘73, 1973, and the exterior T111 plywood on it is showing decay and bad wear. The exposed timbers are starting to check.

Steve Craig: $108,000. I’ve asked for an engineering study to detail the layout and the infrastructure for utilities, roads, detention, lakes and drainage on the new 30 acres that we have. We can’t really do anything with that until we have an infrastructure plan in place, so that we would know where everything is going to go. I was wanting an engineering firm to come in and lay the 30 acres out, so that we know how to set it up for the future, where the roads go, where the utilities are.

Steve Craig: I have $50,000 in for that. I had put in to install new sidewalks and curbing and drains from the front of the park to the main office complex. The old sidewalk is deteriorated and uneven and the drainage has been draining into the lake. I think it’s a hazard that people have to walk the way they do, and I’m wanting to replace that sidewalk, from all the way from the front of the park to the main office. According to the ten year master plan, they told us to replace all of the signs in the park, we have 40 years of different types of signs. They told us that we should put signs in there that look like park signs instead of signs that we made.

Councilmember Winnecke: Steve, excuse me. What was the break out of the expense on the sidewalks and the drainage and the signs?

Steve Craig: $68,000 for the sidewalks, the curbing and all the drainage to the lake.

Steve Craig: And that would be to make all the signs look like one type of sign, instead of 40 years of different signs. The last one was $20,000 for a new vehicle. I would rather have an RTV or a hybrid. The prerequisite of the vehicle is over 30 miles per gallon, preferably 50. That’s where the $300,000 came out, whatever we can afford in our budget.

Steve Craig: I think that’s about what we paid for our RTV’s, they were these utility vehicles that get 50 miles to a gallon of gas, they have a little dump truck, a little grader blade on it, and we use them every day. It saves us a ton on fuel. I’m looking more at than buying a pickup.

President Abell: Mr. Fluty, are we, is this in the Commissioners budget because they want to take it out of CCD, as opposed to the Burdette operating? It’s (Inaudible) General Fund. It’s CCD. Not for you, but, Mr. Fluty, considering that the county pays taxes for the parks county-wide and we don’t get any of that money, is there any particular reason that we don’t get any of that money? Or do we get some of that money?

President Abell: I know, but the city is taxing the county and they’re keeping all the money? Is that correct?

Bill Fluty: That’s correct. But, then again, there are other rates, similar to the jail rate, that goes all the way across county lines. Even if you live in the county or the city, you’re benefitting from the city parks, but the park rate, that money, that particular tax rate goes to the city.

President Abell: I guess, my issue is that we don’t keep the city (Inaudible) parks–

President Abell: –but, they get to benefit from that, we should get some of that money.

President Abell: Thank you. Obviously, it didn’t help any. Any other questions? Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Steve, on the signage situation, do we have people getting lost because things are not marked correctly? If they are, isn’t that good for seeing the entire park?

Steve Craig: You are correct. We do have people that get lost everyday. This weekend we had people lost all over the park. But, it was, one of the things, what we have taken out of our CCD money, is we did a ten year master plan several years ago, and most of the improvements and suggestions in the ten year master plan I try to take out of CCD instead of out of the General Fund. That was one of the things that they emphasized that our park had 40 years of different types of signs from routed signs on treated lumber to painted signs, and we used some of the money in the CCD account last year to put the new sign on the corner of Broadway and Red Bank. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s a beautiful sign. We’ve gotten a lot of comments on it. We’re just in the process of trying to, you know, bring them all up to date, I guess, you know, 2008, you know, what standards are for parks. There is a standard for parks, how the signs are supposed to look, and we do not have some of them, such as when it gets to hiking trails and handicap accessible and that, they do need to be up to code. But, like I said, I try and do that out of CCD, instead of out of the General Fund.

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, I don’t know if this is going to be for Marissa, it really has to do with the Old Courthouse. Two questions: one, do we have any vacancy over there for office space?

Councilmember Shetler: The other thing is, how much does it rent for per square foot?

Marissa Nichoalds: It varies. Sometimes on the basement floor, it’s a little bit lower than it is on say the first floor where rooms have been remodeled. But it’s generally in the five to ten dollar per square foot range.

Jeff Korb: To caveat that, Councilman, is the fact that the Foundation is in the process of selecting a realtor to begin marketing those spaces that are still available. Also, David Rector, the Building Commissioner, David is looking at the parking situation. We have asked for an overview, a survey, a study that was done about adding additional parking around the Old Courthouse without degradating the facility. He will be in the process of making that presentation to the board, simply because we feel like to help lease some of those spaces we have to improve the parking that is closer to the building, proximity to the building.

Councilmember Shetler: So, from the basement, those would be the lower price, like around five dollars.

Councilmember Shetler: Alright. Ms. Leader was asking if it would be possible to get a list of tenants, and maybe even some type of a percentage of what the vacancy versus occupancy level is.

Marissa Nichoalds: I’ve actually got a spreadsheet that shows by floor what rooms are available, their square foot, and who’s leasing it. So, I’ll get that to you.

Jeff Korb: We’re operating with about a 55 to 60 percent vacancy rate there. We felt like the main reason why we were having that was there was no promotion of the facility, which is why my recommendation was let’s just deal with a realtor. The Foundation’s concern was do we have to pay fees. I just smiled and said, yeah, you do, after the space is rented, but in the process we’ve got revenue coming in. I mean, if we can get that facility to just be a break even facility for us, I would be thrilled, and also get it to be occupied. The spaces that we’re going to be leasing, will just be on an “as is” basis. However, they will have specific criteria that they will have to meet to coincide with the Historical Preservation Society’s request and mandates.

Councilmember Leader: I would just comment regarding the parking, being a person interested in the history of our city, I would be very cautious about invading that property just to create a parking place. I know people in Evansville are not used to walking a block to work, but there are places to park, and if we need to arrange some situation with a nearby lot, and give people a discount, or whatever that is to walk a block or two, I certainly don’t see anything wrong with that. I’m very concerned about invading that space, just to park. That’s a very short term solution to something that has such historic value to our community.

Jeff Korb: Sure, and in my conversation with David Rector, that’s exactly what we had talked about. The two thoughts were, the first part of the survey that’s come back is that the wall is not being moved, we’re just going to better utilize the space around the courthouse building and add 50 spaces.

Councilmember Leader: I understand that. But, part of the Old Courthouse, is the green space around it.

Jeff Korb: None of that would be, with the initial plan that David has come back to would be moved. So, everything, the green space, as you see it, would be as it is. Again, I’ve not seen the study yet. David is getting with me on that later next week. So, we’ll take a look at it. I appreciate and respect what you’re saying.

Councilmember Shetler: I think, because I’ve spoken with them about this in the past, I think there’s some ideas that instead of parallel parking around there, do some more diagonal parking.

Councilmember Shetler: And, that is, I mean, he did a real good job in front of this building of grabbing a lot more spaces. So, that’s what I think his intent is, is not to disrupt all the aesthetics of the way it is today, but to replace what we have in getting those spaces.

Jeff Korb: And that was the mandate that I also gave the committee, the Foundation is, I mean, I respect what you’re saying with regard to not degradating the space, I’ve just said, I’ve challenged them, you all (Inaudible) better job of taking care of that space, because a lot of times in July and August it doesn’t look that attractive. You’ve got tall grass, then the grass is cut and it looks like a field that’s been mowed with hay. So, I mean, there’s kind of a six of one, half a dozen of the other thing going on here. So, they’re in the process of rectifying that as well. So, I appreciate what you’re saying. Any other questions? Okay.

Jeff Korb: Moving on, line item 3290-3893, the Reverse 911 for $100,000. Again, I apologize, I’m not looking off of what you all are looking off of.

Jeff Korb: There is a green one here, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for all these things.

Jeff Korb: Next time I’ll ask Marissa to give me rhyme and reason as to where these things are, because I’m just going off of the sheet that she gave to me. I apologize for that.

Jeff Korb: Last year you all gave us $100,000 for that, and I don’t know where we are in spending that this year, but in asking how much, yes, we’ve spent zero. In asking around, what is this for and how are we utilizing this money? We’re not able to get a correct response. I know that Commissioner Tornatta sits on that board. Troy, would you like to come up and address that? My thought is, that if we don’t know what is going on with this, there’s no reason for us to continue to fund it, is my thought.

Jeff Korb: No, no, no, Reverse 911. The one thing I would like to find out, and we’ve asked Central Dispatch to look into for us is, can we use a reverse 911 type of system in the event that we have a tornado that’s coming? Just hit the button–

Jeff Korb: –and all that kicks out to the community. That might be a way for us to utilize those funds. But, I would like to ask Commissioner Tornatta to come up, and since he’s on the 911 board, to go ahead and just share with us what he knows about this. Troy?

Troy Tornatta: Troy Tornatta, County Commissioner. Marsha and I serve on the Central Dispatch, and, at this time, I think we’re kind of in a hold pattern on what to do with those funds if, at one time it was thought that the county was going to run with that, and with our board, we decided that we wanted more players in that, there’s EVSC, there’s the city, there’s other organizations that we would like to utilize via the utility or whatnot. So, hospitals want to be involved with it, and those people should have some type of buy in. Obviously, we all know that it is not the initial cost that is the kicker, it’s the on-going costs we’re going to have. What I would recommend is, with the $100,000 that we have in place, if it’s already there, I would say keep it there, I don’t know if we’ll need an additional appropriation, and that (Inaudible) Central Dispatch Board.

Jeff Korb: Thanks, Commissioner. Any questions with regards to that? Alright. The next item, and I don’t know where it is on your sheet, it’s 1300-3040, Soil and Water Conservation.

President Abell: It should be back under the Commissioners budget, back to page 79, 80, page 80, maybe.

Jeff Korb: What I’ve passed out to you is a letter that I received from Lauren Preske, the Chairman of the Soil and Water Conservation District. You’ll notice that they have had an increase, they have asked for an increase in their budget. The direct result of that is simply because, in this letter you’re going to notice, that the Natural Resources Conservation Service has in the past been paying the rent for this facility. They are now requiring each of the districts to pay for their own employee’s space, and shared areas in the spaces where they are. As a result of that, that’s why we’ve got a little bit larger of a bump up with regards to, the rent for the year is $3,172. That was the reason for their additional request. In the past that’s been covered by the feds, and they are no longer able or willing to do that. I have a representative here from Soil and Water Conservation if you would like to ask her any questions.

Councilmember Leader: It just seems like it would be cheaper for them to move into the Old Courthouse, $12.48 a square foot.

Jeff Korb: You know, I’m going to smile when you say that to me, and just smile when you say that to me. Any questions for Bonnie?

President Abell: Just a moment, let us look, we just got the letter, let us read it.

President Abell: So, the federal government had been paying a portion of their rent, and they’re no longer doing that?

Jeff Korb: Yes, Ma’am. Donna, the only reason, the only answer that I have for your question that I know of, off the top of my head, is most of the work they do is out at the 4-H grounds, and we would probably blow that much more just getting back and forth in a vehicle. So, but, no, my desire, listen, I’m right there with ya. I want to fill the Old Courthouse up, with either not-for-profit agencies that could use a break and have that to develop that type of synergy in that building, allow organizations to use it that really could use that space. I think that’s what our Old Courthouse needs is more people in and out of those doors to keep it in better shape. So, that’s kind of the big push we’ll have for 2009. If there’s no other questions on that, the only additional item we have is line item 1300-3420, and that is our Legal Advertising. We’ve increased that from $20,000 to $25,000.

Jeff Korb: The only thought about that is the fact that we have got so many road projects coming before us, in terms of things that we are going to have to let out for bid, and that floodgate is going to be opening sometime later this month, first part of next month. We’re just trying to be proactive there. Hopefully, we won’t use all of that money, but, if we do, it is in place for us to do that. Again, I do not mind declaring that to you today, and then having to come back before you if we leave it at $20,000. It’s a little bit like the phone thing that (Inaudible) was talking about earlier. Again, we’ll have those hard numbers, we don’t know what the advertising is going to be, but we just know that we have probably about 15 to 20 percent more projects that we are going to have to let out for bid in 2009.

Jeff Korb: That’s all I have. Other questions? If not, if so, I mean, great, fire them away. If not, I would like to request, if I could, while I am here, since it falls under the County Commissioners is to discuss the Superintendent of County Buildings budget. Even though I know they are not next on your list.

President Abell: We’re not following our list anyway. So, it doesn’t matter.

Councilmember Sutton: Are you going to cover, Commissioner, are you going to cover down through the County Highway, Cum Bridge, Local Roads and Streets, are you going to cover those?

Councilmember Sutton: Okay. Okay. I mean, is someone else going to do it, or are you just–

Councilmember Sutton: You guys have separate budgets, I just wanted to make sure.

President Abell: What’s page 90? Well, if he’s going to be up here quite a bit longer, and I understand that there’s someone that has to leave, maybe we need to switch gears just a second. Can we take just a few minutes? We have someone that has to leave.

President Abell: Okay. Veterans Affairs, do you want to come up? It won’t take but a few minutes for them, and he’s got an appointment to go to.

President Abell: We’re going to switch down to veterans affairs, page 78 in your book.

Mark Acker: Good morning, Madam Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. Mark Acker, Veterans Services, department 1270.

President Abell: Does anyone have any questions for Mr. Acker? Yours looks like it didn’t change very much.

Mark Acker: The only thing we did do was take out of the Memorial Day program, $1,000, and moved it to Office Supplies, due to the increase in workload with the Iraqi and Afghan veterans that are coming in for disabilities. We’re requiring more and more paper and various items for the office. And, so that would help facilitate looking for paper at the end of the year. That was the only change. No increases to any line budget items whatsoever.

Councilmember Leader: We have rent, Mark, we have Rent in 3600, do you see that line item?

Mark Acker: That was depleted, and our understanding through the County Commissioners was that our department is kind of a push, you give us money, we give it back.

Councilmember Goebel: This is not budgetary, but, just general information. Mark, do you see more and more activity now with our commitments abroad with veterans coming to see you?

Mark Acker: Oh, very much so, sir. It has increased the workload about 30 percent. I see that even increasing greater when the return of the 163^rd Field Artillery returns from Iraq, which should be this fall or the first, January or February of next year. So, we will be seeing significant claim differences, and our workload will increase, at least, we’re at 30 now, it should jump to around 60 percent. It will be solely Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans.

President Abell: Other questions? Thank you, Mr. Acker. I’m sorry you had to wait.

Councilmember Leader: Yes, Mr. Korb, I do. On Rent, line item 3600, it’s on our page 82. There appears to be an increase of about a half million dollars.

Jeff Korb: In my conversations with David Rector with regards to that, Councilmen, that is primarily tied up in the increase in utility costs period. It doesn’t, actually, if I remember correctly in my conversation with David Rector was the fact that the actual rent for space has gone down three to five percent for the budgeted year of 2009, but the increase of $50,000, basically, that you’re seeing there, is a direct result of projected increases in utility costs. If you would like confirmation of that, I can have David send you that information. Is that okay? Marissa, would you make a note of that, please? Yeah, I would be happy to do that.

Councilmember Raben: –we need to remember when we’re dealing with utilities, that also includes the new jail today. So, it’s not just this building.

President Abell: Purchasing went up over $10,000, is that postage? Is that what you, is that when you’re running your postage through the Purchasing Department? No?

Marissa Nichoalds: That was from the joint department, joint Purchasing Department. The Postage line is actually a separate line item, which we kept the same.

President Abell: Okay. Sandie tells me you brought it back down from $142,000 to what, 129 what?

President Abell: Councilmen, mark that in your books, 129, I’m sorry, Sandie, can you say that louder?

Councilmember Raben: I guess, while we’re making corrections, we can go to, let’s go ahead and do this now, if you don’t mind, Madam Chairman, page 80.

Councilmember Raben: There is a large one in regards to the Building Commission on page 82, 3850. Everybody is aware of the new agreement with the city, that the city is going to now take in 100 percent of all the fees, and take over the Building Commission’s budget. But there will probably be some outstanding bills that will be owed to the city for the balance of this year going into next year. So, let’s set, let’s put $50,000 on that line. That’s 3850. Did we talk about 3500, did you already address Human Relations? That real number is $44,241. $44,241.

President Abell: Oh, here it is. Is the Juvenile Correction Facility being moved over to the Courts?

President Abell: Yeah, I’m just wondering if under that new legislation about the county’s, I’m wondering if we can get some reimbursement from the state for having our own facility, instead of sending children away.

Councilmember Winnecke: I don’t think we can in 2008, but it might be an issue for the new year. That might be a good thing to have Jeff research.

Councilmember Raben: As I read that letter anyway yesterday, I’m sure the judge is far more aware than I am of the up and coming changes, but it was almost as if I read it as we were losing funding. They were used to sending them, juveniles, to state institutions, we’re now going to be charged a per diem rate. So, I think we’re actually going backwards instead of forward, aren’t we?

President Abell: What, in one of the meetings that we went to, and I can’t remember which one anymore, but there was some discussion that since we had our own facility here, that we might be able to get something from the state for that facility, as opposed to sending our juveniles away. Because ours could be qualified as a state facility.

Councilmember Winnecke: Right. Yeah, I think the intent was that if you sent a juvenile to a DOC facility, the state would take care of that expense, but, I think there was some, I think there’s a grey area about what to do with these communities that have their own facilities.

President Abell: Yeah, it almost penalizes communities that made the investment.

President Abell: Maybe Jeff, our counsel, can look at that for us. Okay, we brought that up because it used to be in your budget, but, go ahead, I’m sorry.

President Abell: Are you finished with the cuts, Mr. Raben, for this minute? Okay.

Councilmember Sutton: What’s the plans for that for next year, because we haven’t spent anything this year?

Councilmember Sutton: 3460, page 81, in our book. I don’t know if you’ve got the same one. It’s a Consultant, and the requested amount is $15,750. That’s the same amount that was requested for this year, but there hasn’t been any expenditures out of that line.

Jeff Korb: As I was looking at that, Councilmen, as we’re looking back through 2006, that is the budgeted item that has been in place since then. I think that that’s the type of consulting that we would use for parking at the Old Courthouse.

Bill Fluty: Councilmen? That’s Maximus. That’s a cost accounting. They actually, they charge us, it’s the same amount. We signed a three year contract with them. I think it’s probably a consultant might not be the trigger word that clues you in to what that is every year. But, they perform a services for us, that we actually gain dollars back from the state. I think our total take for spending $15,000, or almost $16,000, we recouped over $120,000 last year. So, that’s what that is.

Councilmember Sutton: Just kind of moving on down, that’s all I’ve got on this one.

Councilmember Sutton: I’m trying to stay in one budget at a time, and then logically move forward, so that we can all be on the same page.

President Abell: –we’ve gotten to the bottom of page 83, then. We’re finished with the County Commissioners budget, I think. Do we want to go to page 77, to the Drainage Board?

President Abell: You might pull that green book out. It might help you. We’re on page 79. Not page 79, page 77, which is the Drainage Board.

Jeff Korb: I will tell you, as a Commissioner, those are the toughest part of our meetings. I am not going to lie. We get the most interesting conversations that last for sometimes two and three hours. So, not justifying the pay, I’m just letting you know that–

President Abell: Well, we finished with section, page 135, CCD Fund. Did anyone have anymore further questions in the CCD Fund?

President Abell: Okay. Riverboat is page 121. Anyone have any questions? We’ve made a couple of changes on Riverboat.

Councilmember Winnecke: Just, in the Riverboat budget there on 121, line 3111, Initiative Based Assistance, each of the last two years that has been cut down to $420,000, everyone will recall, and the balance, that $80,000, we’ve dedicated to the Dental Clinic. Mr. Heck and Mr. Fluty and I are going to get together here sometime in the next week or so to kind of look over that Dental Clinic budget, but I would propose that we do that again this year. I think that would give us, that would put us well on our way to funding the Dental Clinic again next year.

Councilmember Sutton: Is there, on this 3110, Economic Development, and 3112, Infrastructure/Drainage, is there a plan that you have put together for ‘09 on how those funds will be spent? What the proposed projects will be?

Jeff Korb: As a matter of fact, we have a little bit of a skeleton with regards to that. We have a project going on now that we are working on, the Commissioners are working with the Mayor’s office and the Building Commission to put our, to review our system, the way that we allow permitting for builders and contractors on line, allow that to be paid on line. To be honest with you, Councilman, the Economic Development are funds that we basically use on an as needed basis, in terms of working closely with Greg Wathen and the Economic Development Coalition, as well as Joe Wallace from GAGE. Basically, they are our eyes and ears out in the community, forward thinking in terms of how we’re going to invest those funds. So, do we have specific projects in the pipeline with regards to making investments with those funds? No, we do not today. However, as you know, being in the banking business, those types of opportunities, they come and they go, they come and they go, and you just really never know when they’re coming. So, at this point in time, the reason why we like to have that money there is, obviously, so that we can respond. Last year we had, we committed $350,000 to that for a company potentially coming into the Vanderburgh County Industrial Park. That fell through. It was nice to be able to say, Greg, here’s this money, yes, we can help you with this particular project. So, I really think that as we’re looking forward, going forward for economic development, that will be the type of investment that we’ll make with Greg Wathen and his department, because they’ve been great in terms of working with them.

Councilmember Sutton: But, with the Infrastructure/Drainage, it’s a little bit easier to kind of put something on that.

Jeff Korb: I’m sorry. In the same process, we’re going to be working with Area Plan on that. We’ve had some discussions with the EVSC. They are going to have, potentially with the new project coming up, of course, that’s going to be up to the referendum, again, that’s something that we don’t have specific outlined plans today for that. I see us going forward with regards to being more proactive versus reactive in the future. So, again, that’s what we’re anticipating those funds being used for. As we push development out to the northern part of our county, potentially there will have to be more investment in infrastructure there as well. That’s the type of thing that we’re trying to coordinate with the Area Planning Commission so that we have a much better understanding of where we’re going to be in the future with regards to that. But, again, to answer your question, specifically, no.

Councilmember Sutton: There was a list of like, I want to say, eight, ten projects that were projected to be worked on, and some of the funds were going to come from that, and I’m just trying to get an idea, are we still using that plan? Or, is there, I guess, there’s a different approach, I guess, in terms of what projects (Inaudible)?

Jeff Korb: No, and I’ll be honest with you, I have not seen that list. Troy, have you seen anything like that? Do you know anything about that?

Jeff Korb: Okay, we’ve seen that? Have we worked from that? That looks like a no.

Troy Tornatta: I mean, I recommend that we do entertain that list. Commissioner Musgrave, at one point, Mr. Fluty had a list that was kind of going through how we’re going to take care of the Parkway and some of the items that she had on her schedule. But, I don’t know that we’re going off that list right now. That will happen with the administration change as well. But, I would say that, I would encourage this body to work with the Commissioners to try and develop a list, maybe on a yearly basis, working with Area Plan and with certain entities to make sure that we have those items there, categorically in that manner.

Councilmember Winnecke: Just a clarification on the, out of the Economic Development line item. If everyone recalls, there are three expenses that the Commissioners, that we stripped from the Commissioners budgets in previous years and asked them to pay from this line item, that was Vanderburgh County’s contribution to the Four County Southwest Indiana Economic Development Coalition, our contribution to the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville, for GAGE, and our contribution to the Voices of I-69. All three of those, which totals roughly $300,000 in the aggregate to come out of that line item.

Councilmember Raben: Just, the Voices of I-69, I thought we eliminated that last year?

Councilmember Winnecke: We eliminated it, but the Commissioners had the option, and I think they did, at least that was the intent, that if they wanted to fund it, they could fund it out of that line item.

Troy Tornatta: Well, it wasn’t the Voices of I-69. It was Disaster Resistance.

Troy Tornatta: So, we did not fund I-69, we did Disaster Resistance. It’s $10,000. I would recommend you do the same thing. Take the $10,000 out of the budget, and we’ll pay that out of ours.

President Abell: Other questions? Okay, page 90, Superintendent of County Buildings.

Jeff Korb: Actually, there are none, except for the two and a half percent increase for wages, but everything else we left flat lined.

Jeff Korb: Thank you for your time and your hard effort, unless there’s any other questions for me.

Jeff Ahlers: While you’re still here, I had an opportunity to look through this memorandum from the Commissioners of the Department of Local Government Finance, and I thought I would just go ahead and share that with you there. My reading of this, first of all what occurs is, is what they’re saying is, even though the responsibilities for the housing of the juveniles transfers to the state after next year, the maximum tax levy is going to remain the same. So, you would be able to still get that money, number one.

Jeff Ahlers: Well, I mean, well, and I’ll get to that in part two, but, technically, no. What they’re saying is, we’re not going to adjust your levy, and they go through an analysis saying that because there are so many variables in terms of what it would take to adjust the levy, they’re just not going to do it. My guess is probably in terms of the overall percentage is so small maybe that’s why they’re not. So, you should still be able to recoup the monies you always have. But, most importantly what I read here is in paragraph 3D of that memorandum from Ms. Musgrave, it talks about that if there’s issues moving forward that have to do with the county and the Department of Corrections, or say the county with regard to its vendors (Inaudible) city-county, or payments to the state, which I think this would kind of, in terms of, I guess, our contract with the housing of the juveniles now, I would consider that to be a vendor, and what it says is that we can enter into, the County Council and the State can enter into an agreement, if it’s approved by the County Council and the Governor, then that will govern the responsibilities of the state and the county. So, it seems to me that what we need to do is, I suppose, we need someone to quantify what those obligations may be going forward. In other words, I don’t know and would need to get my hands on the contract, I don’t know if the County Attorney has it, or if someone could get me a copy of the contract, is what, how long is that term? I mean, I guess, what we need to do is try to come–

Jeff Ahlers: Yeah, I mean, we’re going to have to, I guess, figure out what the state wants to do. The state is going to have to say, we think you’ve got a pretty good deal, and we’ll just go ahead and pay those costs down here, and transfer that contract some way, would probably be the easiest way. If, however, the state chooses a different route, I suppose we need to negotiate something to say that, you know, we want the state to pay that vendor. That we’ve got an obligation here that unless we can look at the contract, and, since I assume that probably the County Attorney and the County Commissioners are probably the ones that signed that agreement, I need to look at it. But, I don’t know if there’s an out clause saying that if, for example, something happens like this with a change in law, whether or not the contract could be voidable. Now, my guess is, and you all will have to decide what you would want to do, but it may well be that you want your juveniles, if possible, housed here anyway, and you probably would want to try to get the state to take over and become the contracted party with that entity to house them. So, anyway, that’s what I’m reading right here. If anybody has any other understandings of that, they can let me know. If somebody would get me a copy of the contract, and I can talk to the County Attorney. Obviously, from what it says here, the Commissioners saying that the County Council makes that agreement with the Governor, but, I guess, I don’t know, I guess we need to establish, I don’t know how you want to proceed in terms of establishing who from (Inaudible) to work with, whether it’s the courts, or the Commissioners, or try to establish what it is you want to accomplish, and then–

Jeff Ahlers: – I can help you facilitate that, but, I guess, first of all, you all need to decide what it is you want to accomplish.

President Abell: Why don’t you get the copy of the contract to us first. That’s part of (Inaudible).

President Abell: And, then maybe a combination of the courts and the Commissioners and all of us together can come up with what, but, I would think that if we could pick up some money from the state to run that thing, we ought to be going there.

Troy Tornatta: I think now is a perfect time to get out in front of the curve, if we can, and take all the expenses that we think that we’re going to incur from that, YCC, I know that we kind of have several different (Inaudible), different areas, we need to put it in one area. I think what we’ve done in the past is, I was listening yesterday, Superior Court has, or juvenile has the expenses of the health care–

Troy Tornatta: –for the individuals. We need to try and make sure that we have all those different entities, if we have Sheriff deputies that are servicing those youths, we need to account for that. We need to be able to start thinking about those people that are connected to YCC and how much of their time is connected, and if there’s a way that we can set it up to put that in that whole, collective unit, I think it would be a great time to do it around budget time. So, if that’s reimburseable, or if we anticipate that it’s going to be reimburseable, I think that would be a good time to do it at budgets. As we found out with the tornado, we weren’t necessarily set up to handle what they wanted when it came to reimbursement. We’re better set up now through the Commissioners office giving, making some reconstitutions to the, or amending different salary ordinances, and if we can do that with YCC and how it’s set up, I think it would be an advantage to us.

Jeff Korb: The other bag of moving parts to the YCC, and also the Hillcrest Home is not just a financial piece of the puzzle. It’s what’s being mandated by the state in terms of what types of kids can be housed in those facilities. I do know that that is a level of concern both in the juvenile court system, with Judge Niemeier (Inaudible) with him, there are an awful lot of unanswered questions that he has at this point in time, that he will be restricted on the types of kids that he’s able to place at Hillcrest, as well as the type of children that he’s able to place at the YCC. I guess, my only concern at this point, I would hate to see the Rescue Mission who built that building for us, get stuck with that bill if we decide to pull out. I’m saying, that’s not what we’re saying here, obviously–

Jeff Korb: -- is in the process of handcuffing us pretty hard in terms of the Judge and what he’s able to do. Any other questions? Councilman Sutton, are you sure? Are you done?

President Abell: Is someone else going to handle County Highway, Cum Bridge, Local Roads & Streets?

Jeff Korb: There you go. Thanks, appreciate it. Thanks again for your time, everybody.

President Abell: Does anyone want to take a break? I looked over at Mr. Winnecke because he always wants to take a break. Five minute break. Five minutes is five minutes.

President Abell: We are back on the record. Next on our agenda, Co-Op Extension Service. No? Oh, Health Department. I’m sorry, then you. I’m sorry, Health Department is next.

Sam Elder: Sam Elder, I’m the Executive Director of the County Health Department.

Sam Elder: The Health Department’s budget complies with your request. We had an increase in the Gasoline, $5,000, but we reduced the bonds & insurance $5,000. And our finance officer, Gary, feels that we can live with that, and the Auditor, too, I understand.

Councilmember Sutton: So this is a relatively flat across the board budget except for those items that you mentioned? Good job.

Darren Stearns: Good morning. Darren Stearns, Assistant General Manager for SMG.

Councilmember Raben: I guess, just kind of give us a brief overview of how the Centre operations are compared year to date last year.

Darren Stearns: As of June 30^th, which I think we sent you some of the reports recently. Hopefully, you got some of those in the mail. We’re running at about 90% of our budgeted budget right now, being the fall was our busiest period. So we’re doing pretty well. We’ve got the new season of Broadway on sale. In December we have Indiana Farm Bureau, that’s a convention that the Convention sent us, it’s the first time that they’ve ever left Indianapolis. The first time they’ve ever been anywhere but Indianapolis. So we’re looking forward to that.

Susan Plassmeier: Good morning. Susan Plassmeier, County Extension Director. I’d kind of like to start with, we asked for $500 here and there: Supplies, Postage, those are all things that have gone up and our mileage, we have not had an increase in mileage for a while. And it’s kind of basically still the same rate of when we were getting $.28 a mile, now we’re up to $.40 a mile, so actually we’ve cut programs this summer because of mileage. We do a lot of summer outreach with day camps. They went from six weeks, traditionally, cut back to four weeks this year to help with the mileage situation and supplies for programming.

Councilmember Sutton: Susan? Right here. How do you guys come up with your reimbursement figure on your mileage? What rate are you using?

Susan Plassmeier: Yeah, because previously, we had been at $.30 a mile and then went up to 40.

Susan Plassmeier: That, I had asked for $500 more for Postage just because postage costs are going up with the increase in the postage. And we do have a postage meter.

Councilmember Raben: I was looking at, was last year just an unusual year? Last year you spent $4,400 in postage. This year, to date, you’re at $5,500.

Susan Plassmeier: Well, do you want to talk about that? Our office manager who was in there has retired, had always asked for that to be carried over or we had bought up postage meter rate at the end of the year to use that money, so that we would have that in reserve to use for that next year, and that did not happen last year. It got forgotten. So that’s, we had always kind of had built up that surplus and that’s what happened. We didn’t have that surplus this year.

President Abell: Could you speak to line item 3530, what is covered under that Contractual Services?

Susan Plassmeier: Okay, that is the three Purdue Extension educator positions and I believe I attached an exhibit with the rationale when I submitted that, that addresses that. That is for the master degree individuals and extension educator positions and money is paid for Purdue, we receive one paycheck a month. And we used to get a paycheck from the county and a paycheck from Purdue. And that really created problems for retirement because of the discrepancies in the salaries you were being, you know, reimbursed at, not at your total cumulative salary. And the same thing with taxes, I always had more money taken out for taxes because I would get assessed because I was being not taxed not at the combined rate but at each individual rate. So they put it all together and money is sent from each county up to Purdue to pay the educations. And I think in my rationale, for our county, Vanderburgh County, Purdue contributes 69 percent and the county is contributing 31 percent, and that’s towards salary, benefits, training, all that.

President Abell: But we do cover the full salary for several employees, correct?

President Abell: Well, I think that increase in that, if someone has a calculator, I think that’s more than the 2.5%.

Susan Plassmeier: It was three percent, it’s what Purdue asked for from the counties.

President Abell: So we’ll have to reduce that. Any other questions? Thank you.

President Abell: County Highway. Is he out in the hall? Someone want to go out there and get him? Oh, John Stoll is here. Page 123. Good morning, gentlemen, would you like to give your name for the record?

Mike Duckworth: Mike Duckworth, Superintendent of the County Highway Department.

Mike Duckworth: I guess I’ll start. I only have just a few increases. I tried to leave my increased requests to Utilities and Gas & Oil. There is one line item, it is zeroed out. I believe there was a $4,500 request for Unemployment, and I don’t have that here, it’s 1430.

Mike Duckworth: Yes. Unemployment. We requested $4,500 and it was zeroed out but I do believe that there probably will be a need for that $4,500.

President Abell: Well, the budget gods were kind to you. They gave you 3,000. Any questions?

Mike Duckworth: All other line items on my budget are the same as they were in ‘08.

John Stoll: The only line items in my department are salaries, so they just have the 2.5 percent increase figured in.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, we’ve had a pretty good year for doing outside work. How close are we to completing those paving projects and what have you?

Mike Duckworth: We are around the twelve mile level at this point. Of course, any time you do any paving, there is preparatory work and shoulder work and culvert work that we try to do prior to going in to resurfacing any new stretches of roadway. So that’s been the bulk of our work now and we’re into the actual paving season and I would anticipate that by the end of this month, early September, we’d complete that.

Councilmember Raben: John, I guess I have a question for you. I know a lot of it is because of the heavy rains we had in the spring and maybe in the past few years, but there’s some areas in the county that we see that there is literally no shoulder today and several – as an example, Boonville-New Harmony near the railroad tracks or east of there towards Darmstadt where the ditch is as deep as this ceiling, with, you know, in areas where there is no shoulder. I mean, at some point in time, and I know there’s a lot of other areas within the county and those have to be expensive repairs, are we doing anything at all to look at holding back funds or anything to address those issues? I know, as an example, there by the railroad tracks, you know, probably by next spring, the road is start breaking off and it’s quite a drop off, I mean, it would swallow a full size car. I mean, you know, it would be hard to notice if the car was in the ditch, it’s so deep.

John Stoll: As far as any program, other than Mike’s routine ditch work, if there is specific locations that we need to go look at, that’s not a problem. Just let me know the locations. On roads like Boonville-New Harmony, the biggest restriction would be the lack of right-of-way to do any maintenance as far as reconstructing the ditch to keep it an open ditch. And if you can’t keep it an open ditch, then we’d have to pipe it, which, of course, would be more expense. So those are two options, but we could take a look at it.

Councilmember Raben: You know, our roads are of the age, I mean, I know you guys do everything you can, but the road was built on X amount of feet of space and just over years from the drains filling up or the creeks filling up and the ditches filling up, you know, the ground washes away, but it seems like there’s numerous areas within the county that you drive. And I use that as an example because that’s the one I drive the most, but, I mean, you see a lot of it in a lot of different areas where wow, if you drop a wheel off the side of the road, you’re done. You know, where you don’t really have that extra foot of gravel or two feet of space of grass to even make a correction.

John Stoll: The biggest problem I’d say would be the lack of right-of-way if you move the ditch. It’s possible we could potentially pipe some of those areas if a wide enough pipe could be pipe in. If not, maybe an interim measure, we need to look at putting a guardrail in to keep somebody from falling in there.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, that does that. The road would probably still continue to be undermined and break away, but –

Mike Duckworth: Jim, I can tell you that there are several areas in the county where that is of a critical state and the most prevalent to me is if you go down the incline at Lynch Road, you will see that there is already earth subsiding and it makes it, number one, very difficult for our mowers at a slant to cut that. And what I’m afraid of is in a particular area like that, the more it subsides and the more that it eats into the roadway, that eventually, like you say, you lose the road. I have talked to President Abell, not only about these kinds of incidents, but in some of our subdivisions where the substructures, whether there are underground springs or because of different standards that didn’t require the same types of measures that we do when we build roads now where they’re just funneling out and then the road drops. My recommendation would be to establish some type of a line item where we can go in and completely rebuild some of our roads. And they can be stretches from, you know, an eighth of a mile in a subdivision to a couple miles of just what you’re talking about where it’s a danger and we have to do something. If not, the county liability continues to rise in these areas. And we can either, it’s one of those things where you can pay now or pay later. And we’ve looked at public safety in regards to this, and I think some of those areas are in very critical states, that we need to look at.

Councilmember Raben: I agree. Some of them, I mean, again, there is no room for error. You know, most roads, if you run off the pavement, you have an opportunity to correct yourself –

Mike Duckworth: – back up and get some dirt over there where you can pack and put some rock and lime in to where it will hold. I had the Corps of Engineers come in here because of an area on Old Henderson Road that the flooding is eating away at the bank. And I told them, I said, if this goes on for another two or three years, we’re going to lose the road. And his answer to me was, well, you’ve got a lot worse situation, if you lose the road, you’ll just have to (inaudible). And so, –

Councilmember Raben: Well, it’s somewhat of a challenge. I know, I mean, we all want very nice roads to drive on, of course, but hitting a pothole isn’t near as bad as getting off the side of the road, dropping a wheel off the side of the road and you can’t correct it because it’s a ten foot drop off. So anyway, if we could keep an eye on some of those, I know there’s a lot of areas in desperate, desperate need of some quick help.

Councilmember Raben: I don’t know that I could give you them all, but, I mean, you guys are the ones that have crews out and are taking the calls, so, you know, there –

Mike Duckworth: – priorities and understanding, number one, when safety is a factor especially in inclement weather where people have the opportunity to slide off into those areas. And I think now is the time we need to look at those and try to prepare for those winter months when it’s not conducive to be out doing that construction.

Councilmember Goebel: Yes, John, I know you have discussed this with the Commissioners but could you update us on the University Parkway Phase II.

John Stoll: Right now we’re still acquiring right-of-way. Several of the parcels are having to be condemned at this point. There were some mineral rights issues that had to be resolved which delayed the condemnation cases being filed. But those have since been resolved to the point that we think that the condemnations can be filed pretty soon. Typically, it takes about three to four months before from the time the condemnation is filed, to the time the county actually secures the property. So, ballpark guess would be the right-of-way would be secured late this year or early next year. There is another environmental permit that we’re still trying to work on with Bernardin Lochmueller, they estimate that could take up to six months to secure that. So that would be roughly next February, so assuming it takes the maximum amount of time to February, and then you add in the four month lead time it takes to place the project on a bid letting, it probably would be about next June before it would be out for bid on the section between Upper Mount Vernon and Marx. And then we’re still buying right-of-way with the earmarked funds for the balance of the projects and that’s going pretty well, at this point, as well. So once we get all of that right-of-way, we should be in pretty good shape to follow with the other two phases shortly thereafter. It’s just a matter of when the INDOT funds become available.

John Stoll: That would be from Marx to New Harmony and then New Harmony to Diamond will be the last section.

Councilmember Sutton: A couple of questions. John, I guess, one of the projects, I guess I get a lot of questions is North Green River Road. Can you give us some insight and updates on that one?

John Stoll: We’re down to about six right-of-way parcels on that project at this point. We’re trying to target opening bids on October 7^th. According to Bernardin Lochmueller and DLZ, that looks like that will be (inaudible) at this point. We’re still working with the utility companies to get all the utility relocations resolved. But October 7^th looks like the target bid opening date. It will be a two year project, so it will go until the end of 2010 and assuming the funds are there, then the project would remain open during construction. And right now, based on the most recent cost estimates from DLZ, it looks like we were still (inaudible) as far as having sufficient funds to keep the road open during construction.

Councilmember Sutton: Do we have all the funds in place on the University project you were speaking on with Mike?

John Stoll: The second phase between Upper Mount Vernon and Marx, yes, the money is all in place based on the most recent estimates. In this budget, I’ve requested 700,000 in Roads & Streets and that would be combined with the other 700,000 in the next two years to make the county’s local match. The way construction costs keep rising, $700,000 might not do it, but based on the current estimates, (inaudible) 2.1 million is in local funds to match the federal funds. So I divided that among the next three years to get the 700,000 per year. It could go up and I might need to ask you next year for more than 700,000 depending on what the construction estimates are at that time.

Councilmember Raben: Are those estimates based on continuing doing a phase at a time?

Councilmember Raben: I mean, if the price escalates too much on the third phase, I mean, what do you think the savings would be looking into the future, look in your crystal ball, if we combined phase two and three together.

John Stoll: According to what numbers you want to believe, it looks like construction costs could increase anywhere from five to twenty percent a year. So if you could advance this a year or two or whatever, that will be a savings per year.

Councilmember Raben: Are the federal funds available if we were able to provide our match? Are the funds available to do phase three, federal funds, are they available to do phase three?

John Stoll: As it stands now, yes. But the way INDOT has the funding program, the county is at the three million dollars per year in federal funds. So we would be borrowing ahead on those three million dollar allotments and I’ve never been involved with this before, but it’s my understanding with INDOT, that the county would have to front that money and then at the end of INDOT’s fiscal year, we’d send the claim voucher to them to get the three million dollars back from them. So theoretically, if we had all of our local match in place, we would probably end up having to front the federal funds until the specific fiscal year they were available. So a lot of ifs there, but if the money, if INDOT could provide the three million per year, yes, you probably could speed it up, it’s just, I don’t know what local source we could use to borrow that much money up front.

Councilmember Raben: I might have an idea there, but, you know, again, for those watching, a lot of the savings would be the equipment is there, you’re not doing everything twice. I mean, it’s a matter of, you know, just going on a little further north each. So if there is a real savings, I mean, if you had a way of providing us some estimates, you know, based on phase two would be completed in two years, completing phase three in four years, at four years cost projections, now there might be enough savings that we ought to look at combining phase two and three.

John Stoll: And the last segment between New Harmony and Diamond, it’s only eight tenths of a mile, so that’s pretty short, so ideally, it would be great it if could be combined into the Marx to New Harmony segment, but it’s just a matter of how the funding would all come into place, for the local and the federal.

John Stoll: Commissioner Tornatta asked me about mentioning Oak Hill and Bergdolt. Right now, that project, we have a pre-construction meeting set up for tomorrow. The contractor has proposed an alternate to expedite construction on that project to where they would close it for three months and get the project done – I shouldn’t say done – they get it to the point where they could re-open it to traffic and finish the project by flagging traffic for the rest of the duration as opposed to running the project out until next August. And, like Troy said, with Green River coming up, ideally, when you do that one, back open to traffic as quick as possible in advance of construction beginning on Green River. But we will meet with the contractor tomorrow and INDOT tomorrow. The county has received an invoice now from INDOT for the 20% local share, so things are moving ahead on that. And the Commissioners have also expressed an interest in if the contractor is looking at a three month closing period, the county funding an incentive bonus to try and expedite it and maybe compress their period of three months to two months. So, those are the options that are being discussed tomorrow, but all in hopes of getting a signal up and operational in advance of the Green River Road project getting really started.

Councilmember Sutton: So are you talking about extending Bergdolt over to Green River?

John Stoll: No, this is just intersection improvements that would result in a traffic signal at Oak Hill and Bergdolt and then a left turn lane could also be constructed on Oak Hill at Bergdolt.

Councilmember Leader: John, if everything goes correctly, when would you install that Bergdolt/Oak Hill stoplight?

John Stoll: It would be by the end of this year. The contractor’s proposal indicated that they would close the road for three months. They wouldn’t be totally finished with the project, so I don’t have an exact date as to when they would have the signal installed and running, but I would hope by the end of the year.

John Stoll: The pre-construction meeting is tomorrow. If this doesn’t all work out, the other alternative is to Oak Hill Road and Bergdolt would be closed half of the time and that would continue until next August, and that’s where we get the overlap problem with Green River, which we’re trying to avoid.

Councilmember Goebel: Just real quickly, John, everyone is happy to see the road construction around the community. Does your office coordinate very well with the other agencies as far as when and where, times? Because it’s almost like we’re pre- Lloyd Expressway back in Evansville for the time being, anyway. I know the end result is going to be good, but –

John Stoll: We try, but it gets really difficult because the city and INDOT are just like the county, when the funds are there and the design is done and the right-of-way is secure, it needs to progress to construction, so we try to coordinate things. Our most recent example, between city and county was last year, the city had St. George closed east of 41, reconstruction there between the airport and Whirlpool, and we had to sit on the St. George Road bridge project a little extra time to make sure both sides of St. George weren’t closed at the same time. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. We were working with INDOT and the city in regard to the Morgan Avenue and Green River project because we were concerned about it being overlapped with that project, with the county’s Green River reconstruction (inaudible) and the county’s Green River project was redesigned to try to keep the road open during construction. It pushed the county’s section off a little bit to where there’s not going to be a major overlap. So, we try, but it doesn’t always work.

President Abell: Any other questions? I just want to keep with our schedule, page 123, has anybody got any questions? 123 County Highway? No?

Councilmember Sutton: There was one thing I was going to ask. At our last meeting, we had a lengthy discussion – or last two meetings – on this request from the Treasurer’s Office, the $100,000 to do the reconfiguration and I guess I saw something where a training room was put out at the County Highway for $30,000. Can you talk to that? I guess in these fiscally challenged times, I’m just trying to get a sense – that didn’t come before us.

Mike Duckworth: Right, the request that I made was to the Commissioners out of their Infrastructure account, which is money that, as I understand it, is in the Commissioners budget to make the decisions on whether they use that at the Old Courthouse or wherever. I made that request to them because it was existing funds and it was not a new appropriation. This is a project that is in – what we’re proposing is phase two. The phase one is completed and it is an area where we would do a couple of different things, provide a place where I can meet with the entire staff. Right now when we do that, we do it out in the middle of the garage and, of course, it’s noisy. In the wintertime it’s extremely cold out there and it’s not conducive for training and for educational purposes. We are trying many new processes and there is a certain amount of training that goes with that. In addition to that, recognize the fact that our female employees and visitors coming in and out of our garage have to continually come in and out of our office area to utilize the restroom, especially females. So as a part of that, we constructed a one unit – or trying to construct a one unit female restroom to be conducive to hold that traffic down and hopefully make it a little more easier to work around our office and within our day to day work habits. So I went to the Commissioners and requested that they take the money out of that account to finish that project. And they voted to do that. Now whether or not that happens is, again, up to the Commissioners.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I mean, it’s their budget, they decide to do that, but I just – you can’t speak for the Commissioners, and I’m not really asking you to, but just wondering why the request didn’t come to the Council, I guess, more so.

Mike Duckworth: Well, I guess my thinking was, that the money had already been allocated for them to make the decision on how it was to be used. I made the request to them and they decided that it is something that we should proceed on. I would say that just recently you heard from Commissioner Korb that a request that I’ve had in the budget for the last two years in regards to a three bay mechanics area, last year and foregone and that money was utilized at the Sheriff’s department. This year, we’ve foregone that request because we understand that times are tight and I thought that that money would be better served by saving it or not utilizing it and now there’s some requests from other departments to utilize that money. And, to me, when you look at the County Highway department and you look at our facility, the facility was built in 1930, and we house 55 employees there. And you have been gracious enough to allow us to spend about $350,000 on an area where we can better preserve our equipment, keep it out of the weather and hopefully, that means that we don’t have to come back to you because of this stuff sitting out in the weather and aging faster. So we have tried to utilize the space we have, but also recognize the fact that things are different now than when this facility was built and that we are trying to, as easy as we can, and as with the less impact on the budget as we can, make those changes to help us be progressive and do the job that we need to do in today’s world.

Councilmember Sutton: Right, right. And I know that we want to stay on track with what we’re doing here today. We’re continuing to work on the budget here, but I guess I just wanted to make sure that we send a message to all our departments in terms of how we are really trying to be as prudent as we can with the meager dollars we have. And I had a report, I guess, here a few months ago, and we’ve been very generous to the County Highway. I mean, its been, if you include equipment and other purchases that we’ve made, it’s in excess of $800,000, so you know, and then we had a request from your department for another piece of equipment a few months ago, so just wanted to make sure that we send a message and I think the budget presented here is in line with what we have talked about. But I guess when I see things that kind of jump off the radar screen, just want to make sure that we are very clear so that we don’t have these large requests that the county is really not in a position to buy. So just trying to share that with you.

– until 2007, our road equipment account was funded at $175,000. You will notice that in this budget as was in last year’s budget, that’s been trimmed to 25,000, as that’s what I requested for this year. I will come to you and I will tell you when equipment breaks down and tell you when there is a need. And then, my feeling is, it’s your call as to whether or not to fund that or not. If it’s not funded, the gradalls we have now, we’re keeping it together the best we can. If it eventually breaks down and we can’t afford to fix it, we’ll park it. And that’s all I can do at this point.

Councilmember Raben: Just a quick comment. Without too much further ado, but Royce, I concur with you 100% and I’ve expressed those same concerns that today, when we’re trying to figure out how to pave roads and fix issues and such, I don’t think we need a training room, either. I mean, we’ve got a lot of training space within this building, the Centre, the Old Courthouse, the Coliseum, we’ve got plenty of training area that we already have under roof, so I concur with you.

Councilmember Goebel: Just glad you got that gradall working again because I know where it was put into use this past weekend. So, thank you.

President Abell: Any other questions of the County Highway, page 123? Any questions on Cum Bridge, page 129? No? Doesn’t seem to be anyone.

President Abell: Any questions on 148, Local Roads & Streets? I know Local Roads & Streets is where I was going to advise the Council that I have talked to Mr. Duckworth about us taking a small portion of Local Roads & Streets every year and maybe moving it over into a fund to take care of the heavily damaged roads like Mr. Raben was discussing. And I’ll talk to Mr. Fluty and also President Korb about that and see how we can do that. I think it would be a good place to put a little money to do the –

Mike Duckworth: If I may speak just briefly to that. It’s not that we couldn’t do part of that out of our paving budget because those roads will need to be resurfaced, it’s the substructure, it’s the rock, you know, the compaction of the dirt, it’s the curbing, it’s all those things, in some of these areas that need to be taken care of, as well. And that’s what drives the costs up.

President Abell: And I will discuss that with Mr. Korb and let the Council know what he says. Anything else under Local Roads & Streets, 148? Thank you, gentlemen.

President Abell: Good afternoon, Steve. I guess it’s still morning. Anyone have any questions of Mr. Craig? Do you have anything outstanding that you want to tell us about?

Steve Craig: The only thing that we had was the wages that was requested and I had talked to you and we had had everything back to get more money for fuel, and that was the only two items that we raised was the amount of money that we need for fuel next year and the amount for whatever raises that we may get.

Councilmember Leader: On 3200, Utilities, you kept that at the same level, 135,000? You don’t foresee a need to increase that number?

Steve Craig: That is correct. We’re not. We have been utilizing several different things out there from, we started with energy efficient light bulbs about four years ago, before most people even knew what they were. And I assigned one of my employees, the safety director, that as soon as the building is done being used, we go turn the heat off, the electric off, and that has been part of his job for two or three years, and we’ve found out that we can leave the buildings sit four or five days with no heat and we’re trying to keep it under this. If you look back, let me find that...Utilities. In 2006 we spent $142,000 and now we’re only asking for $135,000 and I hope to keep it under that. And I know that the rates have gone up a lot, but we’ve been at this for two or three years, four years, trying to keep our utilities down, doing different things. And one of them, about turning the lights off, that is on the ...the other thing is, we change our filters regularly in our furnaces and that, and I’m trying to keep it under that. If I have to come back, it’s not because we didn’t try.

Councilmember Leader: Maybe we can have you hold a training session in Mr. Duckworth’s new training room for the rest of the county employees.

President Abell: Thank you, Mr. Craig, that’s a good plan. I think even Vectren will come out and give you some other pointers if you call them.

Steve Craig: They have in the past, we’ve worked with them when we built some of our chalets and remodeled buildings.

President Abell: Mr. Raben, do you want to talk or are you just having an arm problem over there?

Councilmember Winnecke: We were talking about county business, believe it or not.

President Abell: I thought he wanted my attention. Does anyone else have a question of Mr. Craig?

Steve Craig: We are running slightly ahead of last year on just about everything in the park as of the six month break. Our days at the pool and that at the aquatic center has been extremely good when the weather was right. But, of course, we was rained out Memorial Day, we did not even open the aquatic center, and it rained all day the 4^th of July, so those were two days that were not as good as last year. But at the six month break, we were still a little bit ahead of last year, so we are having a good year, but there’s been more rain days than in the past.

Steve Craig: The last day is Labor Day. Labor Day weekend we’re open to Monday.

Councilmember Winnecke: Steve, I had one other quick question, back to the CCD fund which we discussed earlier, on the engineering study that you had proposed for the new parcel of land, how long would that take for that study to be complete and know how infrastructure should be designed in there?

Steve Craig: My understanding was, it would probably take six months to a year. They would have to go in, and I’ve talked to a couple different people, and what it is, is they basically come in and they lay out the roads, lay out where you can bring in your utilities, sewer, and electric, and that, and it would be six months, probably, to a year before they would have a conclusive plan for us to – it’s something for the future. We’re not going to be able to do anything until we have that plan.

Councilmember Winnecke: I think it’s a good – I applaud you. Of all the expenses that you listed in there, I thought that was among the most prudent ones in there so I applaud you for that.

President Abell: Other questions? See how nice it is to be at the end of our meeting? We don’t ask much.

Scott Wylie: Good morning, everyone. Scott Wylie, I’m on the board of Legal Aid. And for those of you who were lucky enough to attend the joint city/county hearings on budget, you’ll remember I was very proud that we had followed instructions only to have the controller get up in the middle of my presentation and inform me that she had raised our rent another couple thousand dollars. We have sent an amendment to address that additional rent by reducing our overall budget by another $1,975 to address that, so we followed the instructions of being income neutral from ‘07 and ‘08. So that has been submitted and I believe that went to you, President Abell, and the appropriate folks. We’ve also reduced our United Way. As you know, our third funder is the United Way and we had to reduce the United Way expenditure budget by the reduction in the anticipated United Way receipts that we had to cut this year and anticipating that cut continuing next year.

Scott Wylie: There are actually one, two, three, four, five, six, seven lines that were reduced for the additional $1,975 for the increase from the controller.

Scott Wylie: Yes, you can. It was line 3120 included a reduction in Postage from 750 to 500, a reduction on 3130 from 500 to zero on Travel, a reduction in 3140 from 1,500 to $1,125 in Telephone, a reduction in 3250 of our Law Books from $1,200 to $1,000, a reduction in 3410 for Printing from $1,000 to $750, a reduction in Dues and Subscriptions from $750 to $500, and a reduction in our mandatory Continuing Education budget which is 3730 from $1,150 to $1,000. Once we got the exact number from the controller, I believe we sent that material to President Abell and to our member, Mike, who takes care of, our liaison here.

President Abell: And your rent went up and it is – the actual figure is $26,000 –

Councilmember Raben: Then your United Way reductions, if we could cover those lines.

Scott Wylie: The United Way, I don’t have. I apologize, I don’t have the line item numbers on those written down because I just did the county numbers. But we reduced a thousand dollars from Office Supplies, $450 from Travel, $750 in Law Books, $750 in Printing, $1000 in Dues & Subscriptions, $1,426 in Continuing Ed and $442 in the Miscellaneous line.

Scott Wylie: Oh, well, thank you so much and good luck on the rest of your work.

President Abell: Local Emergency Planning Commission, everyone should have on their desk a letter from them indicating that their budget is being reduced by $6,000, that’s on page 182. Line item 3210 from $15,000 to $10,000, and line 3313 from $1,500 to $500.

President Abell: Yes, on page 182, line item 3210 from $15,000 to $10,000 and line item 3313 from $1,500 to $500.

President Abell: Page 183, Local Drug Free Community, does anyone want to speak to that? No? Okay, before we adjourn, Mr. Ahlers has some information for you.

Jeff Ahlers: While you were working on the budget I obtained a copy of the detention services agreement for the Youth Care Center dated March 7, 2006, and I put a copy of that on each of your desks. I would turn your attention to section 10.6 on page 16 and there is a paragraph entitled Termination Due to Non-appropriation/Approval for Expenditure of Funds, which basically says that the payment of any sums due by the county to the Youth Care Center under the terms of this agreement is contingent upon the appropriation of the funds for such payment by the Vanderburgh County Council and the approval for the expenditure of such funds by the State of Indiana. In the event that due to non-appropriation by the Vanderburgh County Council or lack of approval by the State of Indiana, funds are unavailable to make payments as provided for under the provisions of this agreement, the county shall have the right to terminate this agreement without penalty. In the event of a termination of this agreement due to non-appropriation of funds or non-authorization for expenditure of funds by the State of Indiana, however, the county agrees not to negotiate for or contract for, acquire, use or otherwise receive the benefits of any of the same or similar services provided by the Youth Care Center under the terms of this agreement from any other person for a period of time equal to the remainder of the term of this agreement, as if the agreement had not been cancelled or terminated by county. So we have a paragraph that speaks directly, I guess, to the issue we have before us. I also note, in looking at it, that the Commissioner of the Department of Local Government Finance, Cheryl Musgrave, was a signatory to the agreement as a Commissioner back then, so I guess my thought would be that my next call would be to try to contact her, because she should be, obviously, familiar with our situation and see what the state proposes to do, whether or not they want to take over this contract or pay the sums under it, and then I guess I’ll need feedback from President Abell, if she wants to, you know, appoint someone to work with me. And I don’t know if we need to notify whether, whoever it is, Judge Niemeier’s liaison, I suppose, as a matter of courtesy, ought to be notified of this issue so that he can be heard from his standpoint, and then I don’t know, I can notify Ted Ziemer, County Attorney. And I don’t know who from the Commission, whether somebody wants to notify President Korb or whoever, just so that – I don’t know if I’m leaving anybody out – don’t intend to, but if there is anybody else that needs to be at the table concerning this issue, I guess President Abell will take care of that. In the meantime, what I’ll try to do is make a phone call and see if I can – if the state has (inaudible) type of decisions, I assume that this isn’t the only situation around the state. Now the other thing I noted, and I assume that we already paid all the sums, that $700,000? And then I guess I don’t know whether anybody has any thoughts on that, whether that’s just water over the dam or whether there’s any basis to try to get some of that back.

Councilmember Winnecke: Pardon me? No, that was just a one time grant, if I recall, in ‘06.

Councilmember Winnecke: Well, the $700,000, we split the construction cost with the YCC. The total construction was a million four and we made a $700,000 grant to them to share in the cost, and then the county at that time entered into a five year agreement for the operations.

Jeff Ahlers: And one thing I don’t know, and all that is spelled out in here if you all cared to read that, it kind of goes into pretty much detail. The one other thing is it talks about the contract being a five year contract which runs through in ‘11, although what I don’t know is, it’s five years I guess from the date of execution or the date that the facility became operational and obviously, the contract doesn’t speak to that, so I don’t know who would have that information, if, at some point, that becomes relevant. I mean, hopefully. But, I mean, I guess the question is, is I assume, do we want to try to just work something out with the state to try to get them to take it over. If not, I guess this Council, the long and the short of it is both by the terms of what Commissioner Musgrave has stated in her memo, and then by this contract, it would appear that the County Council ultimately is going to have a lot to say about what happens here because I suppose ultimately it would be your decision as to whether or not to appropriate funds. Now obviously, someone needs to look into what the ramifications of that are in terms of whether that’s the route you want to take or not, so, but anyway, I’ll make a call, be happy to make a call to Commissioner Musgrave unless a Councilmember would prefer to make that call and contact Ted Ziemer. I assume someone else would contact the other appropriate people, Judge Niemeier, and Commissioners or whoever.

President Abell: I’ll call – who is the Commissioner’s liaison? Are you, Mr. Winnecke?

President Abell: Okay, if you’ll contact Mr. Korb, then, and I’m the liaison for the courts, so I’ll contact Judge Niemeier, and you can make the call to Cheryl Musgrave.

Councilmember Winnecke: But, you know, but there is one fundamental question I think we need to address first. I mean, one, I mean, or maybe two. One, will the state assume the cost of the contract of roughly a million five or whatever it is. But I don’t know if this – I don’t know that we want to get into – I don’t think I’m in favor of not appropriating money because I think at the end of the day, I still want to provide a facility for our youthful offenders to have local rehabilitation. So to not appropriate the funds, to me says we’re out of the business and we’re sending – I mean, it’s one thing to save money but I think it’s also important to keep these kids here to the extent that we can.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, there’s also some other fundamental questions related to that, too. If, in fact, that local control is relinquished and the state is willing to take over that facility, I mean, there is no guarantee that the placements that the Judge would want to make here, would have any priority over any other county. Conceptually, if they wanted to, if the state was making the decisions on how many beds Vanderburgh County might get and how many beds Perry or Gibson and so forth, we may find ourselves with fewer placements here locally than what we have right now. So those are maybe some of the questions we can begin to discuss and find out what are the ramifications of ultimately ceding over control to the state. And it may work out to be a great thing. It might be just fine.

President Abell: In a perfect world, what I would envision would be that we would run it just like it’s being run right now and we’d just send them a bill and they’d give us a percentage or all of it back, and our people continue to run it and we’d have our people there and it would continue. And I would think that that would be a blessing of theirs, because they’re not going to want to come down here and run this thing and worry about managing it. If we do all of the management of it or have the staff over there running it –

Councilmember Winnecke: And Councilman Sutton makes a great point, because if that happened, I mean, we do have $700,000 invested in the construction of it. So if the state were to assume control as you described, and it’s probably not an unlikely scenario, then to what extent would we have the ability to recoup some of that money?

Councilmember Raben: Well, that’s not going to happen anyway because there’s still a facility outside of the part that we helped pay for. I mean, the state’s not going to take over their facility that they use for things other than just housing our 35 beds. So that’s not going to happen. The most the state will do would be pick up our liability, our financial liability. But, you know, where does this start and where does it stop? What about the Hillcrest Home? I mean, should the state be reimbursing us for that? I mean, it’s the same situation.

Councilmember Raben: And there’s many others: there’s the boys ranch that we, I don’t think is – it’s not an Indiana Department of Corrections facility, I think it’s out in Arizona or somewhere. So, I mean, there’s a lot of homework to do on this.

Councilmember Winnecke: There’s probably more questions, frankly, to be directed to the state, I think, before we start circling the wagons. I mean, I think we can alert the court and the Commissioners, but at the end of the day it’s really the state’s, the onus is on them as to whether it will fund or reimburse us for any of these expenses, I think.

President Abell: I think it would inappropriate for them to hear it, read it in the newspaper or hear it on the T.V. I think we should contact them, but I’m with you, we’ve got a lot of work to do, but it would be great to get at least a percentage of that money back.

Jeff Ahlers: I guess if there’s any other contracts that you want me to look at, I guess somebody needs to get – I mean, is this not it? You’re saying that there’s others that you think that contractually could fit within what the state is talking about on HEA 1001?

Councilmember Winnecke: I wouldn’t know if, I don’t think Hillcrest Washington would fall under that.

Jeff Ahlers: But I just want to make sure. If anybody thinks there’s anything else and you want me to look at it, I mean, let me know what it is or –

President Abell: Well, that’s true, don’t want to bombard them with everything we’ve got. Anyone else have anything to come before this body? We’re recessed until tomorrow morning at 9:00.

The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 13^th day of August, 2008 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. by County Council President Marsha Abell.

President Abell: Good morning and welcome to the continuation of the 2009 county budget hearings. Roll call, please.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Leader	X
Councilmember Shetler	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Winnecke	X
President Abell	X

President Abell: Good morning to everyone, and on a very happy note this morning, the United States of American still is on top of the leader board in the Olympics. So we’re still taking the medals. Before we get started with the County Recorder, I do have one statement I’d like to make. Yesterday during the budget hearings there was a statement made from the podium which was a very political statement about a change of administration. These are budget hearings to all presenters. This is not a place for political campaigning and if anyone feels the necessity to make that statement, I’m afraid you’re going to be asked to sit down. We’re not going to tolerate that. With that said, I know Ms. Smith wouldn’t do that, she’s been around too long. Betty Knight?

Rick Davis: Good morning, everyone. I’m Rick Davis, I’m the Chief Deputy in the Recorders office. And Betty Knight-Smith, the Recorder, is handing out a detailed version of our report to you. But I know you guys have a long day ahead of you and we’re going to give you a Cliff’s Notes version of our report this morning, so you can get on with business. On behalf of Betty Knight-Smith, we are pleased to announce that the Vanderburgh County Recorder’s office collected a grand total of $934,123 in user fees during the 2007 fiscal year. We did so while recording a total of 38,765 documents. Those totals are down from the previous year. In 2006 we recorded 43,100 documents and collected $1,008,459 in user fees. As you know, the grand total of the money deposited in 2007 was distributed into five separate funds. The bulk of the money went to the General fund followed by the Recorder’s Perpetuation fund, the Security I.D. Protection fund, the Surveyor’s Perpetuation fund, and the State Mortgage fund. During 2007, our office wrote checks totaling the amount of $520,288 to the General fund, down slightly from 565,427 in 2006. To keep things in perspective, the taxpayers of Vanderburgh County paid about $434,000 to pay for the salaries of our office employees out of the general fund in 2007. We returned that amount, plus $86,000 so it didn’t cost the taxpayers of Vanderburgh County a dime to run our office, and we are completely self-sufficient. The Surveyor’s Perpetuation fund received $38,470 during 2007. The State Mortgage fund received $23,600, the Security I.D. Protection fund received $78,468, and the Recorder’s Perpetuation fund received $273,297. As for this year, through July 31^st, our office has recorded 20,626 documents, an average of 141 documents a day. If that average continues, we will finish the year with about 35,000 documents recorded. The General fund has already received $278,409.50 from the Recorder’s office this year, through July 31^st. If that average continues, we will end up writing checks totaling about $473,000 for the General fund. On behalf of Vanderburgh County Recorder, Betty Knight-Smith, I am also happy to announce this morning, that we will be giving the Vanderburgh County Council $200,000 from our Recorder’s Perpetuation account to place into the General fund, and that money is going to be used to cover the cost of Social Security, PERF and Insurance for the employees from our office. Thank you for your time this morning and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Councilmember Raben: No, but for the viewing audiences at home, you might just kind of explain how these numbers have grown over the years, the changes that were implemented and, you know, how we’ve gotten to this point.

Rick Davis: Okay. One of the biggest changes was implemented by Betty, and that was with the Recorder’s Perpetuation account. I believe when she took office, the Recorder’s Perpetuation account is the price of two things: one, copies made from our office and another, a three dollar fee assessed to each document recorded in our office. Betty, your first year in office, how much in copies were made?

Rick Davis: Forty-seven thousand dollars in copies. And if you’ll give me just one moment...it went from forty-seven thousand to almost $200,000. And the reason why is we were on an honor system in our office where the people who used our office on a daily basis, the title companies and people like that, I won’t go any further, they would make their own copies on the copy machine and write the total down and we would bill them at the end of the month. And Betty noticed we were buying an awful lot of paper, copy paper and we weren’t getting a lot of money in return, so we did away with that. We now make the copies for the public and they also print copies out on the computer. And in order to do so, they have to have a user name and a password and the computer keeps a tally of all the copies that they make off of the computer. So that’s how we get the bulk of our money. And that money is important because it goes to run our office. As you guys know, we don’t come here and ask for supplies or money for our software or computers. Everything that we run our office with is paid for out of our Recorder’s Perpetuation account. So its been a –

President Abell: We certainly appreciate it and need it desperately this year. Good management skills, Mrs. Smith.

Councilmember Goebel: So do you think then that the new policies, Betty, incorporated have helped the honor system quite a bit?

Rick Davis: Yes. The dishonor system is no longer in our office. And it only lasted her first year – actually, it wasn’t even the whole year. She noticed it right away and her first year in office was 2001. She put the user name and password system in place and then shortly after that, we started making copies. We have an employee who sits there, some of the copies are in books, some of them are aperture cards, which is like a microfilm on a piece of cardboard that we put into the computer, and we have an employee who is dedicated to doing that.

President Abell: Any questions? You’re to be commended for a well-run office. Thank you.

Don Erk: Good morning, I’m the Vanderburgh County Coroner, Don Erk. I’m here this morning, obviously, I want to kind of bring you up on the budget itself. What I’ve constructed is small, I feel like, increases in the amount of each account. I’ve tried in the past year not coming back to the Council. I told myself that if they approved the budget last year, that I would do everything I could do to continue without asking for additional appropriations. I would point out a couple of things that’s going to be weak points and it’s going to be somebody else’s problem in the very short future. You may or may not know, but the doctor that I had employed has left the area, he’s gone to Buffalo, New York. I have a gentleman that’s flying down from Martinsville, he’s got his own airplane. I don’t know how long he’s going to continue doing the autopsies for the amount that I’m paying him right now, which is $1,000 a case. I got a call from the other forensic pathologist who is out of Bedford, he advised me that he is going to $1,500. I told him if he did, I was not using him, but I might be forced into it. I don’t know. We’ll have to see. It’s a weak point and the reason I’m bringing it up is it’s something that the Council might need to keep in mind because whoever takes over this office is going to have a lot of problems. There’s a number of shortfalls in the office. For instance, the vehicle itself, I have a vehicle that I’m trying to stretch it out as far as I can, as long as it’s running, I’m going to continue on using it. I don’t know that it’s going to last too much longer. The transmission is about gone out of it. That’s a downside. Another problem we have is the part-time help get $8 an hour and I’m telling you now that Warrick County is even paying more than that, and I’m having a hard time keeping part-time employees. It’s not a matter of just getting employees that want to come over there and work, but you have to have, honestly, they’re handling drugs, they’re handling all kinds of things, and they’re handling all kinds of problems at all times of the day and night. And I think that in the very near future, it’s going to have to be boosted. That being said, the budget itself, the Gas & Oil, I don’t know if the oil continues going down, I’ve tried to cut the driving to a minimum, we’ll possibly end up with a surplus in there. I’m not sure we’ll need 6,000, but that all depends on what happens in the economy. The same way with the Autopsies. As you go down through here, xray film has gone up quite a bit. Most of the things that are listed in here are things that’s beyond my control. I mean, you know, there’s no way to tell what the rate of deaths or the amount of expenses I’m going to run into. I can only estimate. Another weak problem that I see is, that building is now soon to be eighteen years old, and the air conditioner, I’ve had it worked on the last two years, the guy is telling me that the units are about shot, which is a considerable amount of expense and I will try to continue on as long as I can, even if it’s a patch-type job.

Don Erk: No, that’s the county’s building. I would entertain any kind of questions that anybody might have in reference to anything that I’ve said or anything in reference to the budget. I wish I had Betty Knight-Smith’s agenda. I wasn’t privy to that, but I’ll do what I can. I might say that this Council has always been fair with me and anything that I’ve ever asked for, I’ve gotten, so I don’t have any complaints and I will work with you in any way that I possibly can in what time I have left.

President Abell: Are there no doctors locally that could do these autopsies? Do we have to get people from Bedford and Indianapolis or is –

Don Erk: Well, I try to keep forensic pathologists, but right now I’ve put out feelers – the fact of the matter is, I went on the internet, tried to see if there was anybody interested in coming down and filling this position. I had a service that called me and said they could fill it. Whether they could or not, I don’t know, but they wanted $28,000 just as a finders fee, and I said no, so that’s kind of where I’m at. The local doctors, I haven’t had anybody that’s expressed an interest in doing this, not at this time. For one thing, they don’t want to get – most of the local pathologists do not want to get tied up in court cases and the job – and it requires a lot of court testimony. And as time goes along, and they get more and more car wrecks, whatever the situation is, they’re required to go into court and, including homicides, they have to testify to them, and most of them don’t want to.

Councilmember Sutton: Don, I guess I was just trying to get a sense of how specialized this pathologists position is in terms of trying to recruit someone. Is there some consideration of, for example, I take like our, we’ve gone a couple of different ways on how we handle our legal fees. And we’ve had where one person is contracted to handle for the bulk of those responsibilities and then we’ve had it kind of where you’ve had two or three or four people on kind of a team approach, cost basically netting out the same. When you talk about the concern that the local doctors would have about court cases, I mean, would it relieve some of the concerns if they weren’t the only one? I guess, if you had, say, some kind of sharing situation where it’s divided amount two or three pathologists as opposed to one, like we’ve been operating under?

Don Erk: Well, if you could get two or three, that would be great. There would be nothing better than that. As a matter of fact, the individual that I’m using right now, that’s flying down here out of Martinsville has tried and tried. But you’ve got to understand that there’s only 300 forensic pathologists in the whole United States, and Evansville, Indiana is not going to be high on their priority list. We’ve been very fortunate in the last ten – fifteen years that we’ve had access to two or three. And it’s very unusual for an area this size. I can tell you Illinois does not have anybody. They called me and wanted to know what I was going to do, and I said, well, you know, it’s obviously, I have to work it out as best I can. And it’s a continuous problem because there’s only a certain amount of doctors available.

Councilmember Sutton: Right. Now, as well, generally, the pathologists, they don’t just do work here in Vanderburgh County, it’s several counties –

Councilmember Sutton: How big of a radius are we talking about? Because I don’t know if there’s some opportunities –

Don Erk: I don’t dictate to them because I’m paying them a flat fee and they supply their own dieners, they supply their own people to do this, so therefore, they’ve got the lateral to go where they want. This guy has got a plane, he’s flying to Lafayette and up at Rensselaer. He was there yesterday, as a matter of fact. Personally, I don’t believe he can keep this going and the reason I’m saying that is he is 65 years old and, you know, I’m not knocking 65 years old, but I’m just telling you, you reach a point where you can’t get around to that extent, and if he gets sick, then I don’t really know what I’m going to do. And what I’m trying to do is get somebody locally that would be interested to come in and at least fill in if we had some kind of major problem.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, give that some thought. I mean, what I shared with you, as opposed to just – you know, if someone feels like the sole responsibility is on them, maybe their perspective is a little bit different than if it were divided up. And then the other thing I was going to ask you, in terms of your building, the Building Authority, what are you doing as far as – you mentioned that there are some issues with your building, as far as some of the issues that you raised with your air conditioning unit, are they apprised of what kind of condition it’s in and what needs to be done?

Don Erk: No, I do everything out of this budget. I try to keep everything operating out of this budget, nothing comes out of this building fund over here at all. Everything that I do is totally out of this budget and, you know, the carpet has been in there 18 years since the building has been built and it’s pretty poor. And it’s just a general thing that it’s like a home. A home takes money and it takes time and it takes effort to keep it going. And, you know, it’s like the cleaning over there, we take care of the cleaning ourselves because we’ve hired other people and they claim it’s a bio-hazard and it’s a danger and they don’t want to do it. So, obviously, it gets back to somebody has got to do it, and we do it. That’s the bottom line.

Councilmember Raben: I don’t think the Building Authority is working with them in any way, but probably what we do need to do and I know Don has brought this up for the past couple of years, at one time, you even had a chiller unit. Did you ever replace it or –

Don Erk: Well, no, I’m still patching it up. You know, they come in – it costs several hundred dollars to get them to come in, they put new Freon in and they try to fix the leak and whatever. I talked to Schmitt Refrigeration a while back and he was talking in terms of $25,000, that the whole unit needs to be replaced. I said I don’t have $25,000, so that’s kind of where I’m at. And the only reason I’m bringing this up is because, I want you to understand that whoever does take over this office is going to have some major problems.

Councilmember Raben: I think probably what we need to do, Don, is maybe bring somebody in, you know, get some estimates, particularly on an eighteen year old heating and air system, it’s probably really inefficient. You know, the payout is probably a matter of a few years on a new higher energy, more efficient system. But this is a prime example of what CCD funds need to be used for. So, I think, if you could bring somebody in or ask the Commissioners, you know, the Superintendent of County Buildings ought to be working with you in regards to what we need to make this thing, get this building in shape.

Councilmember Sutton: Right, that’s exactly the point I’m – maybe they could go in and help us just evaluate what the issues may be, so maybe more than just – you may have some other issues that go along with this, plumbing, roofing, we need to at least get a picture and we don’t want to find ourselves in a position where you or someone else comes before us and, you know, we’ve got 200,000, $300,000 worth of repairs that need to be done right now. If we can at least get someone to evaluate –

Don Erk: Well, I’m not indicating – the building is a nice building, and we’ve tried to maintain it. And I think it is maintained fairly decent, but it’s the age now where things are going to start wearing out and that’s all I’m saying is, I want the Council to be aware that whoever takes over this office will be responsible for trying to put some things together, and it’s going to be difficult if they continue on the budget the way it’s set up now. And that’s all I’m saying.

Councilmember Sutton: But can you do that for us? At least begin the process, either with the Commissioners, Building Authority, at least beginning to take a look and see –

Don Erk: Absolutely, I’ve talked to them about a vehicle and I’m intending to talk to them about possibly the part-time help. Like I say, that is a huge problem. For instance, I got a call last night, a woman from Louisville called me, her daughter got killed over here and she wanted me to drive over and bring her property over there this morning. I said, I don’t drive property to Louisville. Well, get up and go fax it. I said, no, I don’t fax property because, obviously, if it gets lost, then we’ve got an even bigger problem. But, you know, and then this morning, I had a tissue thing that called me at 5:30 in the morning. And, you know, it’s the kind of thing that it keeps you busy, but that goes with the job. And, you know, you’re constantly doing something.

Don Erk: I would prefer, myself, and the reason I’ve kind of let this thing go is because I thought whoever comes in might have a different idea. I would prefer, personally, to have a truck-type vehicle, with a camper shell on the back. Now, I do know that I’ve had complaints in the past where they said they thought it was improper to go out and pick up bodies in a pickup truck, but I’m telling you, we don’t pick them up like funeral homes, and you know, that’s what I explained to them. We go out in the river bottoms, we have a plane crash, we pick somebody up off of a motorcycle out here on the side of the road, you don’t put them in hearses or fancy vehicles. And, personally, I think it works out better if you’ve got a pickup truck with some kind of camper shell which is what we’ve got on the one vehicle. I know it’s more pleasurable, I guess, to ride in some kind of suburban, or SUV, or whatever, but I think for all purposes, the pickup truck works best.

Councilmember Winnecke: ‘91, okay. And then, regarding the pay issue with the part-timers, what is Warrick County paying that is –

Don Erk: Nine dollars an hour, right now, and quite frankly, I don’t think it’s even close to being apples and oranges because their rate, they don’t operate a morgue, they don’t have to get up, let people in, they don’t have to – we’re constantly, that’s what I was driving at when I was talking about getting up. They know that that’s part of their job, but also, there’s no comparison between Warrick County, and I’m not using them as a go-between, but there’s no comparison to what they’re doing and what my people are required to do.

Councilmember Raben: Don, those fall under the 1210-1070 account, is that correct?

Don Erk: It should be coming under Assistant Coroners, and that’s, yeah, 1210.

Don Erk: A total of thirteen. The amount of people that I have really doesn’t make much difference –

Councilmember Raben: Oh, I understand, I just, if we looked at increasing that we need to know, and this number is based on, are they all working a set numbers of hours weekly or...

Don Erk: No, I have to work, what I try to use is nurses, paramedics, police investigators because they fit in very well with the system. They know what goes on on ambulance runs, the nurses, medically, they know what’s going on, and the police investigators are very adaptable. That’s not saying that other people can’t do this job but you have to be very, very selective because we handle quite a bit of money, we handle quite a bit of property, we handle a lot of drugs and you’ve got to be very careful in who you hire.

Councilmember Raben: And I’m going to turn the mic back over, but can you give us how many hours or can you get back with one of us on how many hours, the total, so we can –

Councilmember Raben: I’m talking about for the year, how many hours do you have calculated –

President Abell: How many part-time hours are expended in one week? It isn’t twelve hours a day for seven days.

President Abell: No, we just want to know, we’re trying to figure the part-time help.

Don Erk: Okay, that’s twelve hours a day and twenty-four on Saturdays and Sundays.

Councilmember Raben: Total, you’re looking at total, right? You’re using part-time people, between the thirteen, you’re using all of them, not all of them at one time, but you’re using twelve hours of part-time help.

Don Erk: Five days and then twenty-four on the weekends, because obviously, the weekends have –

President Abell: So five times the twelve is sixty, and you add another...hundred and eighteen hours. Okay, that will help us, we can’t figure if we – the number doesn’t matter, we need to know hours.

Councilmember Shetler: Some of my questions just got asked, which was good. I wanted to know how many people, and we’ve got thirteen. Okay, what dictates the need for an Autopsy?

Don Erk: When I don’t know the cause of death. It’s about as simple as that.

Councilmember Shetler: So it’s not necessarily just in a crime situation or an accident, but all of those kind of things, any other questionable death would dictate whether or not – and that’s your determination?

Don Erk: It is. Under state law it says you must determine the cause and manner and mechanism of death, and if I cannot fulfill that without an autopsy, I do it with an autopsy, and I feel like I’ve pretty much got a handle on it and we’ve been able to stay within this year’s budget on the autopsies, and I’m hoping to continue. So yes, it is, some of it’s at my discretion, but my discretion is simply, I have to have some kind of justification to order an autopsy. And if that’s a crime scene or it could be a traffic fatality where the city or county is going to be liable, there’s all kinds of different factors that enter into whether you may or may not do one.

Councilmember Shetler: About how many autopsies? Do you have an idea about how many autopsies we do a year?

Don Erk: Yes, about one hundred and eighty. I mean, that varies, obviously, it could jump to two hundred and twenty in the rest of the year, but as a general rule, the last year and a half I’ve been able to hold it somewhere in that area.

Councilmember Shetler: If I had a family member die and I was leery about, I wanted to know the exact cause and I request it, I mean, there’s nothing suspicious about it, just kind of a normal death or whatever, but I was curious as to what the cause was, could I request an autopsy then?

Don Erk: You can request one and I would look at it and probably tell you that there is available, you can do a private autopsy, and that’s what I tell most of the people.

Don Erk: I would probably not unless there was a valid medical reason to do an autopsy.

Councilmember Shetler: I’m just trying to figure out a way that you guys might be able to come back next year and do, as Betty Knight did, and bring us $200,000 or something. But it appears, that’s not possible. So you would not just randomly do things on a private or personal basis.

Don Erk: No, we don’t. And as a matter of fact, private autopsies run about $2,500 to $3,000. I think St. Mary’s is now charging $3,000. We do them for $1,000, which I don’t – you know, the general public, they would probably be irritated if they knew that they were being charged $3,000 for something we’re getting for $1,000.

Councilmember Shetler: Is there a way of, since, particularly in the crime element, is there a way that we recoup any of that expense back from the state?

Don Erk: No. By state law, it’s mandatory, and, you know, there’s not any way to recoup any of that money that I’m aware of, we’ll put it like that.

Councilmember Shetler: How long has it been that we’ve been really farming out autopsies?

Don Erk: Forever. As far back as I know. I can tell you John Heidingsfelder was there before he went to the Cayman Islands, he was there for probably twenty years and he did them on a per case basis. The reason I’ve stayed away from coming in here and asking for us to try to get a forensic pathologist, obviously, you’re talking about huge expenses. You’re not going to get one in here unless you’re talking probably $180,000 to $200,000 for a forensic doctor, now that’s the bottom line. And not only that, you’ve got all the benefits that go with it, who is going to take his place when he’s off on vacation or he’s sick, he’s going to get sick days and all the rest of it, so I really need two, in order to carry one. So that’s why I stay with the contract type thing, where I pay a contract. I think it’s cheaper in the long run and as long as I can do that, I think the county would be wise to continue on with that, and that’s why we haven’t pushed that issue. I’m just telling you that one guy can’t handle it all, there’s too many other side issues that come in.

Councilmember Shetler: Let me go back to those part-time, do any of them, are they on PERF or health insurance?

Don Erk: No. As a matter of fact, they’re not even getting paid mileage. Most of them have told me – I’ve told them that, you know, I think they’re entitled to it. They’ve told me that they can do better claiming it off their taxes at $.58 a mile or whatever it is right now. I think it’s around $.58, but they would rather claim it off their federal taxes than they would to try to claim the mileage from the county. So that’s kind of where that stands. I do leave the one vehicle over there that’s available to them if they want to use it to drive to and from scenes, you know.

Councilmember Leader: Good morning, Don. I have a question. We’re all aware of the increased suicide episodes in our community, and I wonder, does every suicide require an autopsy?

Don Erk: No. They’re a little more peculiar in the sense that I have to try to be very careful with the ones that I select, but obviously, I would say probably fifty percent of them are not. And it depends on the circumstances. Obviously, if there’s a note, there’s a past history of attempts, you know, you’ve got family that says they’re in a depression, and things of that nature and I can document that this most likely is a suicide, no, I would not do one. I think it’s self-evident, whatever the cause is, whether they use a knife or a gun or pills, or whatever. The only thing is, if you get into the medical end, the pills and things like that, sometimes I’ll just, instead of doing an autopsy, I’ll draw a tox, send it off to AIT, so I can verify in case there comes back a problem later on that the family says no, that’s not the way it is. And, you know, it’s something you have to evaluate on a case by case basis. That’s simply the bottom line and you can’t just draw a line and say well, if it’s this, it will fit in here, and if it’s that, it’s going to be over there. It’s not that easy.

Councilmember Leader: I understand. One other thing, you said one of the pathologists who flies in here brings his own diener, is that what you said?

Don Erk: That’s his assistant who helps him doing autopsies. He or she, it happened to be male on this particular, but they weigh the organs, they do all that and they assist him, they stitch the body up when it’s finished and get it ready for the funeral home. Obviously, they have to clean the body before, depending on the circumstances.

Councilmember Goebel: I was just going to say thank you for the job you do. It’s vital information for us and you’ve been very obvious in your explanations, and my stomach is ready to move on.

Don Erk: You’ve heard enough. I don’t mean to be gory on any of it, I really don’t. I just, the only reason I’m bringing this up is, like I say, I think the Council does need to be aware of it because I can’t tell you what the next year is going to unfold.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, it’s what you do as well, and it’s important that we know.

Councilmember Raben: One last point Don did leave out, I’m trying to get you off the subject, but I think this is important is, you know, Evansville is kind of a regional medical hub so folks that get life-flighted in from other states or other counties that are pronounced dead in our county, it’s his responsibility, and very often you end up doing autopsies on those. So, –

Don Erk: Yeah, it’s a huge problem because I think I mentioned this several years back that when the local hospitals, the two of them went to the level two trauma centers, everything within probably seventy-five mile radius around here is going to be brought into Evansville. Now what happens when trauma one’s come in, it’s everything from gunshot wounds to car wrecks, to homicides, you name it. But they bring them in here, they’re not declared on the scene over there, then obviously, they die here, that’s my responsibility. And that’s by state law. And so it is a problem and it’s just as big a problem not only with Illinois, but we get them out of Kentucky. It’s kind of a unique situation down here because I’m dealing with two states where most – like Indianapolis are doing with people around Indianapolis, they can bill that county. If it occurs in that county and are life-flighted in. I don’t have that luxury because they come out of Kentucky and they come out of Illinois, and I can bill Kentucky and Illinois, but they look at me and laugh.

President Abell: We can put up gates at the state line. Just kidding. Mr. Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Back on that part-time just a little bit here, those guys that are working twelve hours, are they there at the county –

Don Erk: No, they’re on call. I will tell you this, on call sounds good and the real problem with the on call, is I would say that they spend probably, if I was estimating, out of twelve hours, eight of it will at least be out on the scenes in the morgue, they have to type supplements, they have to bring all this case work up, they have to copy records from St. Mary’s or wherever they’re from. I mean, there’s a lot that goes with it and they’re certainly not sitting at home very much, I can tell you that.

Councilmember Shetler: Okay, are there times that you have more than one person that’s occupying that twelve hours?

Don Erk: If they run into problems, I get out of bed and go out there and handle it myself. Sometimes you need assistance and if for some reason I would happen to be gone, they would call one of the other part-timers or somebody that, we cooperate pretty good. If they need some help, we’ll fill in and get it done.

Councilmember Shetler: I don’t mean to be picking at this, but you said twelve hours a day for five days a week, so that would be sixty hours, and then Saturday and Sunday, those two days, twenty-four hours on call each day, so it would be one hundred and eight hours times $8 an hour, times the fifty-two weeks, and I’m coming up with something much less than $50,000.

Councilmember Shetler: Okay, and the request, last year was at $61,000 and this year is at $62,500, so you’re anticipating an increase in pay on that of maybe twenty percent or better?

Don Erk: Part of the reason for that is if we run into problems, we have office meetings, I have to have staff meetings, there’s other things that I need to pay them for because it’s time that’s added in. And there’s not much I can do about that. The only thing I can tell you is, I don’t think that a reasonable amount of raise would cost the county a huge amount. I just think it’s going to be necessary in order to keep the type of help that we need.

President Abell: Evansville-Vanderburgh County Airport, page 146. You also have a supplement, Councilmen, in your yellow packet, which breaks down some of the larger figures. It looks like this. It should be in the very back – not in your book but in the back of the big yellow packet. Good morning.

Bob Working: Good morning. I’m Bob Working, I’m the manager at Evansville Regional, and you have the budget before you. I am, overall, looking at a two and a half percent increase in the total budget. And I’m here to answer any questions that you may have.

President Abell: Councilmen, questions? Well, I’ll start out, Other Supplies went up $20,000?

Bob Working: Yes, and that’s just a function of what we’ve experienced over the past couple of years. I probably do this every year but I’ll still go ahead and say this is, I don’t know, the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth year that I’ve been here. The airport is financially self-sufficient in that we do not require county tax monies to operate. And we hope that continues. The industry, obviously, is in great turmoil, but so far everything is continuing along as has been. We operate under a single cash drawer system where we take all the expenses and then all the revenues from all other sources other than the airlines, and then we set the rates for the airlines to ensure that we cover those expenses, plus ninety days operation.

President Abell: And we on the Council, of course, understand that, but there has been a change that this year, this body has been charged with the responsibility of overseeing every budget that is levied in the county, each budget, and –

President Abell: We have more responsibility now. And in two years, we have an even greater responsibility, so things are going to change and it’s all due to House Bill 1001. We had nothing to do with it, so –

President Abell: So I just don’t want you to get too upset when we start asking you questions, ‘cause there’s some questions to be asked. Ms. Leader?

Councilmember Leader: One of my questions is regarding insurance (tape changed) decreased by 18.22%? That was kind of a surprising thing for us to see.

Bob Working: Well, it was a methodology that we had used in the past where we were taking every employee and applying the family rate. We then took it back to the actual. We also had plugged in over a couple of years we were being advised to look at 20 percent increases and it had worked itself up, and this is taking it back to the actual, and then a ten percent increase.

Councilmember Leader: So you and Mr. Jost assume that’s your increase for next year?

Councilmember Leader: Thank you. Can we speak also to your salary and wage increases, please?

Councilmember Leader: You have a varying number of percentages here, and as you know, the county has approved a two and a half percent wage increase for all employees.

Bob Working: Well, first, I would like to say that the budget was prepared under the previous guidelines that the county had given us at three percent. Our budget was sent before the board and adopted before we heard of the two and a half percent. But everyone, of all the employees at the airport, the Teamsters and Firefighters represent all but six positions at the airport, and those were negotiated and set by contract. The county, in the past, has not normally done anything with those. The other six, the administrative staff is certainly at the pleasure of the county. Oh, and I did forget, the reason that those percentages vary is we do have a longevity program and so every third year anniversary, there’s a $750 increase, and so that will take some of those and make it look more, and some less.

Councilmember Winnecke: Bob, I had two questions. One about one line item and just a second general question. Remind us what falls under Contractual Services, that’s a large – what falls in that bucket?

Bob Working: A lot. It’s anything that we normally have a contract on. It can be stuff as minor as bug sprays, consulting services...Tess? Can you help?

Councilmember Winnecke: That’s very important, I understand. My other question has more to do just with the state of the industry and how you see Evansville falling into – we have Cape Airs of the world kind of coming and going, it seems like. What’s the future look like for our airport?

Bob Working: Well, I tell you, it’s, I don’t know. I could go on and on with that. The industry is certainly changing. Deregulation has seen the demise of many carriers and we continue to see the consolidation of carriers. You know, a lot of times you’ll see new opportunities that will spring forth because of these changes. The base that I would put on the community, though, is that historically, we have sales in the $75,000,000 a year range for air service, airline tickets, and I believe someone will be here in some way, shape, form or fashion, to take part of that market. We are seeing a change. I was very disappointed to lose Cape Air. We were probably within one passenger per flight of that being profitable. And I’m not blaming South Bend, but certainly there is a consortium and it took South Bend there, too. And so when South Bend backed out, then we didn’t have enough between – Evansville didn’t have enough to carry it for the two communities. So that’s disappointing, and I believe that we were showing a need and we were certainly working towards profitability. Many of our flights were profitable and so that was real discouraging. You know, Delta and Northwest uniting is going to have a big impact potentially on our airport, could have, because right now with Northwest, American, and Delta, they all three equally share the marketplace, pretty much right down the line, 33% to each of them, and so now when you see one carrier that’s going to have 66% of that market, at least initially, you wonder about that. You expect there to be further consolidations when that merger takes place. And so what impacts it will have on this market is yet to be seen. I certainly feel that Atlanta and Detroit are going to remain viable hubs. I don’t know the impacts on say, Cincinnati or Memphis. They may scale back a little bit, I’m not sure. I believe we’ll have service to all four, but maybe not as equal as they have been in the past. It’s a very interesting industry and, you know, you can jump on the bandwagon on either side of this whether deregulation has been a plus or a minus. There are a lot of communities that had air service right after regulation, that don’t have air service today. As a matter of fact, sixty airports this year have lost all commercial air service. And that trend is going to continue. I hear that we may see it down to as few as two hundred, we’re like 170, so it worries me. But I think we’ll still, someone is going to be here to serve the people of Evansville.

Councilmember Sutton: Mr. Working, your budget is for ‘09, you’re showing right at about a, oh, you’ve got a 2.49 percent increase over the 2008 budget, which takes you up to next year, what you’re proposing is right at about 5.8 million. Now that’s just on your expenses. Now you made reference a little earlier about revenue, how much revenue do you have coming in and what are those sources?

Bob Working: I have a lot of sources, but primarily, the best way to generalize them is we get about a third from our parking lot, we get about a third from the airlines, and the other third is made up primarily of car rentals, would be the next biggest chunk, but after that it gets into a lot of miscellaneous: farmers, lease, rents from other tenants, hotel that’s on airport property, Sheriff’s command post, those type revenues that make up the balance of it.

Councilmember Sutton: Can you get us a copy of a breakdown of your revenue sources? If you could do that, that would be extremely helpful.

Councilmember Sutton: And so when you talk about all that revenue, how much are we talking about on the whole?

Bob Working: Well, that’s the best number I can give you. And what I’m saying is, our agreement with the airlines has been that we take all of the revenues from every source other than the airlines and we apply it towards our expenses. And then the airlines guarantee us the difference plus ninety days of operation. And so we set our rates and charges based on that number. And that’s based on projected landing weights and...

Councilmember Sutton: Right, right. I understand you’ve got some variables there, but I’m just trying to get a sense, I know you’ve got that certain amount that’s built in that will cover, if there is a shortfall, but just, if you can, I just thought you might have those numbers rolling around in your head and you know that just like that in terms of how much revenue you’re –

Councilmember Leader: I think Mr. Sutton, Bob, I think Mr. Sutton also is interested in the federal grants and how you use that money – the whole, and I think you can get us a copy of that. Just an interest in seeing your annual budget. I mean, it’s confidential, obviously, to us, too, but we’d like to see all your revenue streams, your construction stream, your rental income, all those various things.

Councilmember Leader: Because there are things outside of this, as well, of course, that we don’t see here, construction, the federal monies we don’t see here.

Bob Working: We receive enplanement monies from the federal government based on the number of passengers that we board each year. We receive a set amount in the Cumulative Building fund, but all of those revenues go towards capital projects and approved projects by the FAA. Our master plan is, as you know or may know, is going to be quite extensive over the next few years as we try to take 2000 feet off one end of a runaway and add it to the other. But yes, I’m only talking about –

Councilmember Leader: I just think in light of our increased responsibilities as a County Council, that we already know from the legislation and anticipate in the next two years, it would be kind of a good lesson if you could supply the County Councilmembers with the master plan and projected budgets and how your revenue streams work.

Councilmember Sutton: And, you’re right, just due to what we are now being asked to take on, these are the kind of questions we’re going to ask any and all departments that, you know, primarily we’ve focused on the expense side, but we’re going to need to look at the whole picture with all these different budgets that we’re going to be responsible in dealing with. And not picking on you, but that really helps to give us a fuller picture of where the county dollars, where we actually come in and what additional things you may have coming into other departments as well.

Bob Working: And I understand and I guess I will just say, the county dollars to operate it is zero, and the county dollars into the Cumulative Building fund is a set amount, 1.33 or something.

President Abell: And that’s the part we see on our tax bill that you’re talking about.

President Abell: That’s the part that we see on our tax bill that you’re discussing right now.

Councilmember Shetler: With regards to the health insurance on the employees, how many employees do you have?

Councilmember Shetler: Do you guys go out to a separate vendor on your own to get that?

Councilmember Shetler: Have you explored the county or even the city’s policies and stuff to see if there was any savings that could be had by jumping into the group?

Bob Working: We have not. We have been with Welborn HMO for umpteen years. We have shopped it before, you know, with our broker too see –

Councilmember Leader: But, you know, we also have Welborn, so with the thousands of county employees, you might just want to investigate the possibility of combining with us.

Councilmember Shetler: The option, that’s one of the options. We have basically three options, I think, through the county program. I don’t know if there’s any savings to be had, but by getting our numbers bigger for all of us, it may help all of us. And I assume by getting your cost down, that the advantages may not be so much in the property tax area here with you as a question, but the more efficiently the airport is run, and then we can get costs down here, that also then translates into lower rent for the airlines, which makes it more attractive to stay here, ultimately. Which is what our goal is, is to make sure we have good service. So, thank you, Bob.

President Abell: Other questions? I have a question about, it looks like you’re putting on a new employee? Is that correct?

Bob Working: We did have one employee that we’re wanting to add, that’s an assistant chief, is what we’re calling it, but primarily since September the 11^th, our security requirements have escalated and continued to escalate and we find ourselves almost needing a full-time person just to issue I.D. badges and fingerprints and keeping up with security directives from the Transportation Security Administration because they’re a dynamic, I mean, they don’t have a set security pattern, they move it, they change it, by design and so keeping abreast of that and keeping up with all of the requirements on the fingerprint checks, and then we have to go back and re-certify. We actually have to run our employees again just to make sure, or it’s not just our employees, everyone that’s got a badge, to make sure they haven’t done anything wrong.

Bob Working: It really is. I mean, it would function in both, he would be able to work on both sides.

President Abell: I didn’t know what it was assistant chief of, what department.

President Abell: I think we have about questioned you to death. We may have another one or two hidden in our pocket somewhere.

President Abell: Does anyone have any questions on Mr. Weaver’s main budget? We’ll get to Reassessment later. I think all of the line items that now have an amount in them and zero in the past are your intake of the new assessors and, is that correct?

Jonathan Weaver: Yes, we basically doubled the staff. We had nine, now we’re up to twenty-ish there with the full-time and part-time, yes.

Councilmember Goebel: Does our explanation booklet, is this straight here off of this budget or is it Reassessment?

Councilmember Goebel: Well, 4210, for instance, Office Furniture, this booklet doesn’t – it’s zeroed out, but evidently, there is a request.

Councilmember Goebel: That’s what I have but in the explanations, we have a request, I think.

President Abell: Oh, I see what you’re asking now. We’re going to pick it up later. Any other – Mr. Shetler.

Councilmember Shetler: I just want to make a point, we talked about this earlier in the year and that was the number of Level II certifications and stuff. I don’t know if at some point in time if we need to make some kind of agreement among Council, but we’ve talked about holding that or freezing that level to where it currently is because we really don’t need, I guess, everybody – you know forty-three certified II’s or whatever, out there. So I just kind of remind you of that, particularly with consolidating the offices, I’m not so sure that, at this point, we’ve got to keep what we have, and that’s fine.

Jonathan Weaver: It’s sixteen, so it’s, I think you need to look at it as, it makes us look good. When we’re certified by the state, you know, we go under a lot of public heat for, you know, people think we’re just someone off the street running for something and we don’t know what we’re doing and the more education we get, and the more certifications we get, it just makes all of us look good. And we can justify what we’re doing. And I think that’s what’s behind it when the state made that decision to –

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, but isn’t a lot of this work done by – you know, you’ve got trending, we hire outside contractors to do –

Councilmember Shetler: – and stuff, and so we’ve got, I mean, there’s different things going on out there and not everybody, some of them aren’t actually doing the field work and stuff. So I don’t know –

Jonathan Weaver: – all the residential stuff. I mean, we’re going out there ourselves and doing it. We’re only contracting commercial and industrial properties and then anything else we contract out is for our software purposes.

President Abell: When you said, you mean there’s eighteen people in your office, and sixteen of them are already Level II?

Councilmember Winnecke: Do you know, I know you’re still trying to transition here, do you have an idea of how you’re going to utilize Extra Help in the new year?

Jonathan Weaver: It’s so hard to predict what’s going to happen in November. You know, if we don’t get the other three townships, we’re going to need Extra Help, I think, or I’d like to have the option there to ask for the money now.

Jonathan Weaver: The DLGF Commissioner has really upped the standards on – you know, we already have the Level II certification, and now the standards have been upped on the Level II, and now there’s a future Level III, and that requires, for me personally this year, I’m taking almost six weeks of classes, that’s week long classes and that’s traveling, I’ve been to Kokomo already, Columbus, you have two Assessor conferences in Indianapolis, and I’ll be up there for two other classes in October and December for assessing courses, they’re IAAO courses and so they have me traveling all over the state. Then my current employees with their Level II and the townships, and they get with their Level II staffs, there is continuing ed that they have to keep up so they can keep their certification active, so there’s just been a lot of pressure put on us recently to – it’s a good thing. Education is a good thing and I don’t even know if we’re asking for enough at this point.

Councilmember Sutton: And how are you using Contractual Services, 1090-3530? Is that for software?

Jonathan Weaver: That’s our commercial/industrial contractor and we’d like to upgrade the GIS. What’s happened here, staring July 1^st, 2009 until sometime in 2011 we have to reassess the whole county, that’s 82,000 parcels, over 82,000 parcels that we need to look at. I think it would be easier if we can upgrade our GIS to a three dimensional product that’s used in Marion and Monroe counties and that will allow us – that will save us a lot of time and money from traveling out to all these parcels and we can look at an aerial view, we can measure off it, have a historical comparison, it would be state of the art, it would be great for economic development, public safety can use this.