The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 16^th day of August, 2011 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. by County Council President Joe Kiefer with all Councilmembers present.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Terry	X
Councilmember Bassemier	X
Councilmember Shetler	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Lloyd	X
President Kiefer	X

President Kiefer: I would like to call the meeting to order. This is our annual Vanderburgh County Council budget hearing, so I would like to open the meeting and ask Donna Leader if she will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

President Kiefer: Thank you very much. Before we get started, I would just like to make a brief comment. We're all aware that this is going to be another tough year, 2012, to do the budget. You know, the economy and everything the way it is, we have to be cognitive that we have to keep our numbers as tight as possible. We are restricted by how much we can increase property taxes with property tax caps and so, you know, as we go through this we are going to be looking for opportunities to reduce costs as much as possible. I would like to turn this over to Councilman Jim Raben, the Finance Chair, so we can start reviewing individual departments.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you, Joe. Joe, before we start I would like to turn the mic over to the Auditor just to give us a short briefing of where we’re at.

Joe Gries: I just had a couple of points of interest that might provide a picture of where we are today comparative to the last few years. Most of you, I'm sure you are aware of these things. The property tax caps, as you mentioned, Joe, affects us each year now. The total amount of tax caps that we will see this year are over 8 million dollars. The county will not receive about 2 million dollars of that 8 million because of tax caps. That's money that we do not collect from property taxpayers for this year. Another part of this, a couple of things, our miscellaneous revenue, our COIT, County Option Income Tax, and our interest on investments over the last few years, we have seen a drop in our interest on investments. In 2007 we had received nearly 4 million dollars. Last year we received only about $300,000, so that's a pretty good drop over the last three years. It has totaled probably around 9 million dollars that we have not received on interest on investments. The COIT, last year we received about 12.2 million for the County General Fund and this year we are closer to 10 million. So these are several things that show us overall the type of revenue that we're not receiving comparatively to years past. That's just some information that, I'm sure, most of you were, like I said, aware of but I wanted to reiterate and provide that.

Councilmember Goebel: Mr. Gries, thanks for that information. Is there a way you could prepare a little Excel or some type of spreadsheet to give comparisons from the past to what we expect to have?

Councilmember Raben: Alright, thank you, Joe. Alright, first on the agenda today, account 1030, County Treasurer, page 10. Good morning.

Rick Davis: Yeah. I'll give you a moment to find your places while I get ready. Most of the budget for the County Treasurer's office resembles what was submitted last year and adheres to your request to keep values at 2011 levels. The most notable increase occurs in the Bank Service Charge line item, which is 1030-3999. As you know, the state asked us to begin carrying a true cost of government measure after figures were submitted for budget hearings during last year. Currently, our budget is set at $55,000 and this is for a bank service charge basically for the county's checking account. We feel it should be sufficient for the remainder of 2011 and 2012. Our average monthly costs are $3,766.94 for our cash book and that calculates out to be $45,203.28 annually. This is below the requested amount, but we need a little cushion in case FDIC rates increase. We are earning interest off of that bank account however. If you'll remember, I asked that we receive a minimum of one quarter of one percent because the first two years I was in office we didn't earn a penny off of that account under an agreement from the previous Treasurer. Due to the quarter percent we have brought in $28,900.23 in interest, so we are actually making money off of that account even though we are paying more for it now. It has been a big help. Line items 1030-2600, Office Supplies, and 1030-2700, Other Supplies, have been consolidated into one line item. It is now simply Supplies which is 2600 with the $8,000 funding representing the collective total of those two that were merged together. We have zeroed out our Legal Services line item from $3,000 before due to inactivity in the account. Since 2009 the Treasurer's Office has spent less than $100 in legal fees and decided that we don't need to use it any more especially in these times. I feel Mr. Ahlers and obviously the Commissioner attorney, Ted Ziemer, do a fine outstanding job. If we need legal services, we can always go to them for representation. We did request to reallocate $1,000 of this line item to another line item for Fees, 1030-2840. Another distinct difference in the Treasurer's budget occurs in a line item for Fees, which I just mentioned. As was mentioned earlier the office zeroed out Legal Services after moving $1,000 in the Fees item. This line item has been traditionally utilized in paying copy fees to Xerox and Pacer, which is our electronic court records for bankruptcies. Xerox fees have grown each year and because of the original amount, which was $500, hasn't covered our annual costs, we decided to move this amount to help cover that amount. Joe mentioned something about the revenues and I think it was very important to note a two year Treasury right now is trading at .19, not 1.9 percent or 19 percent, .19 for a two year Treasury. A ten year Treasury investment is 2.29 today. To put that in perspective, our office had an eight day investment that had a more than three percent interest rate about three or four years ago, so an eight day investment yielded over a three percent interest rate, now there is a ten year Treasury at 2.29. That really puts into perspective the investment climate that we are facing. We have had two CDs mature this year at $103,000 in interest which is pretty outstanding when you look at the rates that we are getting. Our Trust Indiana account has brought in $52,250 to date and our Morgan Stanley Smith Barney agency securities, which the County Commissioners let us...agreed to do about a year and a half ago, have brought in $45,000. The Morgan Stanley investments are averaging about .75 percent interest. Our CDs averaged about 1.5 percent, the ones that matured. Then I mentioned our bank account, the interest it has brought in. So far we've got roughly $230,000 in interest income for this year. Next year some of the investments we made with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney will mature. That will bring in roughly $85,000 in investments we have already made. That's not counting any investments we're going to make through the rest of the year. Our Trust in Indiana account should bring in around $100,000. We have some CDs out that will bring in around 50. I, last year and this year both, gave you a revenue forecast of about $250,000 which is right on the money with where we are right here. It's not like I was trying to pull the wool over your eyes and tell you the economic outlook was rosy and we were going to be bringing in a lot of money in the Treasurer's Office. It's a very trying economic time out there. I wish I could wave a magic wand over our investments and get a higher interest rate, but right now banks...the reason why our interest rates are so low, banks are sitting on mounds of money right now. They are either unable to lend it out due to tighter lending restrictions or business is not expanding so they are not borrowing money. People are not borrowing money and right now there is a premium on safety so that is why our checking account went up last year and this year is because there is a premium on safety, and our investments are very safe. We have our checking account with Old National Bank, which is one of the best banks in the country. So, there is more of a premium on safety right now rather than on earning interest...or earning income from interest. I would be glad to answer any questions you guys may have.

President Kiefer: Rick, I have a question, back to that bank service charge. Is that with multiple banks you’re working with? That’s a cumulation of all the banks?

Rick Davis: That’s just our Old National Bank account. It’s basically the checking account for the county. Pardon me. All the employees, we get a paycheck every two weeks or some of them get a weekly paycheck, that is written right out of this account. Whenever someone pays their property tax payment and we deposit in the bank, that’s that account, etc. It’s one account.

Councilmember Goebel: Just along those lines, I think that’s a very good move on your part as far as getting that account to become interest bearing. However, as you mention the interest rates that are being paid on our other investments, obviously, have dropped tremendously, so I think what has happened in the past you cannot do so you’ve been innovative, but I don’t think past measures were out of line either.

Councilmember Goebel: When our investments paid better. As far as your rationale, you had a little bit in here for pay raises, but that has been moved back for certain positions, is that correct?

Rick Davis: All the pay raises that we have are step increases that are mandatory.

Rick Davis: I do want to note one thing. My Chief Deputy will make $48,500 this year. That’s Zachary Heronemus who is standing over my right shoulder. With this step increase he will have an employee that is being supervised by him that is going to be making roughly $3,200 more per year. So I think there...I just want to let you know I think there is something fundamentally wrong with a supervisor making less money than an employee. I understand why, because we have put a hold on pay raises, however the step raises continue and we now have an issue where we have a longstanding employee who is very deserving of this money, I’m not saying she is not, but there is an issue here where we have a supervisor making less money than the employee they are supervising. I wanted to make you aware of that.

Councilmember Lloyd: This is not necessarily budget, but I know we had according to the schedule, $4 million in CDs with Integra bank.

Rick Davis: No, actually we had two CDs with them and those CDs earned $103,019.57 in interest. One of them was matured 19 days early when Old National Bank took it over. It was a very lengthy CD that was purchased a long time ago, but it matured only 19 days early. The second one matured about 146 days early and we made $71,447.83 from that CD. Not only did we have FDIC insurance on those two CDs with Integra, but we also had Public Deposit Insurance Fund which is 300 million dollars. Integra Bank came to the county, met with the Auditor, Joe Gries and I, and explained that of the 4 million dollars there was 5 million dollars in collateral backing the 4 million. This was early January or February. The CDs were purchased a long time ago when Integra was still able to take public deposits. They were weaned off, we basically as a county...I have a figure here. Over the past 12 years the county made 9.3 million dollars off of Integra CDs. At one point in 2003 we made 209 investments with Integra Bank compared to only five in the last two years. I felt, you know, the old saying “a penny saved is a penny earned”, well I feel the same way in this climate that a job saved is a job earned. We tried to wean ourselves off of Integra investments while not putting a nail in their coffin so that another bank like Old National Bank could acquire their deposits without causing any havoc or causing a run on the bank by, you know, publically withdrawing these funds. It was a very difficult tightrope I felt we were walking, but we were very responsible to the county taxpayers. Their money was sound and safe and actually made over $100,000 in interest. In this economy I think that’s pretty phenomenal.

Councilmember Lloyd: So mechanically, did those mature or did they become Old National?

Rick Davis: Then Old National offered us .1 to continue out. Now, obviously, because we’re earning .25 in our Old National Bank checking account we are better off putting those investments, and I’ve done the math on that as well. When you add in for the remainder of the original investment, the .25 minus the 1 ½ they were making we made another $3,100 in interest. So, again, I think we’ve done a really good job in diversifying our investments since I came in. We started with Trust Indiana which the previous administration didn’t have. Again, they didn’t need it because it was a different investment economy back...or investment climate. We’ve also gone to Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and we’ve also insured that our checking account is earning at least a quarter of a percent which was not happening before. So I think we’ve done a very responsible job diversifying our investments and making sure they are safe as well.

Councilmember Lloyd: So the report, the investment report, Integra is not going to be on there any more?

Rick Davis: They will be for the rest of the year, but from now on they will not.

Rick Davis: There will be with Old National Bank. One more thing, the reason why Old National only is offering us .1, which is ten basis points as they say on the street, is because they are flush with money. They don’t need our money. When the economy was roaring and people were borrowing money and businesses were expanding and they were adding payroll, whenever I would call them up and ask would you like a 3 million dollar CD for six months, they would give us a good interest rate because they were competing with the other banks for that money in order to continue loaning their money out. Right now people simply aren’t borrowing money and these banks are sitting on a mound of money, and they do not...as they say, they are flush with money. They do not need our money in order to conduct their business.

Councilmember Shetler: Just on the investment side of it, do you...and you said the checking account, but do you have all the cash accounts set up on some kind of a sweep where they come in every night and sweep those accounts and then you’re paid interest overnight on those accounts?

Rick Davis: Would you like to come up here? This is Candy Nance, she is our bookkeeper, First Deputy.

Candy Nance: When it was the sweep account the last two years we did not earn any interest on it from the sweep. Now that he has put the .25 we are, but it is pulled out every night and put back in, but we are not benefitting from it at all.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you. Thank you, Rick. We’ll move on to Weights & Measures.

Councilmember Raben: I need to remind everybody that we’ve got a lengthy agenda today.

President Kiefer: Mr. Chairman, I think Weights & Measures we did at the City/County budget hearings.

President Kiefer: Yeah, Susie, a couple of things to note. It does look like things look good on your...you know, I noticed several reductions in pay because with that new implementation when we replace somebody that has retired or quit, you know, they come in at a lower wage, so that helps us a little bit.

President Kiefer: Yeah, but anyway, that has helped out quite a bit to the bottom line. Was the Personal Services 2600, no, no, yeah, Supplies, not Personal Services, I mean Supplies, that jumped from $55,000 to $75,000. Was that partly to do with the vote centers?

Susan Kirk: The Clerk’s budget is strictly that. Well, because things are going up except paychecks. Supply costs are going up and so we have to have more money to pay for them. We’re not really ordering any more supplies than what we have in the past, but you know you take all the shucks that are printed for every case, the certified mail, all these things are going up in price so that’s why that is a little bit more.

Susan Kirk: I mean, we get bids. We try to get, you know, as cheap as we can, but this is things that we have to have for the court. So, you know, if you want to make that a little bit less, and we need to come back for some more, I would be willing to do that. Like I said, when we need it we’ve got to have it.

President Kiefer: Okay. Then, I guess, the other big question, the big change was on Record Storage.

Susan Kirk: Yes, every year for the last probably two or three years I have asked for $140,000. You usually give $100,000 and then we have to come back and get more. I don’t think that this is really going to get us through next year, but because of our employee staff being cut we’ve had to cut services and things that aren’t required by law, one of which is the retention schedule, so we don’t have time any more to keep up with that. That takes quite a bit of time to actually keep up with all that, so we will not be destroying any more records which means we will be paying more to store the records. Because we got, what, last year we had like 65,000 new cases, and we’ll probably get that again this year, but we won’t be getting rid of anything so that cost is going to go up because we just don’t have time to do the retention schedule any more.

Councilmember Raben: Susie, I know it has been bounced around these chambers quite a few times, but the thought of some day moving the records storage into the empty space of the old jail. This might be an opportune time to get cost estimates on actually relocating those and was wondering if you would mind coordinating that with possibly David Rector.

Susan Kirk: Well, I have tried to coordinate that for two or three years now and have gotten nowhere. You have to remember too now, Kinder, Retrieve X, Kinder does storage. Now Retrieve X, which is part of the Kinder thing, they bought them out, they do our scanning and our microfilming too, so when you start...I don’t mind moving files down here that are already scanned, done, but if we start putting it here then we are going to be paying...it’s not going to behoove us to have Retrieve X come get the files, scan them, bring them back and stuff like that. So there is...we could probably move a lot into the old jail, but every time I talk to Mr. Rector he says he cannot get any answer from whomever he goes to to actually implement anyone moving into the jail. And then at one time they were going to try to rent things out to private entities to make, you know, to get rent off of the jail. So, you know, actually I haven’t even asked this year because I was asking for the last two prior years and I get nowhere.

Councilmember Bassemier: Susie, that would go through the Commissioner’s office, so you’ve been working with the Commissioner’s office?

Susan Kirk: Yes, I did, like I said, two years ago I worked actively for two years trying to get...I wanted the Election office moved so that we could have more room there and be able to store at least a few more years here in the building rather than having, you know, to have files back and forth. Somehow they are not coming to an agreement as to what to use the old jail for, plus, obviously, they would have to renovate something over there apparently, according to Mr. Rector, which I’m not sure what all that is, but that would cost money to do that. Like I said, I finally gave up this year. I guess somebody will let me know if there is any room available for us to do that.

Councilmember Bassemier: Well, I hate to see you give up. I know they was working on something. Politics, of course, has changed now, so I hate to see you give up on that.

Susan Kirk: Oh, I’m not giving up, I just am waiting to hear. My request has been given numerous times and I don’t know exactly where they are in the process of trying to decide. You know, like I said, sometimes they want to rent that out to private entities and then sometimes it’s like, well, yeah maybe we’ll...plus we’ve got the school building here. Aren’t we going to get that, too?

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. Kiefer, if it’s okay with you I would like to work with Mr. Rector. I have been to some meetings in the past under the other administration, so if it’s okay I would like to work with that and see what we can do on that record storage.

Councilmember Bassemier: I agree with you. Something needs to be done with the old jail.

Councilmember Bassemier: I mean, we pay over half a million dollars every year on rent and we do need to do something with the old county jail.

Councilmember Goebel: Susie, if we do move some of the storage to the old jail would you still be utilizing the other service as well for scanning and that and they would hold them for a while and then bring it back here or?

Susan Kirk: Well, number one, I think you really need to go out there and see how many files there are.

Susan Kirk: You couldn’t get them all in the basement down here. So that’s one thing. It would be our newer files. Now we are trying to go back and get as many older files scanned as we can to keep us, you know, from having to go back and forth and get records. Retrieve X has been really good in working with us trying to, you know, we’re trying to save as much as we can. Trying to get things done, but some of the old stuff, really old stuff could go, plus once it is scanned come back say the last...if we could keep, maybe the last six or seven years in the old jail plus old stuff that we have to keep forever that nobody really gets into, if we could keep those in there and then that medium range could be at Kinder Moving & Storage, that would be great.

Susan Kirk: No. No, by the state they have to be...everything has to be approved and all this kind of stuff and they are not going to move their equipment. This isn’t something you pick up and move from site to site. But they are state approved to be able to do our scanning and microfilming.

Susan Kirk: And by the way, they have not raised their prices in the last, what, seven years. That’s pretty daggone good.

Councilmember Raben: But we could, if I understand you correctly, we could control future square footage that we are picking up as we add more records, we could control some of that by pulling the old out and storing them in this facility and just keeping --

Susan Kirk: We could. Of course the ideal thing is to get rid of them and, you know, destroy them so you don’t have them anywhere taking up space, but like I said, we don’t have time to do that any more.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. Well, Ed, thank you for volunteering to work with Susie and the Commissioners on that task. Councilman Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Two points about that. First, when the storage...when a file box goes into the storage couldn’t it not be marked that basically that it’s to be destroyed after five years from a given date so that it is automatically pulled?

Susan Kirk: Not necessarily. Most records, and a lot of it depends on when the case is closed, so we don’t file records by when we think that we can have them destroyed. Every one of these cases are bar coded, so we can...and that’s what our staff does. They go back through those bar codes and they have to run reports. Which one is closed and of course, you’ve got to keep them even if it is closed depending on the case. Some are ten years, some are forever, so it just depends by law the retention schedule that the state has. There would be no way to file them...that would be a confusing mess to file by when you think it might be destroyed. That wouldn’t work.

Councilmember Shetler: Well usually there is like a...when something goes in and then you put, you know, some things have like a five year, a seven year or ten year, whatever the life might be of it, and then those are filed, you know, by however your method is by alpha or chronology or whatever you are using there on your system, but then it is marked to be pulled five years hence or whatever it might be. And then if something comes up, and that’s for the majority or for the bulk of everything, but if something comes up with a particular file or case that could be pulled and that would be the exception to the rule. Those particular files could be noted to the storage provider so that they are able to make note not to destroy that file on that given date. I would think that would eliminate a lot of the work and time that you are talking about, and perhaps someone could be able to get a handle on getting those things destroyed in a timely fashion, then.

Susan Kirk: Well, you see, that’s what we were doing, but we don’t have time to do that any more. In other words, they go out in a box, the cases do, okay? They are bar coded. The cases that we can’t...that have been closed and they meet the requirement of the ten year period or the fifteen year or twenty, yeah, we would get that out, pull it and get that ready for destruction, but we don’t have time to do that any more. If you want to pay Retrieve X or Kinder to do that then you are going to pay more than what...it’s not going to be any cost savings to you. Like I say, we’ve worked, believe me, trying to get that retention schedule down to where it’s doable. It’s a nightmare.

Councilmember Lloyd: When you look at the reductions in the personnel you’ve got a request to increase Extra Help, which I think is logical considering what we are looking at. Overall, your budget is only an increase of $21,000 which is less than one percent, so I mean that’s–

Susan Kirk: Well, like I said, I don’t know why some don’t understand this concept, but by reducing the staff of which you’re paying $21,000 to hire a new person, you know, the late fees that we used to collect, you know, we’re talking $100,000 a year and, of course, now it’s going to cost us more money to store records, I really don’t understand the concept of not hiring people when you would make money off of it, but that’s just my opinion. So, anyway, sorry. Next.

Councilmember Raben: Well, Susie, in fairness there you and I have discussed that now a couple of times now in the last three months. I have asked you to come back in and request an employee with the hope of collecting those fees once again. And we may not be able to spend one hundred percent of this person’s time, but if we can collect seventy percent of what we used to collect, you are exactly right, we need to replace that person. So, again, with that in mind, you need to come back in and request it.

Susan Kirk: Well, I will be coming back because I’ve got three getting ready to go, so I will be coming back and I’ll throw that one in, too. I’ll be coming back in soon probably before they actually leave because we can’t...I’ll need to replace those positions, like the day they leave, I need to be able to replace them.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, one last question. Contractual Services went up $5,000. It looks like it was $15,000 last year. The request is for $20,000 this year.

Susan Kirk: Yes, let’s see, Contractual Services. Where are you at? Which line item are you on?

Susan Kirk: Okay, well I’ve got maintenance contract down for that one 3530. That is maintenance on the printers, you know, copying machines and those types of things. Or copy machines, I’m sorry, not printers. Copy machines. We actually did...we should end up saving money though because our office did, you know, they did that where they came around and decided about the copy machines and all that kind of stuff, we just started that. So in the long run we should be saving some money off of that actually. Not the maintenance, but just paper and stuff like that, we should be saving quite a bit of money. I forget how they...you can talk to the IT guys about what the savings is from taking away all the printers and just having the copy machine that can also print, scan. We did all that so we are up-to-date with that one, so in the long run we will save money on that.

Councilmember Lloyd: Which position is that, is that the Appeals & Venue Clerk, that would solicit the fees?

Councilmember Lloyd: Alright, so that position actually bills fees and can pull in up to $100,000 in fees?

Susan Kirk: Well, it really wouldn’t be that particular position, it’s just that because we’re short of staff members other people have had to pick up other duties, and like I said, we’re down to not be able to do the retention schedule. Things that are not required by law, we’re down to that. We actually have my administrative secretary and her assistant supervisor, they are the ones that take care, normally, would take care of the retention schedule, but they have picked up other duties because of the shortage of staff.

Councilmember Goebel: Susie, that position you had requested earlier, that is shared with Circuit Court, is that correct?

Councilmember Goebel: That’s what, I think when we balked at the beginning, is we had hoped maybe the Circuit Court could pick up that salary or even pick up the position and that didn’t happen, but that was the last we heard officially from you on it.

Susan Kirk: Well, we had a meeting with Judge Heldt and he explained to Councilman Raben how we were...it’s getting down to the emergency situation with all the work and stuff like that. They don’t really have time to do it, plus that’s not their job, so anyway, but we’ve had to switch because we can’t obviously not show up in court, so duties we just keep mixing things up and like I said having to do away with certain things that we used to do before.

Councilmember Goebel: If that particular position is a revenue generating position I think there is no doubt we would be open to that.

Susan Kirk: That position is not the one that is going to generate the money. What has happened, because the person who used to do, well, actually I have lost two full time employees, but the person who used to actually help with some of the retention schedule and stuff, that position is gone. Okay. Now because you didn’t fill another one and that person has to go to court probably a minimum of half a day, people that used to do these items that used to generate some money can no longer do them because now they have to do filing or they have to enter in cases, do the calendar, so they are having to do other things that normally they would have been spending on items like that, that we can’t any more. Now Judge Niemeier has been really good about, because we lost the employee that also went down to juvenile, and he has been really good about trying to help out and stuff like that because of the loss of that spot.

Councilmember Shetler: Would you be open to an efficiency study or a work study of the office to see if some savings couldn’t be had in some realignment of employees within the office, and might be able to do more with less?

Susan Kirk: Well, I’m sorry, okay, this has been brought up numerous times and I’m really sorry that you do not trust my judgement in my staff to be able to run an office efficiently. We’ve saved quite a bit of money here there and yonder, especially in the Election Office, but if you feel like that my staff and I aren’t smart enough to figure this stuff out, you guys spend your $300,000 or $400,000 to come in and tell us what to do, which I think is a total waste of money.

Councilmember Shetler: I don’t think it’s a matter of determining whether or not you’re smart enough to do it, just like in my own position, I appreciate it when other people can look over my shoulder and tell that, hey, Tom, a different set of eyes are looking at something and we think you could do this here or there, and once I start thinking that I’m a little bit too good for that or too smart for that, that’s when I usually end up losing money or in trouble.

Susan Kirk: Well, the thing of it is, I don’t feel like I’m that brilliant or anything, but I have a great staff. We have made changes over the years because of the increases in cases. They have done a wonderful job and I don’t think you’re going to find anybody from any company that’s going to be able to tell you how to do it any better than my staff does. They are the backbone. Not for one minute do I think I’m the smartest one over there, not even close to it. They do a great job, but if you all want to pay that extra money that we don’t have, so be it.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, let’s move on to IV-D, page six. Looks like there are two increases, Office Machines. That’s really, yeah, just one increase.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, yeah. 4220 Office Machines is up just roughly $7,000. Are you looking at buying something new?

Susan Kirk: Yes, our Child Support department, according to the state, has to have certain upgrades so that’s why that has gone up just a little bit. We have a little machine now that actually counts the money, but the most important thing it does is it finds bills that are not...you know, counterfeit money. You would be amazed at how much of that we get. So before somebody leaves we can say, no, you can take this back, so that is actually going to save us some money because we can do it now while that person is there. Always before we would have to eat that cost. They leave and it’s like, well, we didn’t know who gave us that money but now we know. Before you walk out the door if you’ve gotten any counterfeit money we give it back to you and you’ve got to bring us the real, you know, bring us the real stuff. So thank goodness, that has helped quite a bit.

Councilmember Raben: I would hope there is a second step to that. I hope they don’t get to just walk out with it.

Susan Kirk: Well, they take their...well, it depends. Sometimes you pretty well know, but let’s put it this way, if there is not a sheriff...in other words, we’re not taking it, okay. We used to eat that. Oh my gosh, that was several thousand dollars a year. The money that we take in, the cash money, and we don’t do that any more. We’re using that for several different things now actually, not just for child support.

Councilmember Raben: But I guess my question is, do we take it one step further? Is there a policy in place that–

Councilmember Raben: Yeah. But the person can actually leave this building with that counterfeit bill?

Susan Kirk: No. No, when the person comes in and they actually have it, we catch them right then and there. We call the police department and a detective comes up. In other words, we’re not taking it. They take it away, meaning the sheriff’s department or the police department or whatever.

Susan Kirk: Now I gave you the new budget and the only thing that I made an error on was in line item 3600 for the rent of the polling places. I failed to remember to put in the early vote sites. By statute we have to have, one of the vote centers has to be open the two Saturdays before the election. So I didn’t put that few hundred bucks back in there, so that raised up to $5,200 for the year, so that’s the only change in the last one I handed out when I came before Council. Otherwise it’s the same thing. So as you can see, we’re saving basically $81,000.

Susan Kirk: Yes, I think it was $4,800 before. Like I said, I forgot the early vote centers. We’ve got to have those open.

Susan Kirk: What budget are you looking at? Are you looking at the new one with the vote centers or the old one with the–

Susan Kirk: My last Council meeting, Emma handed out to all of you the new budget and at the bottom it says savings $81,620.

Susan Kirk: Well, you’re...that was the one that was submitted back before I got the vote centers up and approved.

Susan Kirk: Like I said, Emma, when we had the last meeting she handed out to everyone the new budget that we’re saving $81,000 off of. Does your budget at the bottom of the page say savings $81,000 at the bottom?

Susan Kirk: Yeah, this was, like I said, when we did the budgets, the vote centers were not...that was just the beginning so I had to submit my budget as to what it would be if we had the old way of voting. But as we went along, of course, now that we’ve got this savings I handed...Emma did, my granddaughter, handed out to each one of you. There was a map of the polling places or vote centers, a list of them, and then there was this budget that was attached, too. The new budget, that’s a lot less. Eighty-one thousand dollars less than the original one I submitted.

President Kiefer: And then, Susie, obviously since it’s a city election year, we get reimbursed from the city?

Susan Kirk: Well, now we’re going to save a little bit of money on this city election, but as I said the last two months when I was here before Council, we have to have new batteries for all the iVotronics, so that is $40,000. So I’m probably going to be moving and transferring some money to take care of that bill. They’ve, well, they’ve had the equipment since 2004 so they feel like if they don’t...and these aren’t...it isn’t a matter of sticking a battery in. These batteries have got to be taken out, welded back in. I like the old punch card better. The only thing electric about it was the lightbulb. But, anyway, we have to have that done, so but we will have a little bit of a savings because we are implementing the vote centers for this fall election, but that money is going to be eaten up pretty daggone quick with maybe, you know I don’t know if I can transfer and actually take care of that $40,000 or not. But next year you’ll see the real savings start.

Eric Williams: Good morning, Sheriff Eric Williams. In respect of your request to be brief, I won’t say anything unless you ask me something. I’m sure there are a few questions. I would start off just by saying there is one item in there, there is a rationale statement. The line item is for a Deputy Sheriff, 1050-115 new deputy for the new North High School. Based on a conversation I had with my liaison, Councilman Raben, and the president this morning, you can go ahead and take that out. I think we have a plan B that will be much more palatable.

Eric Williams: Well, we’re off to a great start. It’s a well designed facility. Everybody seems to be acclimating very well. We’ve had a lot of resources out there to get everybody acquainted to the traffic patterns. So far we have not had any significant issues. Now January will be another story when we add the high school driving population to it and that additional influx of students, but so far, so good.

Eric Williams: Yeah, the only stoplight that affects that facility is the Baseline and 41 stoplight. There is an off ramp off of 41 to go straight into it, but it’s an entrance only ramp and it’s off of 41 for northbound traffic. The primary entrance and exit for that facility is the road that comes off of Baseline. In the future they hope to have an exit ready off of Peck Road which would then dump them out onto Old State. When the high school drivers are there that is when the real test is going to come, we’re going to find out, but so far, so good. We’ve not had any incidents out there and everybody appears to be acclimating to that new campus very well. Since you’re starving for questions I’ll also mention in there that I have included in there our vehicle equipment and new vehicles in both the jail budget and in the sheriff budget. The vehicles on the sheriff’s budgets are the same amounts pretty much that we put in every year that we also ask the Commissioners in CCD. I just always put them in both places to make sure they end up in one or the other if we are going to get them. There is an increase in equipment cost this year because we are no longer going to be able to what we call cannibalize our existing fleet because Ford is no longer going to be producing the Crown Vic, which has been our flagship vehicle for some time. Whatever vehicle we end up going to next year is going to require new cages, new interior equipment that we are not going to be able to take out of the cars that we are taking out of service and moving them over. In the jail side of it there is a request and that is for a new jail transport vehicle, a mid sized bus type vehicle to use both over the road and to and from courts to allow us a little more versatility. There are many days when we’re running multiple vans simultaneously which is obviously not that efficient. It’s a little bit more security concern and it is manpower intensive. Yes, sir.

Councilmember Bassemier: I know you have a lot of overcrowding issues, with the wear and tear and everything, is there any major issues that might come up as far as expenses from the jail in the future?

Eric Williams: Right now the Building Authority is working real well with us on preventive maintenance type issues within the facility, so that may not be a big issue right now in the near foreseeable future. The expenses really come from the crowding related to the jail medical costs, housing costs, transportation costs, and all the other extra costs that come with just having bodies inside that facility. We have been crowded. I know it has been an article or it has been a point of news for the newspaper of recent. We did break our record a few weeks ago on our census time. We take census at midnight to report for the day which is generally our lowest point in the day and we hit 606 in custody that day. So we do know in our budget and we’ve communicated that with the Auditor’s Office, we will be back yet this year for increases or additional funding in Jail Medical, Jail Food and I believe Utilities is the other one.

Councilmember Bassemier: Sheriff, how many deputies do you have in college, that’s going to college right now?

Eric Williams: I would say that currently enrolled in school I don’t know that there are very many. The majority of the ones that we are hiring now come with their college degrees in pocket and we’ve had several go back and get their college degrees. We obviously stress continuing education not only in the field, but in other areas, but I couldn’t give you even an estimate of how many are actively pursuing enhanced degrees right now.

Eric Williams: That’s alright. It’s a good question. I’ll add that to my list.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Eric, when you look at this budget, you know when you take the vehicles and the equipment out this budget is–

Eric Williams: It’s basically the same budget. There are some changes that we’ve been working out with the Auditor’s Office apparently shifting a few line items and combining some things together, but in the end result, the total is about the same.

Councilmember Raben: As we look at the....is everyone finished with the Sheriff’s Office?

Councilmember Lloyd: And I know, I think Council, we like to see, on page 20, the Overtime, we like to see that $300,000 number for some reason, but it looks like history wise and this year that’s not going to be achieved. I just wondered, that $300,000 probably is not realistic or is there ways to try to reduce the overtime?

Eric Williams: You know, and that’s one of those that I would welcome anybody to sit down with us that looks at managing people differently. We think we’re doing a really good job staying on top of overtime. The vast majority of our overtime is generated from holiday pay and keeping the road staffed on those days. That’s the bulk of it. But, again, we have no control over our court appearances and when those are scheduled and late runs and those things, but we stagger shifts and do all kinds of creative things trying to limit the opportunities to get that overtime. But are we doing it perfectly? By no stretch of the imagination, but I do think we’re doing a very good job of it and are constantly monitoring that. I harp on it quite a bit and I know they get tired of hearing me talk about it.

Councilmember Lloyd: You know, it just seems like we have weather events, I mean, that would cause overtime. As of June 30th you had $224,000, so I mean are we going to continue at that pace or are you going to be able to slow that down?

Eric Williams: I think it will trim itself off. There should be some returns coming. Some of that was related to like the marathon and some of those events and that will get put back into it. But, you know, there is no way to really predict it. Obviously the holiday pay is about the only thing that we can predict and know exactly where that is going to take us, but again with weather events....in all honesty, the weather events are fairly short term occurrences and don’t really generate that much overtime. It is the day to day court appearances, trials and late runs that generate the bulk of the non-holiday type overtime.

Councilmember Shetler: Is there any incentive grants that we get for...I know that they have a big push around the 4th of July and Memorial Day as far as drunk drivers and all that kind of stuff. Do we get some incentive grants from any of that? I’m trying to think of the back side, the income side.

Eric Williams: I will go on and air this in this room. This has been one of my complaints about the way our system, not just us, but the state and federal government does granting. There are grants available and we participate in some of those, but they are always on the front end. They are all enforcement based grants, more equipment, more people on the street to arrest more people, more overtime, but there are never dollars to follow those to take care of what work is generated from those grants. In other words, there is not follow up money to pay for the inmates that we arrested during those grants. There is not money to go to the Clerk’s office for the increased tickets that we write. There is not money to go to the Prosecutor for the increased prosecution load that they get, so that is why some of those grants are double edge swords. They’re great, we can put more people on the street and provide more enforcement, but there is no support for the back side of that and that is one of the frustrations that I have expressed to our legislators on different times that when we’re establishing these grants, we need to look at the impact on the system as a whole when we’re dolling out the money to put boots on the street. You know, everybody wants to see more policemen on the streets. I do too. I like to see the enforcement, but that generates more work for everybody else in the system that there is no compensation for.

Eric Williams: 26,000 right now today. I knew you were going to ask me, see I had that one on my radar.

Eric Williams: Spending it. You, basically, when you look at what the county provides, $100,000 from the General Fund for jail, the vast majority of the commissary dollars go for....Sandie looked at me like I was...the $100,000 in the General Fund budget for jail stuff, which is clothing, bedding, washing materials, supplies and all those kinds of things. It’s a pretty small number for a jail the size that we run. So the vast majority of commissary dollars go towards bedding, supplies for the inmates clothing, training, equipment. A lot of the other things that we’re running a fairly tight balance in there, because I am not coming back here asking for General Fund dollars to do those things. You get my six month report so you can see everything that goes into that.

Eric Williams: Well, thank you, I appreciate it. I’m proud of how we spend the commissary dollars.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, back to jail. The request, as you were stating earlier, for the new van or bus, we’ll probably want to move that to CCD. We’ll need to coordinate that as well with the Commissioners.

Eric Williams: I always offer it up in both places and figure you guys will figure where it comes out best.

Councilmember Raben: Again, just like the general share budget, that budget is relatively flat outside of PERF increases and FICA and what have you.

Councilmember Raben: Do we want to move on to Misdemeanor Housing, page 121? This is pretty much the same thing. You’re going to find that the Insurance in itself along with the PERF make up the increase here. Everything else is flat. Does anyone have any questions on this budget?

Eric Williams: I would just mention in communications with the Auditor’s Office, I believe next year that they indicated that this year would not be a good year to do that, but truly the Misdemeanor, the 2780 account and the 2760 account are really just a separation of funds that we get from the state under a formula that has been in place for the last 15 years. That separation occurred back before Community Corrections was part of the Sheriff’s Office and probably next year at budget time we will roll those together into one line item. We’ll make it more flexible for use with personnel and to also be able to adjust to some increasing costs for insurance and salaries for a little bit longer period of time before that one runs out. Just so you know. Is that accurate?

Joe Gries: Sheriff, right now I believe those changes are due to the requirements by the State Board of Accounts and our chart of accounts. Those are state mandated changes.

Eric Williams: I just know that you guys suggested we do it, so it sounded like a good plan.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next we’ll move to page 71, Community Corrections. Well, actually 69 is where it begins. We have basically the same thing. Sheriff, I don’t believe there was any increases in this budget whatsoever outside of Insurance and PERF. Next we’ll move to page...well, that’s it. That’s it for you. Anyone have any other questions of the Sheriff? If not, we’ll move on. Sheriff, thank you.

Anthony Bushrod: Good morning, Connie Carrier and Anthony Bushrod, Voter Registration.

Councilmember Raben: Supporting salary line. Does anyone have any questions with this budget?

Anthony Bushrod: Not really. I mean it just started. I mean, we do get some activity.

Councilmember Goebel: But then let’s say I register online to vote will they send you then the information from the state?

Councilmember Lloyd: Just a general question. Does the vote centers affect you guys in any way?

Anthony Bushrod: In the processing of the acknowledgment cards and things like that, we are still trying to work that out.

Councilmember Lloyd: Well, does the registration, the old registration cards would actually say where your polling place was?

Anthony Bushrod: Well, right now we haven’t switched over to the vote centers. The cards we are issuing now still have the polling places, but we are in the process of getting that input corrected.

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, so if someone registers now to vote, would it show their old polling place on there?

Councilmember Lloyd: So there is a little confusion then. They still live in a ward and precinct, but now they might not have a voting place in their precinct.

Councilmember Lloyd: Right, okay. Well, that’s when you change it that quick, you run into these things.

Councilmember Raben: Are we...is there an effort, maybe you might need to include Susie with this, but is there an effort with the electronic print media to get as much PSA as we can or as much of their available PSA as we can, to get that message out there?

Councilmember Raben: Right, but, you know, public service announcements are available, tv, radio as well as newspaper, and I hope there is somebody working that angle. You might want to look into that further.

Councilmember Shetler: The printing, you said you no longer have to do the poll books?

Councilmember Raben: Next Superior Court. The one we’ve been saving all our energy for. Good morning, Judge.

Terry Dietsch: There are a number of things that I would like to address and by doing so maybe we can cut the overall time that would be involved. First of all, I suppose by edict of the State Board of Accounts, some of our accounts were combined into one account. For example, Supplies and Other Supplies became one account and the amount remained the same. Lab Tests and Medical Expenses & Testing in the Juvenile Division were combined into one account and we cut $7,500 from that. Last year, in anticipation of the Council not appropriating any money in Office Furniture or Office Machines, we zeroed those accounts out. We should not have done that because once you do that, they don’t appear in the next year’s budget, so they have been added back in. I still don’t anticipate any funding for those, but they have been added back in. This is the last year of the YCC contract with the county. I think perhaps it actually doesn’t expire until after the first of the year because they didn’t get under way until the first of the year. I don’t know what the county is going to do in terms of a new contract, but we added three percent as we have every year during the life of the contract to be on the safe side.

Terry Dietsch: Yes 3052. In line item 1370-3994 which is the Adult Day Reporting Officer, that was part of the Drug Court portion of Superior Court. That now has been transferred to the regular budget. It’s an account that has always been paid, but it was simply transferred to the regular budget. Item 2270 we called it meals for jurors and evidentially somebody decided that it should be changed to Food. I suspect only God and the State Board of Accounts knows why, but anyway that’s been changed to Food. There are two other items that I would like to call to your attention. One is the request in CASA which is line item 3932. The state each year on a county by county basis determines an amount of money that they are willing to grant to the CASA program in a given county based on a certain formula and I take it that is not only population, but number of cases in the court, number of CHINS cases and all of that. The state indicated that for fiscal 2012 that it would grant $112,000 if the county appropriated $112,000. The second item that I would like to call to your attention is line item...well, I’m sorry. Right now I’m not certain, but it’s the new position for a Day Reporting Officer in the Juvenile Division for the drug program that is part of the juvenile division.

Terry Dietsch: Okay. The idea...well, let me go back. The drug program in Juvenile Court was established in I think 2003. It has proven successful. However, the state has now indicated that in order for that program to continue there must be a Day Reporting Officer in the Juvenile Division to continue the drug portion in that division and therefore that’s why we have asked for that position. Actually, we cut in the line items other than salary accounts $79,000 from our budget. However, the YCC costs and the CASA costs took some of that away so still on the regular line items we saved about $25,000. Our total budget request for 2012 exceeds the 2011 budget by only $11,224 and that takes into account all the step raises that are included in the budget. That’s all I want to address.

Terry Dietsch: Well, I really can’t speak to that. I’m not certain, but it does not come out of our budget, of your...of the General Fund.

Councilmember Raben: I think it’s just quietused into the General Fund every year isn’t it? The money just deposited? We’ll have an answer for that tomorrow.

Councilmember Lloyd: And you, I guess, you got the request for Juvenile, the new employee. Is there any other place where we could eliminate an employee? Make a trade?

Terry Dietsch: Not unless you want to interfere with the efficient running of the court.

Councilmember Lloyd: I just thought I would ask. But I mean, I agree that the whole Superior Court budget only increased $11,000 which is pretty...that’s .1 percent or .2 percent. Pretty low.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, and when you look at the $8,000 in furnishings that he is giving back to you this morning, it is only a $3,000 increase. That’s remarkable. We really appreciate it. Okay, any other questions on that budget?

Councilmember Terry: I have one question. Just on the YCC, you said that contract is due for review?

Terry Dietsch: This is the last year of that contract. I assumed that the Council was aware of that and I assumed that the Commissioners were aware of that.

Terry Dietsch: So that will have to be renegotiated. But to be safe, I think there is a provision in the current contract that if it is extended for some reason, then the three percent increase continues as it has every year.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next we will turn to page 116, Supplemental Adult Probation.

Carl Heldt: Good morning, Carl Heldt, Circuit Court Judge. I think our regular budget is flat except for a couple of step raises.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just a statement. So the, I mean, the overall budget is up $49,000 which is 4%, but there is no, like you mentioned, Judge, no increases other than steps and FICA and PERF.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Judge, that was pretty easy. Let’s move on to page 113.

Carl Heldt: I think there are a couple of step raises there and plus we’re asking for another $500 for fuel and another $6,000 for Contractual Drug Testing and those numbers are based upon past experiences. Those are really not items that we have a whole lot of control over and that’s just what is happening. In the grand scheme of things, not a lot of money. Of course, that’s from user fees and doesn’t have any impact on the county budget.

Councilmember Shetler: Let’s back up again on those law library books. We ask that every year, but that’s a subscription and you really don’t have much of a choice on that, is that pretty well set?

Carl Heldt: It’s actually increasing and we’re trying to find it from other sources. First of all, the Law Library Foundation which I’ve said before is a foundation that is supported mostly by the lawyers in town making voluntary contributions to it which pays for a lot of the subscriptions and we’re also trying to cut back on our expenses because quite frankly we know that you all are tight for funds and didn’t want to ask you for any more money. It’s been pretty flat, I think, at that number for a while, but we’re just having to get by with what we can do. The prices are going up, but we have to try to live with it and quite frankly cancel some subscriptions. We’re trying to wean out the ones that we use the least although they are all valuable. But we’re trying to cut back.

Councilmember Raben: You know, Judge, I know this has been asked before about this particular account and possibly shifting some of that to the supplemental side. Is that...and I don’t know how that account is working for you.

Carl Heldt: Not practical or probably legal because it’s not really...it’s hard to put it in the category of Probation Services.

Carl Heldt: But I will say that it hasn’t gone up and I can assure you that the books probably go up about ten percent a year. That’s what my law librarian tells us. So we are either cancelling subscriptions or trying to raise money some place else.

Councilmember Lloyd: On page 114, I just wondered what the Other Pay, account 1980, what that consisted of?

Karen Angermeier: Those are for, that money is for our intern programs, our part time bailiff, part time law clerk program, our court liaison intern that you just approved. That is strictly part time employees.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, any other questions? I don’t think so, Judge, thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Next we’ll move to Drug & Alcohol Deferral Services, page 79.

Deloris Koch: Deloris Koch, the DADS program. We’re not asking for any additional monies except for one step increase for one counselor. I did ask for the same amount of rent as what we have for the past couple of years because so far there is not really any change there. I would let you know that I’m still working with Mr. Campbell at the Old Courthouse and the realtor to talk to some contractors. Tomorrow I understand there will be a meeting of the Advisory Board for the Old Courthouse to discuss whether we could lease a larger space in the courthouse, but I have to wait until tomorrow. We didn’t have any contractors come in until we find out whether we can get a little bit larger space. The one I was looking at was going to keep us pretty cramped. It wouldn’t allow a lot for storage that we need quite a bit. So I am hoping that we can look at a larger space and maybe be able to do something with that, but that’s all we know as of today. So it’s flat otherwise.

Councilmember Raben: Next we’ll move on to Area Plan. We’ll skip that one. Surveyor, page 30. Is there anyone here from the Surveyor’s office? Convention Bureau. I know there is a group here. You’re next. Page 126.

Bob Warren: Good morning, Bob Warren, Executive Director of the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau. This is my first opportunity to work with the budget with the Convention & Visitors Bureau and I am excited about being here. Obviously, this is not a General Fund project, so you do have our budgets in front of you. We have made a departure from some of our previous expenses and I think you’re going to see a number of changes. One of my very first tasks upon arriving at the CVB was to look at both policies and procedures for our organization and establish a budget. So there has been some realignment in our CVB office. There have been some changes relative to tasks of the various staff of the CVB. We have had no increase in staff or no request for increase in staff, but some realignment and I think that you will see that a large section of our budget has been reallocated to advertising and promotion which we will be working very aggressively towards in the next few weeks and months. Mr. Chairman, I suppose I can, you know, whatever questions you may have, I think we can discuss whatever you would like. Our projected income for this year is $1,295,903. We have projected expenditures on the CVB side of $1,296,903. We did present what we believe is a balanced budget and would be delighted to entertain questions that this Council may have.

Councilmember Lloyd: There are a lot of increases and decreases. So you are making a lot of changes here, which your timing coming in was pretty good if you wanted to change the budget, because you have been here what, two months?

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, and part of the presentation you gave us at the prior Council meeting dealt with you wanted to beef up the advertising and you have reduced a number of these other accounts to kind of make that an offsetting expense.

Bob Warren: That’s correct. In reviewing...that’s one of the areas that we had a large surplus of money that on an annualized basis has been encumbered and it seems to carry forward. In reviewing the budget, Mr. Lloyd, I just did not see the need for that level of funding in that particular line item and it would be better used in Advertising and Promotion.

Bob Warren: That would be transportation issues if we had a citywide conference in here and we need to provide busing. There is a whole assortment of things, you know, everything from welcome bags to anything associated with bringing a conference to town and the expenditures that we would use to attract that conference.

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, I guess the same thing with Customer Sales. You’ve got $50,000 and a decrease of $48,000.

Bob Warren: That’s correct, and again we’re redefining, on our staff level we are redefining what the roles of our staff are. It was my opinion in coming in and the board has supported this, that we were taking a shotgun approach to our direct sales and we have now fine tuned that to where the travel expenditures will be less. The activities associated with sales will be much more direct and better usage of personnel and time.

Councilmember Lloyd: Do you find the staffing level at this point is a good number or do you think it’s short staff or do you think you are overstaffed?

Bob Warren: No, sir. I think we are staffed appropriately and, again, what we will be doing this year during the course of 2012 and the balance of this year, is to refocus staff. We are doing some realignments. We have departments such as Bitsy Mourning who has been focused on sports and group travel. We are moving her specifically into sports marketing so that we can concentrate on that because it’s a very good market for us and we are shifting responsibilities for the group side of the...group travel to Ashley Vezzoso and we are reassigning her some additional tasks related to her job. The only position that we are currently seeking is our Director of Interactive Marketing which is an item that is currently budgeted in the budget. We have drafted that job description and knowing that internet is such an important piece of the tourism puzzle, we feel the need to have a staff member in that position.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just a summary, too, the overall budget decreased $4,581 or .3 percent, so that is impressive that you would decrease the budget. Thank you.

Councilmember Goebel: As you refocus and reorganize, will you be trying to move to eliminate some of these line items and merge them together? Are they a bit redundant, some of these?

Bob Warren: Yes, sir, and I think you’ll see probably in the course of 2012 that I will be asking that we perhaps combine some of these line items and just have...I’m accustomed to having a very detailed line item budget and in looking at the existing budget that we have today, I think some of those items could be consolidated. Yes, sir.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, any other questions, comments? Just a brief comment, Bob, I apologize I wasn’t here at the last meeting when you made your presentation on your new marketing strategy. I’m happy to see change. You know, I think mixing it up, not saying what we’ve been doing in the past hasn’t worked, but it is worth a try to take a different approach. I do think that’s a considerable amount of money. I hope we’re very cautious in how we spend that. I had mentioned prior, public service announcements, I think you would qualify, or your Bureau would qualify for as much of that as possible, too, so before we go out and start buying television and radio time, you know, I hope we are pursuing that and getting as much of that free PSA’s as possible.

Councilmember Raben: And outside of that, you know, you do have one very big event coming up in 50...I think it is about 51 days, the Westside Nut Club Fall Festival. The Bureau has been supportive in the past with printed materials, but if there is any media marketing in the near future, I hope that is going to be included.

Councilmember Raben: Alright, we’ll move on to Tourism Capital Fund. That is on page 129. We have Museum on here. You might offer a brief explanation on that.

Bob Warren: Yes, sir. As the Council may be aware, the Evansville Historical Museum was awarded a grant of $700,000. We still have that money in the bank pending them raising capital funds that they need to be able to complete their expansion project. This $350,000 is part of that allocation and once they manage to raise the needed monies then this money would be at their disposal for that expansion project.

Councilmember Lloyd: No, that’s two weeks. Week and a half. Had you heard of that prior to coming here?

Bob Warren: Actually, I had not and I’m a car buff, so this is one of those...you saw this in my presentation recently. This is one of those well-kept secrets that I think this community, we are obviously sold out for that weekend. It’s a great event. The 36th year of having it. I have met with the organizers of the Frog Follies. I would like to see us consider the possibility of us doing an additional spring car show that could attract another 2,000 or 3,000 cars. This is exciting. This is what is great about what we have done here, ladies and gentlemen. We have created a great product and now it is incumbent upon us, we believe, to get out there and promote that product for the benefits of our industry. So we do have some funds appropriated to that as well.

Councilmember Lloyd: Right, even though it sells out. So that is a highly successful event. It’s successful for our community, but looking at doing another one, that makes a lot of sense, too. So possibilities there. And then on the budget here, we had Transportation Centre/Pagoda and Sports Complex. Obviously those funds are either not needed or redirected?

Bob Warren: I’m really enjoying it, thank you very much. I look forward to a prosperous year.

Councilmember Raben: Next we’ll move to page 87, County Council. Everything outside of Insurance is exactly the same. For those at home, we have the bulk of the county employee insurance in our budget. Outside of the budget is where they are shared or paid for by other funds. That’s up significantly. I think that is set in at an 18% increase. That’s the only word we have been given by our agent. So our hopes are that will be significantly less although the trend is in that business that it, sadly enough, it might be dead on where we may need to be, but these numbers were supplied in June. It’s a little early yet to have an exact figure, but this is based on their recommendation and we’ll have to...hopefully we’ll be a little closer by our late September meeting on what the real number can be. Councilman Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: You know, it looks like another 2 ½ or 3 million dollars, I think, total. I would be happy to meet with the Commissioners on it. I know in some businesses, it’s difficult to totally go self insured perhaps, but maybe looking at raising our deductible up. And what some companies have done is taken, actually, a pool of money that they are going to net save on the difference in the premiums and set that pool up so that they can actually reimburse the employee for that out of pocket expense that they might have. For example, today there is zero deductible on an insurance account and you raise it to 2,500. And let’s say that saves the county 2 million dollars, and we put that 2 million essentially into a pool, and the employee is not affected because we take that $2,500 and we basically subsidize that $2,500 deductible instead of it coming out of their pocket. There are ways that can reduce the premium greatly and I don’t know if that would in this particular case, with the number of employees we have, it may. It may have a substantial impact on it and we may even want to look to go higher as time goes on, but I think we ought to explore that as an opportunity and just see what kind of savings could be had there.

Councilmember Raben: Are you...would you like to get with the Commissioners on that and take that on as a task?

Councilmember Shetler: Because we have to do something. I mean we can’t...there is no way we can sit back and watch 15, 18, 21% increases year after year on this health insurance. We’re going to have to find some alternative ways. The clinic is another idea that the city came up with a couple of years ago. Of course, they are more self insured than what we are and that’s a benefit to them. It’s not to us at our present state, but as we get to a self insured point maybe that would become a great vehicle to save some money as well. So, yeah, I would be happy to do that.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, because as everyone is aware that’s a Commissioner call, that’s not ours, but hopefully they’ll be open for whatever ideas you may have to offer. We do have one line here, Court Technology, if anyone has any questions on that. I see Tim VanCleave is present.

President Kiefer: In regards to Court Technology and Contractual Computer, you can see combined together we are talking 2 million dollars roughly. What I would like to do is propose that we do some type of IT system review or audit just to have an outside third party that is completely independent take an unbiased view of how we operate our IT. And I have discussed this a little bit with the City Council Finance Chair, John Friend. I think we could get participation from the city side and if we do this we could work together to review city-county wide the IT department and how it operates. Just do a system review, because we have been operating, I think, going on probably ten years with the same vendor. I’m not here to say that they’re doing a bad job or anything like that, I’m just saying I think we need to have an audit or a review of that to make sure we’re getting the best bang for our buck and if there is an opportunity for savings. But I would like to–

Councilmember Raben: I support you and I think Councilman Friend’s suggestions on that should be well received. Yeah, most of us can’t talk that talk or walk that walk, and we do need to bring in somebody outside that is more familiar with how those operations really happen. Do we need at some point to pass a resolution in support of that?

Councilmember Raben: Because really, that’s the Commissioners because that would be something contractual.

President Kiefer: It’s the Commissioners, but obviously they don’t want to do something without knowing that there is some support from us to, you know, pay for this consultant. Probably would be similar to what we just did with the Burdette Park, you know, similar type set up. You know, we’re going to probably get a couple of estimates on what it is going to cost and if you guys are okay with it, I will run point on it.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, I’m fine with that. You’re exactly right when you talk about 2 million dollars year in and year out just to operate our IT Department. I look in the back of the room and the biggest office or the biggest department we have, the Sheriff’s Department, probably 90% of what is done in regards for any of your departments are done in-house right, for little or no money? So they’re not even saddled with the task of managing all their systems. That’s the biggest department we have, so 2 million dollars is a lot of money. You’ve got my support moving forward.

Councilmember Terry: Just a comment on that. I do think once that bid process is open I’m trying to remember on the joint hearing, I think he said that contract was up, was it 2015 or was it 2013?

President Kiefer: Yeah, it’s got five more years left, 2015, which you know that was just redone. I talked to a lot of different people and they say it’s somewhat unusual to do five year contracts. Most of them are done six months at a time, but that was a decision by the Commissioners.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, any other questions or comments? Hearing none, we’ll move on. I see our County Surveyor is in the house. We’ll move to page 30.

Bill Jeffers: Good morning. Bill Jeffers, Vanderburgh County Surveyor. I was scheduled to go out in the field with Mike Wathen from the Engineering Department, which is why I’m dressed in blue jeans and I’m not really prepared to present anything to you because I had planned for my Chief Deputy to make that presentation, but she is ill today and I just got the phone call to come in, so here I am with my hat in my hand at your mercy.

Councilmember Raben: Well, Bill, we’ll make it easy for you. Your budget is basically flat outside of FICA and PERF.

Bill Jeffers: Right, I understand we turned in exactly the same budget as we did for 2011.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah. Are there any questions on his main budget which began on page 30?

Councilmember Lloyd: Point, it has increased $8,700 or 2% and there is, like Mr. Jeffers indicated, the only thing is there are a couple of steps and FICA and PERF, that’s it, so there is really no changes here.

Councilmember Raben: We’ll move on to the Perpetual Fund on page 119. Same thing. It’s flat. Are there any questions on this? As everyone is aware, this is his Fund, this is not General Fund monies.

Bill Jeffers: That’s the money that comes from the $5 per deed recording specifically for the purpose of perpetuating survey section corners to which all the deed descriptions are tied throughout the county. That’s a statutory fund.

Councilmember Raben: The Map Fund, page 108, for a whopping $500 for supplies. I’m sure there are no questions on that one. That one is the same as last year. Does anyone have questions on that one?

Bill Jeffers: I may have to beg some money in the middle of the year depending on how many maps are requested in a political year. We’ll try to charge as much as we can for those, though.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, charge them. Charge them. Okay, no questions. Bill, great, thank you. I appreciate you coming in today.

Bill Jeffers: Okay, well thank you for the opportunity to work with you in 2012. Again, I apologize for being dressed inappropriately. I am now going to go out with Mike Wathen and check some of our mutual drainage complaints. Thank you and you all enjoy your day.

Councilmember Raben: I think we skip down to Coroner, right? Is that 911, Local Emergency Planning, that’s all been covered in the joint meeting. Let’s go to Coroner, page 32. I’m sorry, page 123, Drug Free Community, 123.

Wanda McCarter: Good morning, I’m Wanda McCarter and I’m the director of the Substance Abuse Council.

Councilmember Raben: Your Discretionary Office Expenses are up $10,000. Could you offer an explanation for that?

Wanda McCarter: We have taken out more of the Drug Free Communities Fund because the counter measure fees had been up, so we have requested $60,000 for each of the funding categories that we have funding for, so it is up in law enforcement, prevention, treatment as well as discretionary. So for 2012, we will most likely hire a part time person. Right now I am the only person there part time. We will also do some more social marketing.

Councilmember Raben: Treatment, prevention, law enforcement, those lines in the 3000 accounts are all up $10,000 as well?

Wanda McCarter: Yes. When we decided to take out more we had quite a bit in the Drug Free Community account so we drew down a little bit more so that we could provide funding for the law enforcement...for the grant applicants. Each year we have to turn people down because we don’t have funding to provide everybody with the grant proposals that they are requesting. We also usually have to reduce the amount that is being requested. Not everybody gets the amount, so this year we are hoping...or for 2012 we are hoping we can give people a little bit more of what they need to complete their projects and not have to turn as many people away.

Wanda McCarter: Right now we are in our pre-application cycle. We made an official announcement in the Sunday paper on July 31st. We are taking pre- applications right now. Those pre-applications will be screened by our screening committee which is made up of members that are elected from our Council members that attend our monthly Council meetings. So they will review the pre applications to make sure they fit the description as outlined by the Governor’s Commission and the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute. Those pre applications that fit the criteria will move on to an application state in September. They have about three to four weeks to complete the application and then those applications are also reviewed by the screening committee. All proposals that are funded plus our discretionary budget, those are all reviewed by the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute annually.

Wanda McCarter: Yes. Anything under Administrative Discretionary includes our office expenses, supplies, my salary, rent, phone, all of those.

Wanda McCarter: Yes, it all comes out. All of our office expenses comes from there. The law enforcement, treatment, prevention, those all go out in the form of grants, all of those funds.

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay. So I guess Discretionary you can pay anything you want, basically, within the rules of the program?

Wanda McCarter: Yes, within the rules of the program, up to $60,000. The money that we draw out of the Drug Free Community has to be divided into those four categories. Discretionary can be smaller, but it can’t be any larger than 25% of the amount that we draw down.

Councilmember Lloyd: Well, and it looks like the history of this, all those amounts are the same.

Councilmember Lloyd: So it’s like it has to be evenly divided between these four?

Wanda McCarter: Right, either of those other three categories, prevention, law enforcement, treatment can be more than 25%, but it comes out of Discretionary.

Councilmember Lloyd: Do you ever have any trouble finding ways to spend the money for one of the other three categories?

Wanda McCarter: Actually we had that...this year for 2011 was the first time we ran into a problem where law enforcement didn’t use all of their funds. They had $2,000 left over so we sent out a mass email saying any agencies interested and Indiana State Police stepped up and put in a grant application, so we were able to use it all.

Councilmember Terry: When is the last time you had an increase in grants, in community grants, and how many community grants are you giving away at this time?

Wanda McCarter: This year will be the first time we’ve had an increase in the amount that we’re giving out, I think, in the last three years. It’s been a while, so our agencies are kind of excited about the opportunity to maybe do a little bit more this year, since it’s not always predictable how much in countermeasure fees are going to be collected. We’re grateful for a good year the last couple of years and the chance to offer a little bit more.

Councilmember Terry: Right. Are you still continuing to see, I guess, an increase in those countermeasure fees, and I guess the enforcement to get those?

Wanda McCarter: It’s a little bit down from where it was in 2010, this year, but we are still on target to reach about $200,000 which I think is the goal every year.

Councilmember Lloyd: One more question, Mr. Chair. Where is your office located?

Wanda McCarter: We are located at 501 John Street, which is the same building where Echo Community Health is housed.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, any other questions? None. We’ll move on. Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Coroner will be the last for the day. We’re slightly ahead of schedule. I’m sure Annie intended to be here, but if everyone wants to go ahead and turn to page 32. I’ll call attention to a few items. Fuel is up $1,000. You know, that is understandable although we may have to cut that back. Materials is up a couple of thousand. Supplies, it looks like that request is up $3,000. And then we go on to page 33, Contractual Services is up about $9,000. There may be something new in place that we’re obligated to, either through a lease or something. We’ll try to get Annie to be here tomorrow. Sandie or Sarah, would you mind contacting her and ask her to be present tomorrow? We’ll take this first on the agenda tomorrow. With that being said, Mr. President, I am going to move that we recess until 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.

President Kiefer: That sounds good. We don’t need a motion on that or anything? Okay, then we are recessed until tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.

The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 17^th day of August, 2011 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was reconvened at 9:00 a.m. by County Council President Joe Kiefer with all Councilmembers present.

President Kiefer: Okay, we’re going to reconvene our yesterday budget hearing for 2012. I think what I would like to do is, yesterday the Coroner was unable...yeah, there she is. So maybe we’ll just go ahead and pick you up first and you can tell us a little bit about what is in your budget. Before I turn this over to Councilman Raben, Finance Chair, I am going to say, we do have some things on the agenda that include some travel requests, but we’re going to wait to do that later in the meeting. The Coroner is on page 32, Jim.

Councilmember Raben: Alright, good morning. We’ll move to page 32, County Coroner. I see Annie is in the audience today. Good morning.

Councilmember Raben: There is, it looks like four or so lines that have increased. I was wondering if we could talk about those just briefly.

Councilmember Raben: The first, on our book, on the first page it’s Material, Fuel and Supplies.

Annie Groves: That’s all now together. It used to be separate line items so it may look like it increased, but it’s all one versus four.

Councilmember Raben: Not in our book, it’s not. Those 2000 accounts, it looks like Garage & Motor is the same as last year, but overall of the other three, there is a $6,000 increase.

Councilmember Raben: In Materials, has gone from $1,000 to $3,000. Fuel from $4,000 to $5,000.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. And then Supplies has gone from $15,000 to $18,000. Does that match what you’ve stated?

Annie Groves: No, not at all. I’m sorry. Let me find what the Auditor sent me.

Councilmember Raben: And, you know, we’ve got between now and our final budget hearing if there is something not correct.

Councilmember Raben: We’ve got ample time to fix it. You know, we can come back to those again if you can get with us in the next week or so. The Contractual Services was the other one, Annie, that has increased $9,000.

Annie Groves: Okay, that’s because the way it’s done now, it’s different line items. They’ve got, instead of, it used to be like Office Supplies was one line item, now all my supplies are one item, one line item, is how they did it this time.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, and, again, yeah, this one here is not Supplies it’s Contractual Services that the request is $9,000 more than last year.

Annie Groves: The only thing I asked for different was a little bit more, I ask for another $1,000 in Gas & Oil, but as far Contractual and all that, no, I did not.

Annie Groves: And I will get all that to you from what I received for my budget hearings. When I received my budget requests. What it was, is that there are different line items now that they put all in one under one area. But if you would add up everything it still comes to the same, it’s just under one line item now.

Councilmember Lloyd: I was going to say we have a benevolent president, because in prior years, if you missed your session you would go last, so you should thank the president for that.

Annie Groves: And what that is, is in just the things that I can’t control such as our utilities are going up, the gas is going up.

Councilmember Lloyd: But I guess we’ll have to see what that Contractual Services consists of.

President Kiefer: Well, I just a have a comment, Mr. Chairman. I just looked up gas prices on the internet here and it doesn’t look like gasoline prices according to this site I am looking, you know, maybe 10 to 15 cents higher than last year, but not a dollar higher. You know, it looks pretty darn close to average price 2010--

President Kiefer: --pretty close to 2011, but anyway. I had a question, Sandie, I noticed on the line item, you know, the salaries are the same, but PERF goes up. Why does PERF increase if FICA doesn’t increase?

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, I had a question in regards to, I guess, what I was looking at is really where the expenditures were to date and versus, and then those same categories Jim had brought up earlier. I am noticing those expenditures are actually much lower than what for six months. I don’t know if those were areas that you’re spending money towards the end of the year rather than, you know, at the beginning of the year. But more so than it going up, and you’re saying it really hasn’t gone up, I am wondering if they couldn’t be further cut, in some of those areas, because you’re not spending at the same level.

Annie Groves: Unfortunately, in our office, it’s the last six months that our rate goes up versus the first six.

Councilmember Shetler: Okay, and then along those same lines, didn’t we buy a couple of vehicles, wasn’t that last year?

Councilmember Shetler: And so I’m suspecting – wow, I must be getting old, time is flying by, I was thinking it was just last year. But I am suspecting that perhaps that is one reason why Garage & Motor may be down considerably, though it’s a little bit newer vehicles than what you did have.

Annie Groves: We’re trying really hard to respect the taxpayer’s dollar, but there is a lot of things that I can’t control.

Councilmember Shetler: So there may be some opportunities here because of like the new vehicle that we could do a little bit of cutting here on Garage & Motor, for example.

Councilmember Raben: This, like some of the other budgets yesterday, is flat. Outside of salaries there are no other accounts to pick at with this. I have no questions, does anybody else on Council have questions on this? One question?

Councilmember Lloyd: Roughly the balance in the Perpetual Fund, the Recorder’s

Councilmember Lloyd: $800,000, okay. That’s the only question I have. Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Steve, it looks like there is a few increases starting with Pauper Expense and Pauper Transcripts. You want to elaborate on those?

Steve Owens: Pauper Expense and Pauper Transcripts. Pauper Transcripts take care of the appellate transcripts and deposition costs. That has been virtually flat in our budget since, actually it has gone down a little bit since 2001. You’ll note on some of the attachments I attached to the rationale, the number of appeals that we have been appointed to and thus the number of transcripts we need to pay for keeps going up, going up and going up. We have tried to make up the difference out of the Supplemental Public Defender Fund. We are reaching to the point where that we are taking in about as much as we can take in on that account, so I think for the first six months of this year we have pretty much depleted the Pauper Expense account and I anticipate that is going to continue to go up next year. As far as the Pauper Expense account, the same situation. We’ve had a couple of appellate decisions that have come out on conflict counsel. We are having to farm out multiple defendant cases because of conflicts. Again, we have tried to make that up through the 2910 account. We are reaching the point now where we have to hold some of the attorney fee bills and court reporter bills to be able to pay those depending upon what the input is from the bond forfeiture monies, so again that is why we’re asking for that increase.

Councilmember Shetler: How much actual revenue do we get returned to the county from the State Commission on your department?

Steve Owens: Non capital cases, you get 40% of everything that you spend on stuff that is reimbursable, which is virtually 90% of our department.

Councilmember Shetler: Do you have, I mean, do you have an exact number that we – what was returned to us last year?

Councilmember Shetler: So it costs then about $1.1 million out of the local tax fund to support this department?

Steve Owens: That’s probably right. As I recall from the hearings back in 2000 we were spending about $900,000 a year for indigent defense, the year before we started, so it has gone up somewhat. So if your figures are right, and I assume they are, we’ve had what, a $200,000 increase in 12 years.

Councilmember Shetler: Now, misdemeanor offenses are not covered by the State Commission?

Councilmember Shetler: But we are required to provide service to folks who are in need of our services when a misdemeanor may have the potential of a jail sentence, is that correct?

Steve Owens: It’s constitutionally required to have appointed counsel. So the answer to your question is, yeah, we’re required to provide them with indigent counsel if they need to have an attorney and they are not reimbursable. Much like we are required to supply indigent defense counsel in CHINS and termination of parental rights cases, and in some cases paternity cases, and those are not reimbursablen either.

Councilmember Shetler: Does the State Commission require us to cover those misdemeanors then?

Steve Owens: The State Commission doesn’t require it, you’re constitutionally required.

Councilmember Shetler: Well, no, I understand that. The Constitution requires that the public provide the defense, but as far as this going through your office, I mean could that not be...would that have to be...could it be handled in the way it used to be done by a court appointed and bypass that office? I don’t know how much this is...I guess I’m trying to figure out how much it is really costing us and it appears it is costing us $300,000 or $400,000 a year to operate a misdemeanor type of division here and that’s what I am trying to get a handle on here a little bit.

Steve Owens: Let’s see if I can go back a little historically. In 2000 you had three part-time misdemeanor public defenders who were employed by the courts. At that time the County Commissioners and the County Council adopted a public defender plan, so that we would get reimbursement for all of the things that we get reimbursement for. They transferred all of those jobs into that plan, and that was the plan that was submitted to the Public Defender Commission for approval. So basically, the courts got rid of all oversight for all public defenders and that was all transferred to our department. So could it be transferred back in some way, shape or form to the judges? Theoretically, yes. What would have to happen, as I understand it, is there would have to be a revised plan that would have to be proposed to the Public Defender Commission and then they would have to approve a revised public defender plan.

Councilmember Shetler: Now, when that goes through the courts, is that reimbursed by the state in any way shape or form?

Councilmember Shetler: I don’t mean through that Commission, but I meant through – their operation of the court system, is it reimbursed by the state and is it possible that other revenues could be had by them actually operating that?

Councilmember Shetler: Back in the olden days here, 2000, were the courts reimbursed?

President Kiefer: I have a question. The transcript for the Weisheit case, are they coming out of the Death Penalty line item or the Pauper Transcripts?

Councilmember Terry: In line 1680-1303, the Public Defender, there seems to be about a $27,000 increase in the salary.

Councilmember Terry: I know that you’ve reduced, it looks like three public defenders, but I wonder what that increase–

Steve Owens: Well, if you read the rationale, basically, we have...right now we have two temporary part-time public defenders and that line item represents the full-time public defender that we are proposing to hire beginning in January.

Steve Owens: It’s set in at an Executive Level II, step three, in the anticipation that would give us some room to potentially hire an experienced attorney. If we can’t find an experienced attorney that is going to fulfill that full-time position then we would bring somebody in at the Executive Level II entry level position which would be less than the amount we’ve requested.

Councilmember Goebel: Going on the line of thinking of Mr. Shetler, since we get zero reimbursement for misdemeanor cases, is the requirement for the Public Defender’s office to offer these services of the Public Defender’s Office for misdemeanor? I know our....would it be just as cost effective for the county or more cost effective if the courts appointed outside of your office?

Steve Owens: Well, I guess to answer your question, Mike, we have the same number of misdemeanor public defenders right now that we had in 2000. We had three in 2000 and we’ve got three today. They were salaried in 2000 and they’re salaried today. The court still appoints the number of indigent people, so the only thing that happens with the Commission is the Commission governs numbers, case load standards. Because they don’t reimburse for misdemeanors they don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to the misdemeanor case load numbers. If we were to...if the Commission were ever to adopt and say we’re going to reimburse for misdemeanors and you’re going to have to follow the case load numbers, we would have to increase that number of attorneys up there to six, maybe seven, to be able to meet the case load.

Steve Owens: I have not suggested it to them. Every county is in the same boat we are in, in terms of the misdemeanor numbers. So I don’t see the Public Defender Commission, at least in this economic climate, ever getting to the point where they are going to reimburse for misdemeanors. So having said that, they’re not going to require us to meet the case load standards.

Councilmember Goebel: I guess, if we did away with representing misdemeanor cases through the Public Defender’s office and the courts just handled appointment or whatever, what’s your gut feeling as far as the overall costs? Would it remain the same, would it go down?

Steve Owens: I don’t see it changing. You’re gonna have to hire whether they are working for the Public Defender’s office or they’re employed by the courts, you’re going to have to hire a certain number of part-time lawyers or full-time lawyers or somebody to handle the misdemeanor cases. We’ve got three people up there that have been doing it for a number of years. They rotate weeks. They’re paid a salary and benefits. I would anticipate that the judges probably don’t want to take that back. I don’t want to particularly speak for them, and you’re still going to end up having either to pay somebody from a salary basis or you’re going to pay them on a per case basis. Given the number of cases they’re handling, it will cost you more if you pay them on a per case basis.

Councilmember Lloyd: You had explained the Pauper Expense and you had it in the rationale line item 3943 which is on page 64. The only question I had, as of June, you had only expended $4,498. I mean, do you see quite a bit after June 30th?

Steve Owens: What we do is, for the first part of the year, the only thing we try to pay out of the Pauper Expense account is the mental health hearings which we’re required to provide counsel on as well. Typically, we don’t know how many of those we are going to have so we sort of lay that back and use it in the last half of the year.

Councilmember Lloyd: And it looks like the Council steadily reduced that over several years.

Steve Owens: You have. It went, I think, from $50,000 or $60,000 in 2001 to $12,000 for last year. We’ve sort of absorbed those through the bond forfeiture, but we are getting to the point where that is becoming more and more difficult.

Councilmember Lloyd: But for the rest of the year then, what do you anticipate spending there, or is it hard to tell?

Steve Owens: Well, historically, Councilman, we have always spent whatever was in that account.

Steve Owens: And usually needed more. Depending upon our cash flow at any given point...we don’t know from month to month how the bond forfeiture monies are going to come in and how much we are going to get. So depending on what bills we get in a given month and where we are on the supplemental account we will often times go to that account. So I would anticipate at the end of the year it will be empty.

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, and then so the bond forfeiture just fluctuates, but you can use that to cover this or the transcripts?

Steve Owens: Yeah, we use bond forfeitures, as you’re familiar with the bond forfeiture account, the statute requires that it be used to supplement, not replace other funding, and we have increased bond forfeitures. That was at $78,000 in 2000. We have, with the help of the judges, increased that every year pretty much to where we are running over $200,000 a year every year.

Steve Owens: Obviously, none of that comes from the General Fund and 40% of it that we get reimbursed for goes back to the General Fund, so for every dollar we spend out of that, the Council is getting 40 cents back. We have used that to offset the increase in case load, which has gone from less than 1,200 felony cases to over 2,000. We’ve used that to help offset the increase in appeals. We’ve used it to help offset the increase in transcripts and to offset cuts in other areas. But we’re pretty aggressive on the bond forfeiture account and working with the Clerk and the judges and I don’t see in the foreseeable future, especially in this climate, that we’re going to see a significant increase in the amount of money that can be taken in in that account.

Councilmember Lloyd: Is there any legal restrictions on how you can spend that in the Public Defender’s office?

Steve Owens: The only restriction is it has to be spent on supplemental expenses, however you define supplemental. So that can be anything that is needed to supplement our function.

Steve Owens: We might have a little difficulty with salaries with the Commission.

Councilmember Lloyd: Right, I mean supplemental, I wouldn’t think that would be salary, but sometimes it could be.

Steve Owens: I suppose it could be viewed as that, but I don’t know that the Commission would take a kindly view of saying we’re going to supplement salaries out of that fund.

Councilmember Shetler: What would a starting salary be for a new hire rate that’s out of law school within the last two years?

Steve Owens: Whatever the Executive Level II entry level salary is, Tom. I think that’s around $45,000 or thereabouts.

Councilmember Raben: Does anyone have any questions on the Prosecutor’s regular budget?

President Kiefer: Mr. Chairman? I know under the rationale for Prosecutor IV-D, is that what we’re covering now?

Councilmember Lloyd: I mean, there is a lot of changes here, but if you go to page 36, the overall budget is a decrease $1,973, so there are some, obviously, and the Council has worked with you on changing some of the salaries and readjusting the positions.

Nick Hermann: And just as a point of emphasis, I understand that we have it broken down as Prosecutor and Prosecutor IV-D. In practice, obviously, that is combined and when we put this budget together we basically combined them in what we were looking at and what we have tried to do is we’ve tried to shift where we are allowed to, where we are legally allowed to. We have tried to shift jobs into positions where we can get state reimbursement. Under IV-D, you get a two-thirds reimbursement for every dollar that you spend, so what we did was we took a top down approach and looked at our entire organization and looked at people that were being paid out of the Prosecutor line items and looked at their job responsibilities. We changed some job responsibilities, deleted some, shifted some around so that people would be eligible to be moved into the IV-D spot. So that’s how we were able to actually lower the cost to the General Fund of the Prosecutor’s budget. You’ll notice that there is an increase that I am going to be addressing with respect to IV-D, but a lot of that increase is due to shifting people from the Prosecutor budget into the IV-D budget in order to go after that state funding. On the criminal side we’re on pace to file about the same amount of cases as we did last year. We have seen a decrease in almost every type of crime across the board, but we’re at the same filing number because methamphetamine has gone up so drastically. To give the Council an idea, from 2006 to 2009 we were seizing anywhere between 30 and 46 labs a year. In 2010 we shattered any record we had with 88 and through the first six months of this year we had 52. Of that 52, that includes 13 explosions and I believe at least two fireman have been injured, so our focus very quickly is shifting toward methamphetamine. We started 501(c)3 which is allowed by statute. We’re going to start trying to raise private money to increase awareness and start to address some of those issues on the front end. In the meantime, you’ll notice in your budgets that our drug grant ran out and we are supposed to be losing a drug prosecutor. This is obviously not the time to do that. So one of the other things that we did in addressing this budget was we moved to protect that spot, because with the case load going up as drastically as it is, we can’t see a deletion of that attorney spot. We shifted several spots. If you look at our rationale, we shifted an attorney and two administrative staff from Prosecutor to IV-D. We’ve also worked with the Council, with Computer Services, with the Commissioners, to update our phone system. We quickly identified that we were missing several calls just due to our antiquated phone system. We’re now on the county phone system which means that we can get countywide alerts, but it also means that more calls are getting through. We shifted away from what had been the standard practice, and we moved to more of a call center model, so our calls, particularly in child support, have gone through the roof. That obviously means that there is more work to be done down the road, and that ultimately ends at our enforcement agents. Our collection rate in Vanderburgh County has steadily been increasing. We’re currently collecting 58% of child support that is owed and 61% of back support that is owed, but our enforcement agents have case loads of just right at 1,000 cases a piece and that’s an absurdly high number. Our case load per employee is 60% higher than the state average. While they are doing a great job, they need help. To give you an idea of what help could mean, each agent collects approximately 1.1 million dollars a year in child support and that’s going to typically single family households that are hoping to get $40 or $50 a week on a consistent basis. So that’s a lot of people, that’s a lot of voters. I wanted to stand before you and tell you that we’re going to flat line our budget, we’re going to decrease our budget because I know that there is tight money constraints, but when I look at it from a taxpayer standpoint, when I look at the number of families that we can affect, we had to do something to address that. So you’ll notice that my budget request for additional enforcement agents, that doesn’t get us to a state average, but it gets us closer. Again, state reimburses two-thirds of all those expenses, their salaries, their insurance, their PERF, all those types of things and so our budget is a lot different than a lot of people that come before you because it’s on a sliding scale. You have to look at how much money you guys spend out versus how much you get back. The state is very good at getting the reimbursements back. I believe we’re in the neighborhood of two months behind. Are they 60 days out, Joe? The state child support reimbursement, are they about 60 days behind? Does that sound right?

Nick Hermann: Okay, I believe they are 60 days behind so when we spend the money out about 60 days later we get the two-thirds reimbursement. I’ve also asked, you’ll notice there is an increase in the Supply budget.

Nick Hermann: What we did with that was, we took a five year rolling average over the last five fiscal years, and we didn’t ask for any increases over that, we just asked to make that a more honest estimate. When you take the state reimbursement into consideration it leaves us at, I believe, a three percent overall increase. I’ve been in talks with the state about where we can make up that money and they have identified some county funds other than the General Fund where we might be able to draw that money from, and I would be happy to talk with you in detail about that. I guess my overall point is our budget is very difficult and interdependent based on several different things and I understand that the Council is under a lot of pressure to cut everyone’s budget and to address these things, but if you move something in ours it affects several different things, and I just want you to understand the repercussions of that. I would be happy to sit down in detail with any of you and discuss any possible cuts that you may want to make to our proposed budget.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just real quick on the Supplies on page 36. I would suspect in prior years you may have used some of your incentive funds to pay for that.

Nick Hermann: That’s correct. We’ve used incentive funds to pay for that. Over the years it has been the easy place for the Council to cut from, and I understand that, but then it goes one of two ways. You either do that or when you have something that comes up like a death penalty case, then obviously we don’t have the funds there to come forward and pay. So, you know, the money has got to be somewhere. So what is in the budget is an honest representation of our five year average of what we have been paying out in supplies. We worked very hard to increase any revenue we have. We’re a government office. We’re not a revenue generating office per se,

but we do have some programs that bring in revenue. We have asked our staff to come in after hours to work different court sessions to help try and increase the amount of money that we are bringing in to try and ease some of the budget. Right now the death penalty case is scheduled in February. We’re not there yet, but based on our projections we will be able to pay the full cost of what is left on the death penalty case and I can announce today that we will not be back in front of this Council asking for any additional money for that case. So that is something that we worked very hard on and we’re very proud of. That being said, I wanted to let the Council know what our actual numbers were and set that in. Again, I don’t know what is going to come up in the future, if there are going to be any emergencies, if there are going to be any big cases, but it’s one or the other. Either the money is allocated or we come back and ask later. But that’s where that comes from.

Councilmember Goebel: Good morning, Nick. A couple of things. Obviously, child support is something that has to be handled through your office and the other offices, but you are asking for several increases as far as staffing goes, I believe, and the other item is you do have some funds, if you’re asking for us to come up with some more funding is there a possibility you could maybe itemize? I know you gave us a list before of the incentive funds and things like that. If we could have a look at how that money is being spent?

Nick Hermann: Sure, I would be happy to sit down and go over any expenditures that we have. We’re restricted as far as the Incentive Fund on what we can spend that on. That has to be mandated for increases in spending. That has to be things that would lead to more support. We’ve been using that primarily. One of the big problems that we have in our office especially is we’re adding a file cabinet a month, which doesn’t sound like a lot until you come down and see the, I believe, we’re getting close to 50 file cabinets of child support cases. So one of the things that we are working on now is we’re working on moving that to a paperless system both to make it more efficient so that you can have quicker recall so that different people can work on the same case file at the same time, but also quite frankly for space. So I would be happy to sit down and let you know what we have been doing with that. We’re not the only ones that receive incentive money. There is incentive money that comes directly into the General Fund as well. That incentive money is directly based on, I believe it is four factors, but mainly on how we’re doing in comparison with the state. I believe in fiscal year 2010 the State of Indiana got, I think, 12.8 million dollars. This county ended up with...I think we ended up with about $130,000 which means...and I don’t recall if we get 30 percent or 40 percent and the General Fund gets some and the Clerk’s Office gets some as well, but the higher we can get our numbers the more money we’re going to get from the state.

Councilmember Goebel: With the shift from regular Prosecutor to IV-D, obviously, is a good shift because you’re not letting people go and we are getting reimbursed and that type of activity obviously is very welcome.

Nick Hermann: We are estimating that in just shifting employees we are saving $151,272. Obviously everybody’s budgets are going up because of PERF, because of step increases and all those types of things. As presented, as written, if you look at our two budgets together and you take into consideration the state reimbursement we’re at I believe just under a three percent increase.

Councilmember Bassemier: I was just curious, you just mentioned that you won’t be back to ask for any more monies for that capital case and you came before us asking for $250,000 and you received $25,000. I was just kind of curious how you shaved off $225,000 since you won’t be back?

Nick Hermann: It’s not shaved off. We have worked on trying to reduce spending, but we’ve also tried to increase our income. We have a couple income generating programs and one in particular we have been able to increase the amount that we are bringing in almost tenfold. We worked really on...again, we’re not a money making business, but we understand that there is taxpayer money at hand and so we’re working as hard as we can not only to serve the public but also to be as cost efficient as we can. You know, at some point that means people, and that’s where these requests are coming from. You know, if we get a phone...we’re now getting the phone calls in child support. We’re finding out about the problems. We need the people to address those problems and there is nothing more frustrating than being somebody who is having money taken out of your check for no reason or being on the other side of that and being a parent that is taking care of kids and not being able to afford to do that and not getting any, you know, money from the other side and so that’s a number one priority that we need to address. We try to stay cognizant as well of things that are out of our purview. For example, the jail overcrowding issue, since the beginning of the year we’ve created a lot of efficiencies and streamlined our criminal process. We had one murder that happened in March. He was convicted last week. As of this morning he spent 159 days in jail. His sentencing is 20 days from now. He is going to end up spending less than six months in the Vanderburgh County jail before he gets shipped off and becomes the state’s problem. That’s what we’re trying to do and we’re trying to help with, but it takes people to do it.

Councilmember Bassemier: Well, I have confidence in you. That’s why I voted against the $25,000. I knew you would find a way, so thank you very much.

Councilmember Raben: As I look at your regular budget it’s obvious to me where the 1330-1080 and 1340-1080 moved into the IV-D budget. I think those move into 1340-1080 and 1350-1080, but the individual that is today in the regular budget 1380-1080, where does that person move into the IV-D budget? It’s 1380-1080 today.

Councilmember Raben: What is the difference? That’s about a $24,000 difference.

Councilmember Raben: While we’re waiting for Regene to come up, I have a question. Maybe this is more towards the Auditor’s Office, but should we not on IV-D, should we not have their insurance for their employees in the budget for sake of the reimbursement side?

Joe Gries: We haven’t done that for other departments so that would probably be something that the Council could do, yes.

Councilmember Raben: I guess, Sandie, do you understand what I am saying? Okay, alright.

Nick Hermann: Okay, I have an answer. 1380-1080 was one that we came back at the beginning of the year and had to adjust due to the person we were moving in it being a step increase. So the number that is in there is from the 2011 budget without that extra allocation.

Nick Hermann: It was somebody with significant experience that was moved from an exempt position into that position in January.

Councilmember Lloyd: So that’s a new person which had a lot more experience than what he replaced?

Councilmember Raben: And then, if you explained this earlier in your presentation I apologize, but 1390-1080?

Nick Hermann: It just takes me a second to find them. Okay, is that in the regular budget?

Councilmember Raben: Well, that’s a deputy, but it appears as if that is a new request. Is that one of them?

Nick Hermann: 1390-1080 it does appear that way and the reason is, is because it is...I don’t know how it was drawn up before. That is the grant position that I alluded to earlier. That is the drug deputy. That was formerly a grant employee and that was kind of our starting point with this budget was to get to a point where we protected that spot.

Councilmember Lloyd: Mr. Chair, while we’re on that page, page 35, 1250-1080 it was a part-time deputy. It looks like that has been moved to full-time, so is that–

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, so that is something I guess the Auditor, we need to change the description on that.

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, I’ll ask you the same question I asked Steve earlier. Do you have attorneys specifically assigned for misdemeanor to prosecute?

Nick Hermann: Yes, we do. Misdemeanor Court combines both traffic and misdemeanor. We do approximately...we file approximately 10,000 misdemeanors a year and there are about 20,000 infractions filed. In all candor, a lot of the infractions people plead guilty and they pay and they don’t come to court. So I don’t know that it’s a fair number to say there is 33,000 cases that go through there. We man 100% of those cases with two full-time deputy prosecutors and a part-time deputy prosecutor. We do 100% of the cases and that actually for us is a seven day a week job because we go into (inaudible) court, is actually held out at the jail on Saturday and Sunday in an attempt to get bond set so that people theoretically could bond out and save us some space in the jail on the weekends.

Councilmember Shetler: Now, let me just reiterate so I’ve got it clear. You’re handling all misdemeanor, not just the ones where constitutionally we have to provide some kind of public defense for, but all misdemeanors and you’re prosecuting all those with two and a half attorneys?

Nick Hermann: Yes. We file all the charges. They come from, the Police or Sheriff’s Department, they do a report. Sometimes they have the affidavits prepared. Sometimes our investigators get them and they prepare them themselves. But we do everything from filing charges and see those all the way through and we do 100% of those, yes.

Councilmember Shetler: And then another question, and I think the number that I’m looking at, I asked Steve earlier, the starting salary and he had indicated $45,000...I think it’s maybe $53,5ish, in that neighborhood.

Nick Hermann: I think it starts out, there is a six month period where it’s lower and I think it starts out around $49,000 and then I think it does goes to $53,000 after six months, $53,000 or $54,000 after six months. I believe Sandie is looking it up.

Councilmember Shetler: Do you have some folks in your office that currently, say within the last two years, passed the bar?

Councilmember Shetler: They get, when they are full-time that 53,5ish, or 49 when they are starting off for six months, they are getting full benefits as well?

Councilmember Shetler: Vacation, the health insurance, they’re getting the whole ball of wax with that? Okay. I think that’s all my questions.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I know we’re going to have to get moving. We’re running far behind. One last question, Nick.

Councilmember Raben: I’m not speaking for the entire Council. I know it’s a difficult year to look at adding four new people. In the event that it doesn’t play out in your favor, will the deputy that is coming out of the grant line into the General Fund budget, will that qualify to move into the IV-D budget?

Nick Hermann: Would it qualify? No, because that person is doing solely drug prosecution.

Nick Hermann: Looking at the ways that the Council could potentially cut our budget. If you were to cut an enforcement agent, arguably you would start to get into reimbursements with the state as far as moving those other positions over and that would start to endanger some of those.

Councilmember Raben: And if it’s not that position, is there one other position that we can move into IV-D that would qualify? You don’t have to answer that today. You can get back with us.

Nick Hermann: We have done everything that we can to find anyone that legally qualifies so that we can move into IV-D and get the reimbursement for.

Councilmember Shetler: I do have one...I do recall what my question was, and that is–

Councilmember Shetler: I know that the Public Defender must be paid at least 90% of what the Prosecutor’s salary is, and I am thinking that the Chief Deputy, according to your Chief Deputy, is the same thing. When it gets down lower in the rankings is that, you know, like a starting salary, do you know if that rule is applicable down at the lower starting levels?

Nick Hermann: I don’t know for sure. I think the Council at that point can pay whatever they want to pay. As far as I know, we are at least stuck to what you have in your salary ordinances. That’s obviously what we follow, but I’m not aware...this is one of the things that we came into contact with in January when we were interviewing attorneys. Other counties, the way that they are funding their prosecutor’s offices it varies by counties. Some of them are just getting a total number and they’re saying here is 2 million dollars, go run your office. What happens sometimes is people come in and they pay themself a lot and they pay their friends a lot and they don’t have as many employees. Other times you have situations where I interviewed one girl that hadn’t gotten a raise in ten years and she was making, I think, $38,000 or $39,000. So it varies wherever you go. But I think that other than the department heads, that the Council can pay whatever it is that they would like to pay. On behalf of my employees they would all like to make more, but they understand that you guys are under a lot of constraints and that you’re doing the best that you can with what you have. But to answer your question, I think you can pay whatever you want.

Councilmember Raben: Alright, we’re going to get moving along. I think we’ve covered IV-D.

Councilmember Raben: Prosecutor Check Recovery is stagnant. That’s, outside of FICA and PERF, that’s unchanged.

Councilmember Raben: On the Pre-Trial Diversion, page 118. I’m having a little problem understanding that one. It looks like possibly a person has gone from full-time to part-time, but the Insurance line has changed drastically.

Nick Hermann: That is a position that is funded out of the actual fees. One of the things that the Council instructed us to do earlier in the year was to look at positions to see if there was any way to downgrade those or to basically perform the same job functions in a cheaper capacity. What we’ve done there is we moved a person out of that position earlier in the year because the funding just wasn’t there to pay it and we’re asking to have that position moved from a PAT IV to a COMOT V. The person we moved out was a step seven. We anticipate the COMOT V would be a step one so that explains the difference. I don’t know what you’re seeing as far as insurance.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, just so you understand. What’s titled the Director from last year was $51,779.

Councilmember Raben: This year the request is $24,418 for the actual salary line.

Nick Hermann: Right, that was to move it from a PAT IV step seven to a COMOT V step one.

Councilmember Raben: COMOT V step one. That still doesn’t...maybe that is right. That’s right? Okay. But the insurance has gone from $7,900 to almost $25,000. Is that more than one person?

Nick Hermann: That sounds like it’s Regene’s mistake. That should be insurance for one person so whatever that works out to be. I’m not even sure what those numbers are. I know it’s a lot, but I don’t know how much it is.

Nick Hermann: Again, if anybody has any specific questions. We have a complicated budget with the different funding mechanisms and I would love to sit down with anybody that has any questions.

Lloyd Winnecke: I’ll just tell you generally that we attempted to flat line or diminish most of our line items. I think most of the increases are jointly funded departments or increases dictated by CPI indexes or things of that nature. The two large increases certainly would be related to Insurance, and I would tell you that on account 3000, Bond & Insurance, we’re not sure that number is the correct number. That’s for the property & casualty insurance. We’re currently working to get a better number on that, and in terms of the overall insurance number, as many of us have discussed, the cost increase for insurance, health insurance, for next year seems exceedingly high. I know a number of us are trying to work some, get some alternatives to what is currently before us.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, the most significant increase in your budget would be Rent, which, again, is within the Building Authority’s control. All other accounts are just what you said. They are flat lined or less than last year.

Lloyd Winnecke: Right. I think the latest Rent number too, let me look in here. The latest Rent number is slightly less than the $5,031,000 that is in the budget book. The latest rent as of 7/27, July 27th this year is $4,999,022, so a slight decrease.

Councilmember Goebel: While we are here, Mr. Winnecke, good job on the radio this morning.

Lloyd Winnecke: That is actually a reflection of combining two specific line items. It’s actually the same amount year over year.

President Kiefer: Yeah, one question, Mr. Chairman. Lloyd, on Transportation Services, 4231. From 140 to 151. It’s going from $140,000 to $151,000, and I don’t know if you have our book. It’s on page 58. It’s account number 4231.

Lloyd Winnecke: That is our annual contract with METS for transportation for elderly and disabled.

President Kiefer: Okay, and then the other one related to transportation is Urban Transportation, but it stays exactly the same. Is that a contract?

President Kiefer: We spent $50,000 this year, but then it’s showing that we’re going to try to stick with what we budgeted last year, but we actually spent more than that.

President Kiefer: It’s no big deal. I mean, I was just curious why. I didn’t know if that was something different. Actually I thought maybe that was one of these two line items may have been related to that North 41 Transportation.

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, with regards to the ambulance service, I know that the city, they dropped their–

Councilmember Shetler: --subsidy to that last year. Have we had any discussions with the Mayor on how that worked out or, you know, the opportunity maybe for us to do the same?

Lloyd Winnecke: I have not. We’ve had some...I know there have been some private discussions, but I’m not aware – we have not approached the city to see how that has worked or how it has changed their quality of service or response time.

Councilmember Shetler: Or, and I don’t mean to put you on the spot, is that annual contract or is that multi-year?

Lloyd Winnecke: No, I believe it is a multiple year. I think it’s....Marissa, is that three years? I think it’s multiple year, but we can check and get back on that.

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, because I would be interested in trying to follow up and find out what kind of ramifications the city may have incurred and, you know, some of the positives which would be saving one quarter million dollars a year which is a big chunk of change if we can figure out a way here to save that money.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just one point on that. Of course, the city can turn to their fire department and say can you cover some of these. The county, we don’t necessarily have that option or some of the volunteer services don’t have ambulances.

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, Scott actually has a very detailed operation out there and I know German and some of those–

Councilmember Shetler: I was thinking Perry has some stuff out there as well. Marrs, don’t they have a cooperation with Marrs in Perry outside in Posey County, Marrs, to cover some of that?

Councilmember Raben: Let’s turn to page 100 CCD account. The Energy Savings Contract, how many years do we have on that?

Councilmember Raben: I see you put the Sheriff’s request in there for equipment and police cars. I do have one request. They are also in need of an additional transportation van at the cost of about $100,000. Can we put that in this budget as well?

President Kiefer: Okay, thank you. Does anybody have any questions on the CCD budget? None?

Councilmember Raben: Alright. Do you want to take Superintendent of County Buildings?

Lloyd Winnecke: Sure, that would be great, thank you. It should be pretty easy, too.

Councilmember Raben: That would be page 65. This budget is flat. The changes are within the PERF line.

Councilmember Raben: Any questions or comments in regards to this budget? None. Oh, excuse me.

Councilmember Raben: Lloyd, I think that concludes...I don’t know that we’ve got any more budgets that you want to present. Thank you very much.

Councilmember Raben: Oh, yeah, I’m sorry. I apologize. Riverboat. Riverboat page 89. Does anyone have questions on this budget? It basically reflects the exact same allocations that we approved last year. Councilman Goebel?

Lloyd Winnecke: I would tell you this, that we have...we actively seek other funding sources and to date we have not been successful in doing that, but we haven’t given up the ship on that.

Lloyd Winnecke: But I would tell you that the Commissioners are still really 100% behind this project. To date, I think Gary probably has the exact number, but it seems like we have treated 15,000 some odd patients since its opening and the number of services is probably two and a half or three times that number, so it is still a vital service to the community.

Councilmember Goebel: I’m not questioning that at all. I was just wondering if the emergency rate...room rates have gone down. I know the hospitals say they haven’t noticed a decrease, but one would have to assume there has to be some dent put into that. I know you worked on it before and you worked on it from the beginning so, thank you.

Councilmember Terry: I know last year, Lloyd, there was a request in there for the 41 bus route. Just where...I mean, is that a dead issue now?

Lloyd Winnecke: It is not a dead issue. Commissioner Abell has really been working on that extensively in the last several months and we’ve run two or three different alternatives to develop a pilot. We think that we can develop a pilot within a budget that we have without coming before this body. Our goal is to work out a palatable plan that meets the needs of those who could potentially use the service and that we could fund it within our budget. Once that pilot is successful, then we would have to circle back and figure out how to fund it on a larger scale. But right now we’re still at the drawing board trying to figure out how we can develop a pilot that makes financial sense and is also mechanically and just practical from a use standpoint.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, you know, coming up we have County Highway, Burdette, and some of the other hats that you wear as a Commissioner. Do you want –

Councilmember Raben: --those guys to present their own budgets? Okay. We’re not ready for you yet. Before he left the podium I wanted to make sure he didn’t, he wasn’t going to present any of those.

Councilmember Raben: We have a few travel requests that we need to act on today. Do we want to discuss travel before we get into the budget?

Councilmember Raben: Okay. I’m going to give the same spiel, Gary. I’m sorry, but as I look at these travel requests, unless my...if I am doing all my “goes into’s” right, it looks like we have 13 people out for the same conference at the same time and I really struggle with that.

President Kiefer: I was going to echo the same thing, Mr. Chairman. That’s a lot a people.

Gary Heck: It’s from...it’s all from the Women, Infant & Children’s Grant. It’s one of the requirements of the contract and it’s all grant funded. So, I’m not sure how else to respond other than to say it’s a requirement that they attend the conference.

President Kiefer: Do each of them have to attend or can you send one or two and have them come back and then present?

Gary Heck: I’m sorry. If I could, I would have done that, so this is a requirement that they all attend.

Councilmember Raben: I glanced through the information I have and I really don’t see where it says–

Gary Heck: Well, this isn’t the grant copy. This is just the information that they sent about what they are paying for the rooms, they’re paying for the meals during the conference. The only thing that the Health Department is required to pay for out of our grant funds...they are using their grant funds to pay those on their end. We’re required to pay travel and required to pay the meals outside of the conference time which would be an evening meal. And that’s coming out of the WIC grant funds.

Councilmember Raben: I understand, but 13 people away from the facility at one time, that’s a lot of productivity that’s not going to take place, it’s just not going to happen during those three days.

President Kiefer: Can they, is this program only offered once a year? Could they rotate, like have–

Gary Heck: This program is offered once every two or three years. It’s a statewide conference. This is where they bring them up to date on any of the program changes that are there. This year, this grant, the federal grant starts October 1 and runs through September 30th and there are some major changes in what they are preparing them for, including the infant formula provider for the State of Indiana is changing this year from one that has been in place for several years. So it’s a different one. I can just tell you what they told me and I can just tell you what is in our grant requirements is that they attend conferences that the grants pay for. I understand your concerns. I wish I could say something other to make you feel better about it. Training is required though. It’s not like some jobs where the requirements and their dealings with the public never changes. And they want it to be consistent and they want everybody to have the training and if they had a trainer or trainer’s options that I could choose, I can assure you that I would choose it. I just don’t have that as an option.

President Kiefer: Seems like that would be cheaper with 13 people to have training here in Evansville. Councilman Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Gary, this is a statewide convention so every county is going to be–

Gary Heck: It’s Vanderburgh County, but there are 92 other counties that are going to be having their representatives at the same function.

Councilmember Goebel: So it’s not costing us anything, we need to go. I don’t know if there is much question that we can control that.

President Kiefer: Just get the Convention Bureau to contact these people to convince them to hold this down here in Evansville next time.

Councilmember Raben: It actually, it is costing us. It’s costing us about $1,500 based on the estimates. You know, and I’m still stuck on the fact that we look at, we can’t reduce staffing because we’re overwhelmed with the clients coming through our front door every day, but we’re sending 13 people out to a three day conference. That’s the hardest part of the whole thing for me to swallow. So I’ve said it before, I think this is the most traveled department within the state of Indiana and I really think we need to figure out ways to cut back on this travel somehow.

Gary Heck: We have acquired video conferencing equipment. It’s not an option at this particular opportunity. Any time we can use video conferencing we use that option. It’s just not an option in this case. It’s a requirement of the Womens Infant & Children’s program grant.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. I, you know, I would like to see that. In the future I would like for them to send that letter to me two years from now when we are required to go, again, because I have a hard time believing that they even want you to pull 13 people out of one office. I mean, if they are passionate–

Gary Heck: I would just tell you I wouldn’t have submitted...sir, I just wouldn’t have submitted it if it wasn’t a requirement.

Councilmember Raben: If they are passionate about what you’re doing, I can’t imagine they would do that. Okay. Are there any questions on the travel outside of that? I think what you’re going to need to do is probably call for a motion on this.

Councilmember Lloyd: Motion to approve as submitted and that includes $145.60 for Legal Aid.

Councilmember Goebel: Yes, sir. Gary, I don’t know if you have direct contact but perhaps at some point you could express our concerns about that number.

Gary Heck: I express them all the time and they are well aware of your concerns. I have to especially request in advance to get an agenda to attach to all of these requests, so the state is well aware of all your concerns about it.

President Kiefer: I understand it’s a requirement and it’s required by the grant, but I want to do a symbolic no because I don’t think it’s right that all these employees are leaving the office and I would like for a message to be sent to the people that do this grant to say, hey, they need to work with us on how we do this so we don’t have to send 13 people out at one time. So with that, I vote no.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, the budget begins on page 101, give everybody an opportunity to – it’s several pages. This budget is relatively flat as everyone is aware of. The important thing to remember on this budget, while it’s not General Fund money, it’s its own levy, it is part of our overall cap. So it does affect what we can appropriate or what we can budget in other areas of county government, while it stands by itself with its own levy. Gary, are there any lines that you think we can cut in any form or fashion if need be?

Gary Heck: Well, the only ones we’re not sure about, with regards to the health insurance, we were instructed to use an 18% rate which has been high compared to what we’ve done in previous years. I’m not sure where the guidance for that particularly is coming from, if it’s from a consultant...but it is high based on what we’ve done in previous years.

Gary Heck: Extra Help, last year, during the budget hearings, we didn’t have permission to have a part-time person, extra help in our vital records. We came back earlier this year to put additional funds in that line item to cover that, so this is just a reflection, and it’s really a flat line based on what was done with this year, too. That’s the Extra Help line item. The other projected increase is based on the consumer price index for rent. We’ve projected a 3.549% increase based on the previous information we’ve seen from the labor department. That might, and we’re just not sure until it’s actually published in October for September what that actual percentage increase will be, but it’s required by the lease agreement. I think those are the – everybody has already mentioned PERF. PERF went, the percentage we were instructed to use was 9.5%, so...

Gary Heck: As far as the dental clinic, we are about $50,000 short. We haven’t been able to identify the funds that was originally budgeted in the request last year. We haven’t had any success with additional funding sources from the other local previous funders. So, as I think Commissioner Winnecke indicated, we’re still in the process of looking for additional funds. The Board of Health, at their last meeting, did recommend adopting any out of county residents that come to the dental clinic, not being addressed on a sliding fee scale. We’re working with the county attorney to get that language for the fee ordinance introduced, and it was recommended to go into effect in January. So that’s when we anticipate that will happen assuming the county attorney can get it done between now and then and the Commissioners can approve it between now and then.

Councilmember Goebel: Does that mean you’ll be denying out of county or charging other counties?

Gary Heck: It means the other counties would be charged 100% of what our fee schedule is and not being placed on a sliding fee scale like they currently are and then paying an additional administration fee.

Councilmember Lloyd: Mr. Chair? On that same issue, on the dental clinic, I was at the Board of Health meeting, so I conveyed this Council’s concerns about the out of county patients that come to the dental clinic and there’s nothing that doesn’t, I mean there’s no prevention that the Commission of another county could make an arrangement with our Commissioners on possible payments for out of county, for example, Posey or Gibson or Warrick or Henderson, that they could make an arrangement to pay for their people that visit the Vanderburgh County dental clinic. But anyway, I did express, between this Council and the Commissioners, that we did not think that was appropriate to subsidize them and that we felt that they should at least come up with some kind of a fee payment.

Gary Heck: I did some additional research and I think there was an arrangement like that years ago with the tuberculosis clinic, where Commissioners from other counties had already signed some type of memorandum of understanding. And in some cases were billed and did pay, and so we’re looking through all of our records to see if we can’t find copies of those agreements, and use those as the basis for moving forward as well. Of course, there were some counties that even signed it, but there’s new Commissioners now, and the new Commissioners don’t honor that previous agreement.

Jeff Ahlers: Mr. Heck, at one time, you and I had talked about possibly putting together an ordinance for credit card payments.

Jeff Ahlers: Is that something that the county attorney or the Commissioners are looking into as well or would that be something separate that we would need to work on in case the County Council determined it wanted to approve the ability for you to take credit card payments?

Gary Heck: It’s my understanding we’d need the County Council approval and we are actively pursuing trying to put a point of sale cash register and receipting program in place, that would allow that as an option, both credit cards or debit cards.

Jeff Ahlers: I just didn’t know if in this process, when you were working with the Commissioners and the county attorney, whether this might be an appropriate time if Council wants to pass an ordinance to allow that, whether this might be the time to look into it. So I don’t know, whenever you’re talking to the county attorney or the Commissioners, or if you want to let me know or –

Gary Heck: I’ll forward this information over as well. We’ve researched it and there’s been several counties, particularly the County Clerk’s and the judges, Treasurer’s office, who all have ordinances that allow that. So, I will pass that on to them and ask them to get in touch with you, to make sure the language is correct.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you, Gary. We’re going to move on, pick up the pace here.

Councilmember Raben: Good morning, Steve. A couple questions. I see some increases like Fuel, and I think you’re anticipating high fuel costs. The Uniforms has gone up $2,000, is that a difference in contract?

Steve Craig: It’s not just the uniforms, but it’s the laundry and the uniforms combined, and the laundry and that has went up, the price of what we pay to have our laundry done. Several years ago we did buy two washers and three dryers and we do a lot of our own laundry in house, with the stuff for the chalets that can’t be done in-house is done through a laundry service.

Steve Craig: Most of these, well, matter of fact, all of the ones that were raised were ones that I foresaw coming back to ask for in the year, and if nothing else, to make you aware that these would be things that I may need to come back. I could have wrote a flat line one, but then I think that wouldn’t have been honest to the point where I think that I have to come back for utilities and gas and such.

Councilmember Raben: A lot of those, and you’ve understood for many years why we do what we do, we have to cut to get below the freeze that we have to meet. Steve, one of them, Advertising, you know, we’ve just approved a large sum of money for CVB to spend for actually promoting the whole community, but it’s approximately $400,000. I’d like to make a run at them to pick up that advertising line for you through their budget.

Steve Craig: That would be fine. Every year, I do apply to them for a matching grant and they do match my advertising budget for the park. But I will work with him.

Councilmember Raben: You know, I think they’ve taken an extremely aggressive approach this year and they probably are working with some pretty high caliber consulting individuals on how they’re going to promote the whole community. We probably need you to sit down with them and make sure we’re not duplicating things that they’re already, efforts they’re already making in regards to advertising. And I’m sure you’re a big part of their package, no doubt, you’re a big draw for local tourism, but I just want to make sure we’re not doing things that are already part of a bigger plan that they’re working on.

Steve Craig: I would love to sit down with them and help them spend that 400 and something thousand dollars that they got.

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, I’m sure you would. Does anybody have any questions on Burdette? None? Well, this might be the easiest year you’ve ever faced.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, how about if we take a five minute pause for a good cause?

Councilmember Raben: Good morning. There’s not a lot of change. In fact, the contractual line is actually down. I never like to question why something goes down, but I am curious.

Darren Stearns: The contractual as far as the actual bottom line? Well, we’re working with some of the things that we have booked this past year and what we’re hoping to come up, we do have a Mary Kay convention that we haven’t had in the past year, so we’re pretty optimistic that we’re going to be a little bit under what we’ve been doing.

Councilmember Raben: Great. Bookings have been pretty solid considering the fact you haven’t had an anchor hotel, haven’t they?

Darren Stearns: Yeah, they’re decent. Locally, thankfully, the local community has done a lot to help support the building with events and we’ve chased a lot of that kind of stuff. We’re increasing, and we’ve got one more Broadway show this season than we had last year, so we’re chasing some more of the auditorium events that at times before we might not have been able to get, so we’re getting a little bit more aggressive with those as well to try to fill in the dead times.

Councilmember Raben: Any questions on this budget, on page 81? Councilman Lloyd?

Councilmember Lloyd: The events that you get, do you notice, do you lose events because of not having the hotel?

Darren Stearns: It makes it a little bit more difficult. I don’t know that that’s the lone reason, but the size of the conventions that we do have are, you know, the 500 to 1,000 people attendees, and with their going to different areas, they’re usually used to being in a convention center with a hotel attached or a bigger hotel, like if any ones that you’ve went to. Not to say that they won’t, the CVB has been working with us about bussing them, but if they have the opportunity of just being next door or being bussed, that is a detriment to when we’re trying to bring in a convention.

Councilmember Lloyd: Because I think there’s some that even ask for like 200 rooms adjacent or things like that.

Councilmember Lloyd: So all you can do is say, well, we have downtown, we have the Aztar Hotel, --

Darren Stearns: Right, and Aztar has helped us, actually I think they’re the ones that we’re going to be working with for the Mary Kay convention next year.

Darren Stearns: Right now, we don’t know how many are going to be in this area, but that’s in the same range that you’re talking about, the 200 - 250 room nights. And so we did put in proposals for ‘13 and ‘14 with them, but we did not receive those.

Councilmember Lloyd: Have you had the opportunity to work with the new Convention Bureau Director, Mr. Warren?

Darren Stearns: He’s a go-getter. I like him. You know, he’s got a new energy, a really positive outlook on it as far as I’m concerned right now, because we’re going to try some different things that we haven’t tried in the last two or three years, and change is a lot of times good. So we’re looking forward to it.

Councilmember Lloyd: So, on your revenues, obviously, we’re only a little over halfway through the year, how is it looking compared to 2010?

Darren Stearns: Revenue-wise, the revenue is down from what it was in 2010. Budget-wise, though, because we’ve been keeping track of the expenses and that, we’re ahead of budget.

Darren Stearns: We’re at probably 15 to 20 percent down from last year at this point.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. Any other questions? Hearing none, let’s move to page 130, Convention Center Operating fund. This one, there’s not a lot here. I see you’ve adjusted Utilities, anticipating higher costs.

Darren Stearns: Correct, yeah, the Building Authority purchases the gas, and so we get that number from them and then adjust accordingly.

Councilmember Raben: This is one we typically do adjust and it’s kind of a crap shoot anyway, it depends on how cold of winter we have or how hot of summer.

Darren Stearns: Correct, and we have the energy savings adjustment on that as well, and I think ours ends about the same time, 2015.

Councilmember Raben: Any questions with this budget? None, well, Darren, thank you.

Paul Dupont: It’s pretty much the same budget as last year except it’s a little less because salaries are less.

Councilmember Raben: Yes, it is. Does anyone have questions on this budget? Councilman Lloyd?

President Kiefer: A little bit similar situation to what the dental clinic has, I mean, I know you guys get some servicing that you do for out of county residents and I understand you don’t want to turn veterans away, it’s so important, but how many, on average, how many out of town, out of county residents do you guys service? Percentage wise?

Paul Dupont: Probably two or three percent. I mean, we try to – if somebody comes in to file a new claim, we try to steer them to, especially in Kentucky, we try to send them over there. Especially other counties, I know up in Warrick County, I had a guy come in the other day and wanted to file an appeal, and I told him, well, you’ve got a service rep up there. Well, he doesn’t like the service rep, he thinks he’s, I mean, he really hates him and in that kind of situation there’s not a whole lot we can do. We try to steer them to their counties or especially their state, if they’re in Kentucky or Illinois.

President Kiefer: Okay, well, that might be another situation where we try to get some reimbursements from other counties then, but okay, thank you.

Paul Dupont: I mean, I’m just giving you a ballpark, I have no idea because it might, of all the claims we’ve got, a lot of them, right now, we’re not working, you know, they might have already got their compensation, but then we’ve got people that live in Warrick County up in Boonville and Chandler, that whenever they want to file for something else, they want to come to us and file it because we’ve got their file and we just, we continue to do it because we’ve done it. And, I mean, it’s kind of hard to tell a veteran that our office has worked with for years and got them a claim, got them compensation, they know and respect us and they want us to continue with their claim. And if you tell them, well, we want you to go to Warrick County and they’re going to be kind of upset.

Councilmember Raben: We’ll move into Co-op Extension, page 48. This budget is pretty much flat. The only increase I see, Susan, is in Contractual Services. And that might just be, what is that contract for?

Susan Plassmeier: That is to help support the pay of the three Purdue extension educators. It goes totally toward salary. Purdue picks up about 70% of that, and the county is contributing about 30% of the pay.

Susan Plassmeier: Yes. If you reflect back, we came and got that appropriation for $361, that brought us to the budget of, you know, what Purdue had asked, like back in 2009. And they had flatlined that contractual services since 2009, but I had to keep coming back asking for that, because you hadn’t granted that amount. So we finally caught up with Purdue, and then now, they’re asking for a 1% increase on that one budget, which is about $735, over what that previous amount would have been.

President Kiefer: Thank you. I know this has probably been an old topic, but something I just wanted to talk about again. On rent of $38,544, have you guys now relocated back into Vanderburgh County?

Susan Plassmeier: We’ve always been in Vanderburgh County. We’re in Darmstadt.

President Kiefer: Sorry about that. I was ready to jump on this again. My apologies.

Susan Plassmeier: You know, and I might also point out that Purdue, we have four FMP educators that Purdue totally funds that works with limited resource families here in the community and then pays like their training expenses and stuff to the tune of about $120,000 that Purdue is putting into our community that, I mean, all we’re providing is office space and some paper supplies for them for programming. So, I mean, more is really kind of, you look into the bigger picture, it’s more than just money for those three educators that Purdue is giving to the community, and you don’t have to pay benefits on the three educators. So if you think of that in terms of that also, you know, what’s your increase for three county employees for benefits for a year that you’re not paying?

Mike Duckworth: Good morning, Mike Duckworth, Superintendent of County Highway department, and John Stoll, the County Engineer. We are both here in the event that you might have any questions. I’ve provided you with kind of a breakdown, I think that you’ve got, in regards to our specific accounts. Other than step increases, I don’t believe we’ve asked for any increases in any of our line items and we did eliminate new equipment at a savings of about 50,000. So I’ll answer any questions other than – anything else that you might have.

Councilmember Raben: Mike, you need to give everybody a moment. Does anybody have questions of the County Highway budget? No questions? Okay, we will move on to Cum Bridge, page 95.

Mike Duckworth: At the end of that account is, listed in your information, we asked for no increases in any of those line items other than step increases. The one account, 4230, is the 50,000 there that I pointed out to you that we did not request. We are maintaining our equipment at current levels. We do have Garage & Motor, Tires & Tubes in other accounts to help with mechanical breakdowns. As you’re well aware, we respond to storms, any other kind of infrastructure breakdowns or problems seven days a week, 24 hours a day. So this budget reflects those situations.

Councilmember Lloyd: I want to go back to County Highway, page 93. We’ve already spent as of June 30^th, all of the budgeted overtime. I just wanted to know, I mean, it’s somewhat unpredictable, but where do you think we’re going to end up in that account? And we’ve budgeted 50,000, obviously that’s low, but your request is 50,000.

Mike Duckworth: I think that will be okay in the event that we’re not out as we have been this year with the numerous snow events, ice events, and then if you add the straight line winds and the storms and the flooding and, you know, we haven’t had locusts yet, but it may happen to us next year or it may be a calm year, but I think that’s a good starting point, and, of course, what we’ve done is, as we’re doing this year, as we’ve kind of depleted some of those accounts, then we look at other line items that we haven’t had to use and then we come in for transfers.

Councilmember Lloyd: I mean, it’s about as bad as you can think of between snow, wind storm, the ice storm, so all of those entailed overtime for your department.

Mike Duckworth: And those have depleted those accounts, and as I said, we’re coming in, I guess, next month to transfer some money. But I will point out to you that my staff and I have been working extremely close with FEMA. I have great expectations that most, and of course, 75% of what we’re putting in for, but we calculate everything from depreciation of our equipment to our fuel usage, to our materials and all that, to a certain extent, we’ll be getting a significant amount of that money back that will be coming from FEMA.

Councilmember Lloyd: So at least some of that is related to the disaster storm, so that’s good to know.

President Kiefer: So, since, Mr. Chairman, since we’ve gone back to County Highway, I just wanted to ask Mike about Insurance. Is that, what type of insurance is that? 775 to 914.

Councilmember Raben: That’s the 18 percent increase that’s in all of the budgets.

Mike Duckworth: There is a line item that is called Other Insurance. I think last year there was $19,000 in it, and that is going to be part of this transfer that we’re asking for in the next month’s transfers, but we’ve not had to use that per se this year, I don’t believe.

President Kiefer: I just didn’t see an Insurance line item on every department. So, that’s why I was curious, why–

Councilmember Raben: It should be on all the joint departments where we’re split city/county.

Councilmember Raben: So the city pays their portion of it. It should be in every budget where there’s reimbursement by the state, well most of it’s state, which we just picked on today with Prosecutor IV-D. Outside of that, you know, it’s all in our big, one single line.

Councilmember Raben: His budget is, a good portion of his budget, it used to be all of it, but a good portion of it today is funded by gasoline tax and surtax.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, back to Cum Bridge, page 95. This budget, as you’ll see is, I think you mentioned it earlier, is down a little over $100,000, which, you know, this budget not only has employee lines and supply lines and stuff like that, but the projects are in here, too. So that’s a moving target all the time as well.

Councilmember Goebel: I have a question. John, on the Baseline Road bridge, is that $50,000 allocated for a request for upkeep? Or is there a problem with that?

John Stoll: This is not the new bridge, this is on the, it’s out past Highway 65.

John Stoll: It is an offshoot of the bi-annual bridge inspection. They just provide a listing of all the projects that need to be undertaken, and this is one of them.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, I think, under your leadership, building that bridge over the train or railroad tracks was an excellent set, or was very worthwhile. It’s served the people of Vanderburgh County very well, especially with the new North High School going up. Thank you.

Councilmember Lloyd: I guess, one question on Bridge, the state reimburses some of Cumulative Bridge, is that correct, or not?

John Stoll: We do get reimbursements on the federal aid projects. Like right now, on the final leg of the University Parkway project, since their culvert is out there, we were able to fund some of that project with Bridge money. We have to pay up-front, then we get the 80 percent reimbursement back from the state.

John Stoll: The section up to Marx Road is complete. I don’t remember what percentage the section from Marx to Diamond is–

Councilmember Lloyd: Oh, right, that’s still under construction, but up to Marx Road it’s 100 percent?

John Stoll: Right, the completion date is October of next year for getting the thing completed up to Diamond Avenue.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, alright, back to Local Roads and Streets. This is kind of everything else. I want to call attention to one thing, the account 2000, Materials, you know, for the last several years I’m going to say as far back as maybe ten years we’ve, this Council has set in a million dollars out of COIT into this line item for the sake of primarily paving, probably 100 percent of it or 90 percent of it is utilized towards paving. You know, that’s probably something that’s not going to happen this year. I mean, as Joe stated, we’re way behind the eight ball in regards to COIT. So, there’s some other things we can do. Mike and I have discussed them, he didn’t spend all of the $280,000 we granted him earlier in the year on salt, possibly taking this FEMA reimbursement that he discussed earlier, but, you know, we’re going to have to get creative in how we reallocate some of those funds. The hope would be that, you know, and there’s probably some other projects that, you know, might be over funded, but I just want everybody to know that the likelihood, there’s really no likelihood that we’ll be allocating a million dollars in COIT. So, we’re going to make every attempt to transfer some funds around and at least, you know, we may not pave 10 or 15 miles of road, but we’re going to patch a lot of holes and make the best of what we can with the monies we can creatively put in that line.

Mike Duckworth: Yeah, James, you and I discussed this, and one thing I want to point out is, the, we’re trying to extend the life of our roads by keeping up our shoulders, our, you know, our ditches that many times get silted in that cause mud and other kinds of debris to sit and to deteriorate our roads. So, while we don’t have, possibly, the funding that we’ve had in the past to actually go in and resurface roads, we’re doing other things that will hopefully extend their life. So, we have to be, as James said, creative in how we approach our renovations of over 500 miles of county roads, and we’ll do everything we can to keep the cost down.

Councilmember Goebel: Mike, on line item 3190, Solid Waste Disposal, you’re requesting $12,000, it looks, it appears that the last couple of years anyway that has been substantially less than that. Is there something major–

Mike Duckworth: Yeah, I mean, of course, this year we haven’t deducted all of our costs yet, because we haven’t paid our debris and sand bag bill, because we were waiting to see what FEMA was coming in on, and we’re negotiating that with Allied trying to keep those costs down, but in a normal year I would say that, you know, we’ve had that over a few years, but if anything probably could be cut, that’s probably one that we might be able lighten up a little bit.

Councilmember Raben: That line, do you not also pay where the county is called out to demo an old garage, or, you know, situations where the, in preparation for tax sales or something like that.

Mike Duckworth: – we have no idea what is going to be called upon us to do, because we do have those county owned lots, we do have, you know, weeds that we have to maintain because the county is required to, you know, we have that ordinance that we have to uphold, and when we get out to some of these properties, I mean, there’s everything on them. Of course, for us to be able to mow them we have to move stuff out of them.

Councilmember Goebel: But, when you, let’s say you do a bridge or something, you tear down the old structure, that’s not included in this line item, that’s part of the project, correct?

Mike Duckworth: That’s part of the project, but if we have to do any rehab or something, we look initially if it’s busted up concrete or something like that, for county residents that can use–

Councilmember Lloyd: Page 107, I was just going to ask about Oak Hill Road, $300,000. Is that going beyond Lynch? Is that the county’s portion of that?

John Stoll: Yes. This would extend up to St. George. The MPO’s long range plan calls for the project to go all the way up to Millersburg, but I did some ballpark cost estimates, and there’s no way we could fund all of it initially. So, this would be an initial attempt to get the first phase up to St. George. This would just cover design and environmental work.

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, so like phase, the very first beginning of it? Is that federal money too?

John Stoll: All the design and environmental costs are 100 percent local. When it eventually gets to construction, then we would get 80 percent federal funds.

John Stoll: The federal funds would cover construction, plus the construction inspection.

Councilmember Raben: Next we’ll move to page 41, County Assessor. Man, it’s time to really get tough here.

Councilmember Raben: This is a budget that is not only flat, but it’s down close to $100,000.

Bill Fluty: That’s correct, in the General Fund. What doesn’t show there, as there are some employees that are not, that through attrition and the hiring freeze that won’t be there next year, but it also helps the Insurance line item. So, it actually has two effects.

Bill Fluty: I do have 38 right now, and there’s three that aren’t going to have, that have left since last year.

Councilmember Terry: I guess, in the past, we’ve kind of been disputing, discussion around the Level II’s, how many do you have in your office that are Level II’s or Level III’s?

Bill Fluty: Oh, I knew you were going to ask me that number, but I’ll tell you, in effect, I think there was somewhere over 30. We’ve identified five that don’t need a Level II. Now, there’s two things about that, they continue to have their Level II until, there’s some that will go off this year, as of December 31^st, and then there’s a couple that will actually fall off for next year. So, we’ve only funded, I think we are funding three less this year, and it will be five total in the next, this year and next year.

Bill Fluty: Their job duties don’t require it. I think it’s been an on-going discussion with the Council and felt there wasn’t a need there. If their duties would change, or we would consolidate back, then I may be up here again saying, you know, something has changed, but right now they’re not doing that. They could be working in personal property, working different jobs in there that just aren’t in the real estate, which just don’t have a hands on any changing values. So, that’s the thought process on that.

Councilmember Raben: Let’s move to Sales Disclosure Fees, page, well, excuse me, yeah, Board of Appeals, page 112. That one’s down about $900. Is there any questions on that budget? None? Okay.

Councilmember Lloyd: We approved, Mr. Chair, we approved, didn’t we approve an increase in the fees for the PTABOA members?

Bill Fluty: Yes, it is, but remember we went from a five member board down to a three member board. So, it was nearly a wash. I think it was, if I remember right, maybe a couple hundred dollars.

Councilmember Lloyd: Right, and it’s a lot easier to deal with a three member, I would think.

Councilmember Raben: Sales Disclosure, page 125. It looks like a thousand dollar decrease in this budget. Any questions on the Sales Disclosure budget? None? Okay, well you got, oh, the 110, the Reassessment Budget.

Councilmember Lloyd: Mr. Chairman? This one also went down $3,200. So, the four budgets that Mr. Fluty manages, they all went down. I think that’s quite an accomplishment. If we had other departments like that, we might make our six million in cuts.

President Kiefer: Thank you. What’s the, Bill, what’s the balance on the Reassessment Fund?

Bill Fluty: It’s on the financial statement. He would have the up to date balance.

Bill Fluty: Now, I was here earlier and asked for $250,000, which you granted earlier in the year. I have used nearly $85,000 of that. I don’t have too much plans to do anymore with that, and that will revert back into that Fund.

Joe Gries: Okay, just to start, the rationale I just handed out is just showing on our Supply line on 1020-2600, once we combined those different lines we’re dropping that $2,000. And then Contractual Services we are using, next year, the printer study. We’re going to the Xerox printers, so we’re able to save money there as well. Because of that, Contractual Services is down from $7,500 to $6,000. Then one other point of note here, we have an employee retiring, actually, later this week. Friday is her last day. This person is part of the Exemption Department, one of the departments that Mr. Shetler, I think, in talking with Bill in the past and then with me as well, a department that we’re looking to cross train with another department. We’re in the process of doing that, and we’re not going to be asking to fill that position, that line is 1240-1020. Also, we would reduce the FICA and PERF there as well. It would also affect the Insurance line in the Council’s budget. So the net effect of that and our reductions in Supplies and Contractual Services here is about a three percent decrease in our budget for this year, or for next year, sorry.

Councilmember Lloyd: So, when this was prepared, you didn’t know that that person was going to retire, basically?

Joe Gries: Well, this is the exemption department within the, the Veterans Clerk within the exemption department.

Councilmember Lloyd: Thank you for that. So you’re reducing your staff by one full time?

Joe Gries: Yes, sir. Part of it, the work the Assessor has done with our office in the excise, which we talked about earlier this year, the new program that the Assessor’s office put into place, has allowed us to push some of the work onto that employee, because their duties are lightened up because of that new technology.

Councilmember Shetler: Just a quick point. What do you have, you have roughly what, 18-20 employees?

Councilmember Shetler: Then this, is this the second or third employee that’s been reduced in the last four or five years out of that department?

Joe Gries: Yeah, so we were up near 28, or 27, we’ll be down to 24 as of next year.

Joe Gries: The extra help person right now is helping us with the homestead verification form, which continues into its third year next year. So, they’re doing a lot of the paperwork and the data entry for that as well.

Councilmember Goebel: Is that mandated by the state to send out each, with each billing?

Joe Gries: Exactly. There’s a three year process where we send that, what we call the pink form, to verify homesteads within our county and then we put it in the state database to make sure that everybody is only receiving one within the state.

Councilmember Raben: Last we have Jail Bond on page 131. That is what it is. I see there’s an administrative fee on there this year.

Joe Gries: These are fees that are incurred due to the lending institution administering the bonds. They weren’t there in the past because the state actually cut those, because we weren’t providing them with the documentation. So, we’ve done that this year and we’re hoping that they won’t cut that so we won’t have to come back.

Councilmember Raben: That concludes the budget hearing portion of today’s meeting.

Councilmember Raben: I would like to make an announcement, then I’ll turn the mic back over to the President. Currently we have our budget cuts date set for September the 7^th, and our final budget hearing on the 14^th. We’re going to move that back. The new dates will be September 21^st will be our budget cuts, then our final will be September 28^th. Along with that, we’ll also be voting on the taxing units, as well as, I think we’ve also got a Personnel and Finance meeting scheduled. So we’ll get to take care of three meetings in one. The time for the 21^st , do we want to do it at 8:30 or 9:00, and I think the 28^th we have to do it at 9:30 because of a schedule conflict within this room, but do we want to make it the 21^st at 9:00 and the 28^th at 9:30? Does that work?

Councilmember Shetler: I have a schedule conflict. (Inaudible. Microphone not on.)

Councilmember Goebel: But, the 28^th, we already have this reserved, don’t we, for our regular meeting?

Jeff Ahlers: Regular meeting and also the non-binding budget reviews were also scheduled that morning so we would just be adding something additional on the 28^th.

Councilmember Raben: Didn’t you tell me it would need to be 9:30 on the 28^th?

Councilmember Raben: Alright, so, we’ll do our regular scheduled Personnel and Finance meeting at 8:30 on the 28^th, and then we’ll move into the other meeting. Right, the non-binding will be immediately after our Personnel and Finance, and then our final budget hearing will be immediately following that.

Jeff Ahlers: Right, but we need to set times, because they have to be published.

Jeff Ahlers: Okay, so, you’ll need to re-notice, and you guys, Sandie, you’ll need to send to the press, if you’re moving the regular 9:00 meeting to 8:30, right? The Personnel and Finance Committee meeting.

President Kiefer: Well, right now we’re looking at 9:00 on the 21^st, or 8:30? What’s the time?

Councilmember Raben: 8:30, is that what you said, Stephanie? 8:30 for the 21^st?

President Kiefer: That works good. I guess, we’re recessed then until the 21^st then on this.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, while we’re working on that, could you clarify when we expect to have the final numbers on Insurance? Will that be, I know we’re estimating pretty high.

Councilmember Raben: That’s part of the delay, is to allow more time to negotiate some rate decrease.

Jeff Ahlers: He says he’s tied up till noon on the 21^st. Well, we’ve got, I mean, Teri’s saying, so I don’t know if we need to take a brief recess and come back in five minutes and everybody check their calendars, because of the way that the advertising rules work for budgets, we need to be able to announce on the record that we’re just recessing, not adjourning this meeting, and that it’s being continued to a certain date and time. So, if you guys want to take a brief break, make whatever calls, get your schedules, but it’s going to cause us a lot of advertising problems if we don’t.

Councilmember Raben: Would the 22^nd be better? What about, it could be the 20^th, it can be the 22^nd.

President Kiefer: Russ is out of the room. He had to leave, so we don’t know if his schedule is available on that date.

Jeff Ahlers: Let’s take a five minute, do you want to take a five minute recess?

President Kiefer: Can we reconvene now? We’re going to reconvene the budget hearings and I think we have a date set, selected possibly.

Councilmember Raben: September 22^nd at 8:30 a.m. will be our budget cuts and then September 28^th at 8:30 we’ll have our Personnel & Finance meeting, at 9:00 a.m. we’ll have our non-binding taxing units and at 9:30 we’ll set the final budget.

Jeff Ahlers: So this meeting today, just to clarify, this meeting is being recessed until September 22^nd at 8:30 a.m., correct?