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

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

President Winnecke: At this time I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our July 6th meeting.

President Winnecke: Motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Winnecke: At this time, we’ll begin with our appropriation requests and I would just remind the folks in the audience and folks watching at home that may not be familiar with our proceedings that these are requests that we heard information on last week. There may be little discussion today but there was much discussion last week, so anyway as that as a prelude, I’ll turn it over to Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you, Mr. President. First on the agenda today is County Treasurer for Printing and Office Machines in the amount of $4,500. I’ll move approval.

President Winnecke: There’s a motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Raben: Next, under Jail 1051-3051 Lodging of Inmates in the amount of $136,500, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, one thing for sure, I guess, Mr. President, I guess we can take some assurance that I guess if the project is still on tap with the new jail come November, we will no longer see this type of request.

Councilmember Goebel: I was wondering if I could ask Chief Deputy Williams a couple of questions. I know these numbers have been thrown out already, and I know Chief Deputy Williams has told us before, but I think just for everyone’s benefit again, this amount, 136,000, this will probably come up each month for the rest of this fiscal year?

Eric Williams: Eric Williams on behalf the Sheriff’s office and Sheriff Ellsworth. At the current trend where we’re at with inmate outside housing, we expect that we will make this same appropriation request monthly for the remainder of the period that we’re in this facility and that decision came out with discussions from other members of the Council that they would rather have us do this incrementally as opposed to one fell swoop in big numbers up front and just kind of work our way through it, maybe hope for the best.

Eric Williams: Currently, based on the current trends, we’ve spent $590,000 to date, that gets us basically through June. The numbers early in the year were low so we’re anticipating maybe by the end of the year we’ll be at 1.3 -1.4 million.

Councilmember Goebel: Okay, and I think just for our satisfaction, we have now approved the hiring of all 34 jailers?

Councilmember Goebel: And do you think this is going to be pretty much a wash now, cost-wise, to the taxpayers?

Eric Williams: If you look at the outside inmate housing and that number, if that trend were to stay flat and continue in perpetuity, then it would be pretty close to a wash. We ran some quick numbers, with 34 new employees, their salaries, and estimated on insurance, and FICA and some of the things that you detail, that cost next year will be about 1.5 million plus or minus a little bit. So yeah, I guess, if you look at those dollars comparatively to each other, that would be a wash. I mean, its still money being spent, but...

Councilmember Goebel: And with the opening new facility, do you think then we might be able to bring in income as far as opening our beds or jail cells to other counties or other agencies?

Eric Williams: Given the current situation, if we look at today’s numbers, we had 504 total people in custody this morning which would include those people that are in our facility and those that are being housed outside in other counties. We’re talking about opening a facility that has 512 beds in it, so with 504 of that, roughly leaves you with eight beds. Now the difference would be that some of those beds are separated out in this new facility which makes the ability to move around. Now our transition team and our staff is continuing to discuss options, especially in dealing with the DOC inmates. At the rate of which we transfer them, as soon as they get the abstract signed by the judge, 72 hours after that we begin billing the DOC for those people. Basically, what we have done in the past and what we will probably do in the future, is we just drag our feet a little bit in getting those moved to the DOC which they have full knowledge of and don’t mind, and we can bill them. And we move them based on our local needs and we can keep the beds full and be getting paid back for those spaces. That’s probably the most logical plan if there’s any opportunity to recoup some costs by housing other people’s prisoners is to handle it in that manner.

Councilmember Raben: I might, real quick, because you and I have just recently discussed this issue again, and by the way, I think your number today is 334 is what we’re housing outside? But explain the process in regards to who goes outside, who doesn’t, and what did you tell me, it’s bi-weekly reviews you’re doing?

Eric Williams: As far as the inmates that get selected to get moved? We do that pretty much daily at this point in time as we continue to hover at near or above the 329 ICLU cap that was agreed to. Basically, when a person is booked into our facility, they’re presented with a document that we ask them to sign that waives their rights, that we are allowed to ship them out of state, being that most of our housing counties right now are either in Kentucky or Illinois. If they agree to that and they sign off on that, they go in that they’re flagged in our system. And as we have numbers above that, we start to look for people to move, we run a report that gives us a list of those people that have already waived their right to stay here and are willing to move outside. Then we take that and we have a matrix that we use, and basically, number one, we look for healthy inmates. The healthy inmates, you don’t want to move ones that are unhealthy because you lose control of their medical provisions in another facility. And when we don’t have control of that, we’re still stuck with the bill. So unhealthy inmates we want to keep here so that we can control the health care. We look at people that have the longest time before they have to appear in court again because we have to go get them and bring them back, so the longer we can leave them out without making trips, we try to pick those first. We try not to send other counties problematic inmates because then they don’t house them any more for us, so we keep all the problem ones here. If we have people that are convicted to our facility and with a misdemeanor sentence, you know, 30 days, we try to send those and let them just do their time there and complete their time in that facility. So we’ve got a whole list of matrix we go through to pick the most likely candidates to move.

Councilmember Raben: I just thought that was important and I’m not used to saying this either, for our listeners at home, that may or may not understand that there is a process that’s being followed.

President Winnecke: Other questions or discussion? The motion on the floor is for an appropriation of $136,500. We have a motion and a second. Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next, Area Plan, 1240-3550 Repairs to Buildings and Grounds in the amount of $20,000. I’ll move approval.

President Winnecke: There’s a motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Raben: Next, Mr. President, under Weights & Measures, I’m going to move that at this time, this be set in at zero. And I guess the information that was given to you just today is that the city is not in a position at this time to fund their portion of it, or they’re not prepared to –

Councilmember Raben: – and we’ll come back and address this. In fact, if we’re not able to do it in the near future, we’ll for sure address this during our budget hearings in August or later next week.

Councilmember Goebel: I have a question. How long will it be before the city can come forward with their portion?

President Winnecke: They are discussing it now, I believe. I’m not sure of their time line.

Councilmember Wortman: Yeah, I know its been the practice in the past that if its percentage is in favor of the city, we approve in accordance to their adoption of finances. And if the county has the percentage, they go by what we say, normally. That’s been a standard practice, so I thought I’d bring that on to the floor.

Councilmember Sutton: Councilman Wortman, I asked last week about the CCD fund and pulling this request out of there, you said you were going to speak with the Commissioners. Did you get a chance to say something with them and what was their response?

Councilmember Wortman: They definitely need it but they’re going to leave it up to the city, but Mrs. Townsend called the City Controller, I think, and then they’ve got to re-appropriate the money, and put it in that, and then get ready for it, see. Our share would be $12,000.

Councilmember Sutton: So, I mean, on the county’s side, I mean, are they okay with pulling it out of CCD rather than General Fund?

Councilmember Wortman: The County Commissioners are okay with it, they definitely need it.

President Winnecke: No, I think that’s not correct. I don’t think they want to pull it from the CCD. I think they would rather it come from the General Fund.

Councilmember Wortman: General Fund, yeah. Did I get that mixed up? General Fund, right –

President Winnecke: They were fine with the request, but not from the CCD, I believe, is the issue. As I understand it.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, the CCD has a pretty healthy balance in it. I mean, it would be – given just even our couple of requests prior with what we know is coming down on with the Lodging of Inmates, Patient/Inmate Care, whatever we can do to try to protect that General Fund and its going to have a much more healthier balance at the end of the year than – in the CCD than our General Fund. So the request would be a very logical one because we pull a lot of requests similar to that out of CCD. I don’t know if there is something we can do to make that case a little bit more clear on the Commission side to pull that money from there rather than out of the General Fund.

Councilmember Wortman: I questioned Mrs. Crouch on that, the Chairman of the Commissioners, and she said, right now, no, because they have needs for that money somewhere else. Now where, I don’t know. But that was her answer.

President Winnecke: With it being tabled though, we certainly have at least another month to discuss it further with the Commissioners.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I don’t know if, Councilman Winnecke, as maybe from the President’s chair –

Councilmember Sutton: Yeah, if you can make some overtures there, that would be great.

Councilmember Raben: We could possibly set up an appointment with yourself and me to further address that.

President Winnecke: Okay. We have a motion on the floor to set this in at zero. Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Raben: Next, Superior Court, 1370-3941 Guardian Ad-Litem in the amount of $10,000. I’ll move approval.

President Winnecke: Motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Raben: I would have liked to have made this one comment. The vote we just took on Superior Court, it kind of goes back to the unfunded mandates. Again, that’s a new state requirement where CASA has to be assigned to every in need case for juveniles. And again, that’s with no additional funding.

Councilmember Raben: Next, I’ll move on to the County Highway. This request has been withdrawn, so I’ll move that we set this in at zero.

Councilmember Tornatta: The Highway’s unappropriated? Why not the County General?

Councilmember Tornatta: Okay. So that money goes into an account and then I guess when they need it, if they need it, they come back to us. Is that what the story is?

Bill Fluty: That is correct, but there was a bulletin, the County Bulletin, that was received that said that this was appropriate to put that money back on the line item, how they used it for the snow event they had in December. I think they used it in Overtime and Garage & Motor.

Councilmember Tornatta: So that will be, just to clear, that will be set in their General Fund until they need it, they’ll come to us, going to ask for it?

Bill Fluty: No, it will be put back in their line item. At the time they presented this to the Council, they were unaware that it could be put back on those line items where it was spent. And that bulletin came through just in the last week or so, so there wasn’t a need to go before Council.

Councilmember Raben: Next, under Superior Court Supplemental Adult Probation, for a total of $2,372, I’ll move approval.

President Winnecke: Motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Roll call vote.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, now for Repeals, Area Plan, 1240-1110-1240 in the amount of $30,500, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next under Transfers, I’ll move that all transfers including the late transfer for the County Recorder be approved as listed.

Councilmember Raben: Yes, excuse me. Yes, I stand corrected. Circuit Court, I’d like to amend my motion. The Circuit Court transfer has been withdrawn, that be set in at zero, all others, including the late transfer as listed.

Councilmember Wortman: I’d like to comment on Don Erk for not coming up here like he used to. He’s really done good. So his transfer, he’s been doing real good, been a real nice boy.

Councilmember Raben: Last, Mr. President, under Amendments to the Salary Ordinance, its not quite as bad as its been here recently, Superior Court Supplemental Adult Probation, I move that we amend salary line 2620-1270 Probation Officer as previously approved. Area Plan, set salary line 1240-1110 Executive Director as the repeal previously approved. Community Corrections, set salary line 1361-1360 Correction Officer as transfer previously approved. The current employee is cross-trained based on an annual salary of $31,081 with a hire date of as of June 13, 2005. Superior Court, amend salary line 1370-1990 Extra Help as previously adopted. County Auditor, amend salary lines as transfer previously adopted. 1020-1210 Transfer Supervision, the current employee is a COMOT V, Step 4, with an annual salary of $30,881. 1020-1260 Tax Mapping Supervisor, the current employee is a PAT IV, Step 3 with an annual salary of $34,131. 1020-1300 Transfer Clerk, the current employee is a COMOT IV, Step 2, with an annual salary of $25,854. Under Public Defender, amend salary line 1303-1810 at the rate of $55,686. The current employee will be Executive II, Step 3, as recommended by the Personnel Administration Committee. The full-time Appeals Public Defender salary line is currently vacant. Recorder, amend salary line 1040-1970 Temporary Replacement as previously adopted. That’s all I have. I make that in the form of a motion.

President Winnecke: Motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Winnecke: Okay, at this time we move on to Old Business. I believe everyone has a letter from Dan Bowen, the Treasurer of Bowen Engineering, officially notifying the county of its withdrawal of the abatement request for Bowen Engineering.

President Winnecke: We also have today a confirming resolution for the tax phase in for QTR, Inc. Are there other questions of Mr. Jackson while he is here? This is the final step in this phase in vote. If its approved today, the phase in is approved.

President Winnecke: At this time I would entertain a motion for a resolution to confirm this tax phase in.

President Winnecke: Moving on to new business, first of all a reminder that the joint city/county budget hearing is August 17th at 3:00 in this hearing room. Items B & C, we do not have, so we will table those until next month. Those would be the appointments to the Human Relations Board and the Willard Library Board.

President Winnecke: At this time I would call your attention to the resolution that’s before everyone regarding the Levee Authority. This resolution was prepared in conjunction or with the cooperation with the city and county attorneys. This resolution recognizes upon passage that we approve the removal of the Evansville Vanderburgh Levee Authority from the levy of the county, allowing it to have a levy of its own. At this time I would entertain a motion to pass that resolution.

President Winnecke: Motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Winnecke: Thank you. At this time I’d like to call Jeff Henning up from the Government Unification Committee to present a proposal, and I think we all have a copy of that. Mr. Henning?

Jeff Henning: Thank you, Mr. President. As vice-chairman of the Evansville Vanderburgh County Unification Committee, its my pleasure to present to this Council our recommendation for a unified government. First of all, I would like to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to meet with the representatives of our committee and you provided insight, you provided your opinion, and we appreciate you taking an opportunity and time to look at the proposal itself. As most of you know, over the past two years we’ve conducted over approximately a hundred interviews. We’ve met with city, county, township, state representatives, we have also met with other elected officials from other cities, we have looked at others’ various forms of government, and we have also researched the performance of other cities that have unified. Based upon our study, it’s the committee’s recommendation that we believe that a unified government would be beneficial for our county. That government would entail one executive branch and one council. We believe that this type of government would be more responsive and a more efficient form of government. Generally, the proposal sets out the form of the government that would be a Metro Mayor with a Deputy Mayor, and a fifteen member Council, and there would be twelve districts with three at-large members of the Council. I’m just generally going to go through some of the benefits that we see that a unified government would have, we could receive. One of the biggest benefits we see is greater representation for the citizens. Every area of our community will have an equal voice in local decisions. And with a neighborhood-based legislative Council, important issues affecting the citizens such as traffic and growth could get the attention that they deserve. Secondly, we believe that a unified government would offer improved efficiency and savings. Right now, we believe that our community having two governments is ineffective, and by uniting, we can eliminate overlapping levels of government. Thirdly, a benefit that we see is better jobs and opportunities. With a single local government setting policy, we will be in a better position to attract and retain well-paying jobs. In a study issued by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, they conducted an in-depth study of all the other cities that have unified, and the study concluded all of the consolidated committees have done better economically than they were doing before consolidation. Therefore, we think there can be a direct correlation between unification and better jobs and economic growth. Lastly, we believe that a unified government can provide fairer taxation. Under the proposal, citizens would only pay for the services they receive. They only get taxed for the services they received. The proposal, several pages of the proposal is dedicated exclusively to the taxation issue and we think we have addressed those concerns that unification will not cause an increase in taxation. These are just a few of the benefits that we see from a unified government. At this time we would ask that the Council support the proposal, but most importantly, support a referendum so the citizens of our county can go to the polls and vote on whether or not a unified government should be implemented in Vanderburgh County. So with that, if the Council has any questions, I’d be more than happy to address any questions. Dr. Phil Fisher is here and he would be more than happy to answer some questions.

President Winnecke: I would begin, I would first commend you and the committee. I know you’ve put in a lot of hard work, a lot of hours, and the product is very admirable, and personally, I hope its one that our community embraces. I’m on record as having supported a unified government, I think it’s the direction that will best help this community grow, so I applaud you for your efforts. I would like to get in to just a little discussion on the taxation issue. I think that’s probably the single most issue that I hear discussion about and if you could, in general terms, because as you said, there are several pages dedicated to it, discuss generally how the taxation would work.

Phil Fisher: The proposal is modeled on the way other unified governments have set up their taxation, particularly Lexington and Louisville. Initially property within the current city limits would be considered a full service district. Areas outside the city would be considered general service districts. And taxes would be levied to each district based on the services provided. Within the city limits there may be areas that are not receiving full city services, then the proposal requires that the tax rates be lowered for those properties that are not receiving full services. For those areas that are receiving some city services or might receive some city services in the future, it provides for the creation of partial service districts. That is, if a place wanted street lights but that’s all or let’s say they wanted, an industrial area wanted to have full time fire protection, then those services could be extended incrementally and the properties within those districts, partial service districts, taxed according to the services that they get. The proposal requires three hearings for such a change over a six week period, and advertised hearings. The general service districts, the full service districts could also be expanded. In other words, if areas were going to receive full city services, then through the same process, they could be included in a general service district. So that would be sort of the equivalent of annexation. But I think the beauty of this concept, which has worked for many years in Lexington and they had something like eleven different parcel service districts, is that you don’t have to do it all or nothing. That if some services are appropriate to an area, but the residents don’t need or don’t want the others, then they can get partial services and then pay a tax rate based on that.

Councilmember Raben: While we’re on that point, because I’m not real clear how we arrive at those fees that would be paid, as an example, I live in German Township, I would be general services.

Councilmember Raben: Under our current state statute in regards to how we assess properties by township, how does all this change? What would reduce German’s taxes since we’re not receiving the full services of city residents?

Phil Fisher: You’re paying county taxes as well as township taxes. And you’re receiving county services, county roads for example, sheriff’s protection, you would continue to pay those taxes. The township levies would remain the same, the townships would continue to offer volunteer fire services and whatever services the townships are providing now and the city of Darmstadt would continue to provide those services. Now a provision is made for existing incorporated villages that they cannot be included in a partial service district or a full service district without a referendum for those citizens. So that’s one exception.

Councilmember Sutton: On that taxation issue, and really, kind of along the lines of Councilman Raben’s points, Pigeon Township has the highest tax rate of any township in the county and that township also has our downtown areas that we are intending to spur development, it also has maybe some of our most distressed neighborhoods, I guess in the scheme of all this, has there been some discussions and some thought in how that tax burden, in order to spur development in maybe some of the more central, core areas and to reduce that burden, spread out that burden a little bit further across several districts can be addressed, because as it stands right now, with that tax rate being so high, its really more of a disincentive to develop in those areas.

Phil Fisher: Well, that’s where I live, so yes, I understand the problem. This proposal initially would not change that. But it would give the Council to powers to make those kinds of changes. I mean, one of the key features of this is that it gives the Council the power to make changes in local government that are not prohibited by the state constitution. So if that was done, it would not be through the action of this proposal, but rather through the action of the new council.

Councilmember Sutton: You obviously had a chance to visit some other cities. What were, as a team, what cities did you guys have an opportunity to visit?

Phil Fisher: Well, we visited of course, Nashville, and of course, we also had interviews with city and former city officials from Indianapolis and Louisville. We also studied documents from Lexington, Kansas City, Kansas, which, next to Louisville, was the most recent place to unify.

Councilmember Sutton: The Nashville model that you had to visit, heard many positive comments about how well they’re doing in Nashville, maybe not to take the conversation in a different direction, but I guess with their elections down there, they have non-partisan elections, what thought or consideration did you guys take away from that discussion in the whole discourse of looking at how we would structure things here?

Phil Fisher: A couple of things that came up in our public hearings were non-partisan elections and city manager forms of government. The committee decided to stay with the mayor executive form of government, mayor manager form of government and partisan, in part because we think, to some extent, non-partisanship is a facade. Those people who are elected on non-partisan ballots are really republicans and democrats and when they get together, they get together as republicans and democrats, and so actually the people have less information in a way when they vote. Secondly, and we wanted to have a mayor who was both an administrative and a political leader because we think that’s important in the city’s influence on a state-wide basis. We don’t think a non-partisan Mayor or a Mayor that has a city manager who then is a non-political appointment but has as much power, that we wanted a strong political leader because we thought that would provide more influence for the city both in economic development efforts and at the state level.

Councilmember Sutton: One other area that I know I’ve heard some comments about and discussions especially from the county perspective, many people assume that the city model under the unification, you just kind of folded over what the existing county services. The county has a number of different responsibilities, a number of different areas, under this top executive, this Mayor of this proposed format, are there some other individuals or positions that would then be responsible for some of these areas because when you look at just the scope and degree of what the County Commissioners, their responsibility and even the Council, just layering on and just kind of erasing titles and names, it goes a little deeper than that, so if you could maybe explain how that consideration –

Phil Fisher: Well, of course you know that the elected county officials would remain under this form of government and instead of relating to the Commissioners and the County Council, they would relate to the Mayor and to the new Metro Council. The proposal gives all of the fiscal powers of the two Councils to the new Council. It gives the legislative functions of the Commissioners and the City Council to the new Council and the executive powers of the current mayor and the executive powers of the Commissioners to the new Metro Mayor. So yes, in terms of the executive functions of the Commissioners, those would go to the Metro Mayor. In terms of the power to enact ordinances that the Commissioners now have, that would go to the new Council.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I guess my question is, under that Mayor, are there some Deputy Mayors or departmental executives or should I say division executives –

Phil Fisher: Well, it calls for a Deputy Mayor but beyond that, it would be up to the Mayor to offer a budget and an organization plan. And one of the things that we see, this providing is the flexibility to change as conditions change. Business organizations reorganize every four or five years or maybe more often in response to changing business conditions. City and county government in Indiana is not really permitted to do that and this proposal, if its successfully, if a referendum for this proposal is successfully enacted by the legislature and the people choose it, the new Council and the new Mayor will have the power to reorganize as conditions require it.

President Winnecke: Troy, can you hold your comment? We need to change the tape.

Councilmember Tornatta: First off, one of the points that has been made is that we’re giving too much power to the Council but I guess I just need a confirmation, pretty much right now, whether it’s the City Council or Commissioners or County Council, we can make some of these same things happen but it would still be on two different planes.

Councilmember Tornatta: Because that’s been the big thing, why do we give this brand new Metro Council so much power, because they can go any direction. Right now, –

Phil Fisher: But they are responsible to the people and the people who are elected in Council districts are elected in much smaller Council districts than either the City or the County Council persons are now.

Councilmember Tornatta: And that’s a fantastic point. Like us all, if we want to be elected, we serve the people to the best of our ability and try and represent. If our representation strays from what they see –

Councilmember Tornatta: They have the ability to do that. The second question or the one question I have is, is there a need for at-large members? We don’t have an at-large congress, we don’t have an at-large senate necessarily, even though we do have two senators in this area, why would we need an at-large person?

Phil Fisher: Well, that was something that was debated at some length in the committee that made the recommendation. And at, of course, if we eliminated at-large members, the districts could be even smaller than they are now for the same number of people, so that would be an advantage in putting it closer to the people. I think there are two reasons why the committee chose to retain at-large members. One is, the philosophy of at-large members is partly to give the executive leader an opportunity to have the majority. So the thought is, and it doesn’t always happen, but it probably happens more often than not, than when a Mayor is elected, there will be some coattails, and the at-large members are the most likely to be in those coattails and that gives the Mayor a working majority. Its difficult for an executive leader to work with a majority legislative group of the other party. We’ve seen that at the national level and it just kind of creates a paralysis. The second reason, and I’m not sure how valid it is, but it was proposed by people, is that people elected from districts tend to focus on issues of importance to their district and the at-large Council members bring the whole county perspective since they represent the whole county. And so those are the two reasons why, in the final analysis, the committee recommended that there be at-large members.

Councilmember Tornatta: Okay, and I think its good in point. I think on paper, whatever, in the reality, I think it doesn’t hold as much weight. And I’m an at-large member, so obviously I’m speaking from a little experience, how I perceive in the past. And I don’t want to tie the other team’s arm behind their back so we can have a fairer fight if he’s a stronger person. And so I see – I kind of feel, let the chips fall where they may. If they have that opportunity, then the strong Mayor has the coattails. If they don’t, then they don’t have the coattails. I really think that this is something that should go to the people. I’m very happy to let them vote on this process from my point. If they vote it down, then once again, its voted down. If they vote it up, then we’re going to have a brand new style of government in Vanderburgh County.

Councilmember Goebel: Just a couple of points. I have to disagree with you about the republican/democrat format as far as the at-large. I think that we are truly different than a national scope, because I believe we’re mostly conservative moderates here and if you look at this body, it doesn’t typically vote split votes regardless of party and I think the City Council does the same. That doesn’t mean, that’s just a small point.

Phil Fisher: You know, if I remember correctly, under the last Mayor, there was quite a bit of that. I mean, I could be wrong. I think there was. There may not be now.

Councilmember Goebel: Then I partially stand corrected. Has your organization taken any type of survey yet, or are you at liberty to let us know what the general feel of the county is or would you rather not disclose that?

Phil Fisher: The answer is that the committee has not had the kind of funds to do a survey and to my knowledge, no one else has done a survey yet. All we know is the feedback we got at the public meetings from the people who came out. And there were people on both sides. We feel that the larger number, particularly at our initial meeting which drew over 200 people was that some sort of change is needed. I don’t think people have the sense of crisis that we have a dysfunctional or corrupt government, but I do think that a lot of people think we could have a better system.

Councilmember Goebel: Once again, I’d like to commend the group because this is something I believe that should also go, I believe, personally, should go to the general public and the people of Vanderburgh County, let them decide and even if it should not quite make it, I think maybe some changes that make government work better will be instituted, as you’ve said. So thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Uh yes, Dr. Fisher, just a few questions. Looking at the makeup of the city and county today, if you drew a circle around the city, the actual city and then the physical county, of the twelve member Council and the three at-large, what percentage would actually come out of the city?

Phil Fisher: Well, there are 120,000 city members, residents of the city, and roughly 50,000 in the county. With districts of 14,000, I would expect that probably four districts would be all or primarily outside of the current city limits and eight would be within the city, eight or nine.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, because that’s huge concern of mine and a lot of my constituents is they view consolidation as losing their representation and, in fact, it sounds like they are. But the numbers cast are going to be much greater –

Phil Fisher: But right now most of the Council districts include part of the city. The County Commissioners are voted on by city residents as well as county residents, many more votes in the city than in the county. At-large Councilmembers are elected by the whole county as they would be in the new, so I don’t really think that’s going to be the case. And, in fact, the current system does not guarantee that the county will have representatives who live in the county at all. I mean, it works out that way.

Councilmember Raben: I would differ with that because I think, in fact, if you look at the makeup of this County Council, I think each and every one of the seven of us represent both city and county people. So the county does have seven representatives from this Council. And I guess why this is important to me is, county residents, you know, there’s projects on the table that they hold near and dear to their heart, one being Eickhoff-Koressel.

Councilmember Raben: You know, we’re finally moving along on the second phase. How important will that be to a Metro Mayor? I don’t know. He’s going to have other projects –

Phil Fisher: Well, he will be responsible for that. He’ll be responsible for the whole county the way the Commissioners are today.

Councilmember Raben: Another question, which my colleague, Mr. Goebel, had brought this up a moment ago to me, German Township water as you’re aware of, our rate is probably double or triple or maybe more than what the rate is for the city. Would that change?

Phil Fisher: The Council could change that and I would think the way this is – now that’s not a tax, that’s a fee based service. Right now, the City Council doesn’t have an obligation – isn’t under any kind of political pressure to change that. I mean, the residents of German Township do not elect City Council members and they do not elect the Mayor. But under unified government, German Township votes are going to be important to the Council, to some Councilmembers including the at-large members and to the Mayor. And I would expect that that would change.

Councilmember Sutton: There was another question I had for you, Dr. Fisher, the committee as its structured, you guys have done a fantastic job of laying out the foundation, doing a little research, meeting in the public forums, and really structuring all of this together, one of the questions I know I have consistently had about how this will proceed, and that is, who is going to be a group, is it the committee that is going to actually market and promote this particular initiative? Primarily I ask that because reflecting back on prior community-wide ballots or initiative type of items, referendums, whatever you want to call it, they have really struggled to get a groundswell of support behind them and it may be a good idea, could be a good positive thing, but frankly, what this brings, this unification proposal brings, there’s a lot of discussion among the public bodies, a lot of articles in the newspaper, but the common guy on the street isn’t really talking about this.

Phil Fisher: And I think a lot of people don’t understand it and that, I think was pretty clear at the last round of public meetings. You know, people had opinions one way or another, but a lot of the people really didn’t understand the proposal. I think there is a big job. I asked Mr. Dunn if he wanted to come up and answer this but since he pointed at me, I’ll answer it. Those of us who have been working on this are in the process of setting up a non-profit corporation as an advocacy group and we have a number of people who have agreed to serve. We’re continuing to contact people and probably within a month, that organization will be founded. I think that it is the intent of the committee at the last meeting to dissolve upon the presentation of this report to the City Council and the County Commissioners, which will take place the 15th and 16th of this month and then the committee will go out of existence. But it will be replaced by a much larger board of directors of a non-profit corporation that will act as an advocacy group to one, see if we can get the referendum approved by the legislature. And two, if that’s done, then to have a successful referendum. And, of course, that group is going to have to raise the same amount of money that you would have in a political campaign in Vanderburgh County.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, history will say that this community is batting about oh, 50, about 500 on the last four initiatives that have been community-wide things when you go back to VandiGov, the unification of the schools, riverboat gaming and then the school tax. If we look at those, two of those were successful, two were not.

Phil Fisher: Well, there is a website that has records on about 90 unification referendums and I think 28 have been successful, so probably the batting average isn’t that good. But if you believe in it, there isn’t any reason not to go forward.

Councilmember Sutton: I guess I’m not trying to throw a wet blanket necessarily on the fire and enthusiasm that this committee obviously has, but I guess from looking at what the community, just the regular guy that may read the paper from time to time, may see the news, that’s the key guy that you guys, this committee or the marketing group is going to really have to do a great job in getting to.

Phil Fisher: Two things. One, is over the long run, these communities, if they’re structured like Nashville and not Indianapolis, where the Council has real powers to make for the consolidations of services, they save money. They may save a little money up front, but over the years they get farther and farther ahead. The second thing is, jobs for our children and our grandchildren here. One of the things that we constantly hear about is brain drain and that the young people of Evansville are leaving and going someplace else, which is true. In the city limits of Evansville, Evansville had a population of 140,000 in 1960. Now its 120,000. Vanderburgh County is growing, grew through the 90's, because of I guess low interest rates and the opportunity for people to build and I don’t think they’re building to escape taxes, I think they’re building for quality of life issues that have more to do with space available. And the fact that new homes are being built outside the city limits. The county has grown a little during the 90's, but from 1970 to 1990, the county lost population. And the motivation for this really was the stagnant growth of jobs. If it had not been for Toyota in the 90's, even though it was a time of prosperity, Vanderburgh County would have lost jobs.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I think this Council is very interested in what has gone on through the unification study and I think it deserves, this whole proposal deserves, at least, from our standpoint, to receive support to continue to move forward so that the community can have an opportunity to express their views and to ultimately express their views in the form of a vote whether its something that is good for Vanderburgh County or not. And I don’t think we should place ourselves in a position of necessarily standing in the way of making that happen.

Phil Fisher: Thank you. I want to say one thing on behalf of the committee, we interviewed over 60 people, officeholders and department heads, in local government, and some of them more than once, but there were over 100 interviews and also state representatives and state senators, we received nothing but cordial cooperation and they were invaluable sources of information and to someone who did not know much about local government starting out, I became convinced that most of the people in our government are conscientious, capable public servants who really want to do a good job.

Councilmember Raben: Just one last comment and, again, this is may be my view and some that I’ve heard from others, but what I think is most important here is that the people need to realize that there is a genuine savings and I’ve not been, its not been explained to me what those savings, if any, are. But at the end of the day, if this marriage happens, and the combined total of tax dollars collected and spent are not less than what they currently are for both city and county, I think a lot of the residents are going to say that, you know, this veil was way too thin and we see right through it. And I think some, you know, what my people tell me is they would rather see more efforts put in to getting a handle on the school corporation, the library board, the things like that that have a great impact on their property taxes, particularly the library board where, you know, they’re not accountable for what they do in regards to our budget, the city’s budget and the tax dollars.

Councilmember Raben: Well, its appointed by the Mayor, the County Commission, City Council...I don’t –

Councilmember Raben: I understand that but they’re not elected and, again, I guess what I’m asking, is there any consideration as to what can be done to fix that problem?

Phil Fisher: Well, as you might suspect, the Taxpayers Association weighed in on this, too. The Council has the power to make any changes in local government that are not prohibited by the Constitution. So the Council could bring those boards which are not Constitutionally independent under their control and, frankly, the committee probably would have attempted to make Constitutional changes, but its just too difficult. This kind of reform is difficult enough as it is without making Constitutional changes. The Council would have the power, if this is passed in the form that is being presented, to make changes not prohibited by the Constitution to bring things under control.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, and I guess back to the actual genuine savings, I’m sure its been discussed, is there a number that they’re ready to throw out there today?

Phil Fisher: No, there’s no way to estimate this because the savings would be realized by actions of the new executive head of the new Council.

Councilmember Raben: And I think that’s important as you go out and sell this to the public. They’re going to want factual numbers and they’re going to want to realize if it costs them more or if it costs them less. And I would hope that if you go through this exercise, there’s a huge savings to the taxpayer.

Phil Fisher: The services that are being provided now will be continued to be provided. It can be done in a more efficient way, but I don’t think, initially, you’re going to see huge savings. I think what happens is that over time, these unified governments are able to make changes that continue to drive costs down compared to other similar cities. That has not been true in the case of Indianapolis, which is why Mayor Peterson has had his Indy Works proposal at the last session of the legislature. He wanted the power to do some of the things that this new Council and new Mayor would be able to do.

Councilmember Abell: I’d just like someone to restate what it is you want us to support because I think I’ve lost that through this whole thing.

Phil Fisher: I think what we were asking our political leaders is to support a referendum to ask that the people be given the opportunity to decide on this proposal.

Councilmember Abell: So you’re just asking us to support a referendum, not whether we support the thought of the unification?

Phil Fisher: You’re being asked, but that’s up to you whether you do it today or later or never.

Councilmember Raben: I would feel more comfortable if we had some time to consider this –

President Winnecke: I mean, you’ve heard from several individual Councilmembers that say they support a referendum. I think its fair to give everyone a chance to digest what they’ve heard today and, I mean, I think its fair that this body takes an official position and we can do that maybe at our next meeting. In the meantime, again, thank you for your efforts, thank you for your time today. I think its been a very healthy discussion and hopefully it will be one, in my opinion, that will help move our community forward.

Councilmember Abell: I think that my fellow Councilmen are aware that I have been pursuing the possibility of having a private security company do the security in the building, this building and the courts building. I wasn’t in a position to share this with you since we are televised, because I hadn’t gotten all the bids in yet and it would have been unfair to those people who had already put in bids and the others hadn’t as of last week. However, now I have received proposals from four different companies and all of the proposals appear to be that a person, that if you were considering just one individual employee to do this job, would be paid approximately $30,000 from our funds. The taxes, the benefits, everything else would be the responsibility of the company that hires that person. As of now, if we use a Deputy Sheriff, their starting salary is about $38,000 with benefits, we’re looking at around $50,000. So you’re looking at about at an almost $20,000 per individual savings by going with an independent company as opposed to using Deputy Sheriff’s for all of these positions. Now I have talked to some of you and I have likened this of having a Deputy Sheriff sit behind the xray machine to having an OB/GYN run a nursery school. We are really over killing this whole project by having Deputy Sheriffs doing the work that someone who is not licensed to carry a gun and not a Deputy Sheriff doing. With that said, since actually pursuing this is not my job, my job is to okay and turn down budget requests, I have called Suzanne Crouch and discussed it with her. She said that it is her recommendation that I turn it all over to David Rector because it is the Building Authority’s responsibility to provide the services in this building. And with that thought in mind, I am going to give these proposals to Mr. Rector and ask him to pursue the possibility of doing this. I know that there are some Sheriff’s Deputies that are currently working court security. I’m sure they could be reassigned. We’re looking at needing more Deputies for transportation of prisoners when we open our new jail and this would certainly be a way to fill those positions that are going to become available without putting on new people and also reducing, drastically reducing the cost of security in the two buildings. So I wanted all of you to know where I was on this. I’m turning it over to Mr. Rector and I think from that point he will be approaching us with his proposal on budgets.

President Winnecke: Any questions or discussion? I think that’s a prudent course of action and thank you for your efforts on that. Having no other business before us I will consider a motion –

Councilmember Sutton: Just here within the last week, a memo went out to all of the county employees indicating that all county employees would fall under the personnel handbook. That particular memo that went out will have an impact upon several different offices that don’t necessarily fit right within the county’s handbook for a variety of different things. There is a fiscal impact that this county will feel as a result of that. Some individuals may actually lose vacation time, personal days and things like that as a result of that because of previous agreements and the way we’ve structured our policy before. I really think we need to reopen that and revisit that situation and find out what that fiscal impact is going to be because the memo went out but there’s nothing here – this Council wasn’t in any way involved with that and the Job Study hasn’t really been involved with that as well, and I think if we’re going to look at a proposal like that, those two entities definitely need to be involved and some way or another taking a look at what that’s going

1030-3410	Printing	4,000.00	4,000.00
1030-4220	Office Machines	500.00	500.00
Total		4,500.00	4,500.00

1051-3051	Lodging of Inmates	136,500.00	136,500.00
Total		136,500.00	136,500.00

1240-3550	Repairs to Bldg & Grounds	20,000.00	20,000.00
Total		20,000.00	20,000.00

1302-4230	Motor Vehicles	24,800.00	0.00
Total		24,800.00	0.00

1370-3941	Guardian Ad-Litem	10,000.00	10,000.00
Total		10,000.00	10,000.00

2010-1850	Union Overtime	30,000.00
2010-2230	Garage & Motor	32,000.00
Total		62,000.00

2620-1270-2620	Probation Officer	2,090.00	2,090.00
2620-1900	FICA	160.00	160.00
2620-1910	PERF	122.00	122.00
Total		2,372.00	2,372.00

1240-1110-1240	Executive Director	30,500.00	30,500.00
Total		30,500.00	30,500.00

From: 1020-1170-1020	Bookkeeping/Insure- Retirement	7,860.00	7,860.00
To: 1020-1210-1020	Transfer Supervisor	5,110.00	5,110.00
1020-1260-1020	Tax Mapping Super.	1,575.00	1,575.00
1020-1300-1020	Transfer Clerk	1,175.00	1,175.00