VANDERBURGH COUNTY COUNCIL

MINUTES

DECEMBER 5, 2007

The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 5th day of December, 2007 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:32 a.m. by Vanderburgh County Council President, Marsha Abell.

President Abell: I’d like to call to order the December 5th, 2007 meeting of the Vanderburgh County Council. Attendance roll call, please.

President Abell: Mrs. Deig, would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

(Pledge of Allegiance was given)

President Abell: I trust everyone has read their minutes from the November 7th meeting and would entertain a motion to approve.

Councilmember Winnecke: So moved.

President Abell: Do I have a second?

Councilmember Leader: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

President Abell: Appropriation Ordinance, Mr. Raben.

SHERIFF

JAIL

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you. Good morning. First on the agenda under Sheriff, we have a request in the amount of $3,100 and I’m going to go ahead and include the Jail, which is 1051-1850 Overtime for 5,000. This is here as an appropriation and also as a transfer, so I’m going to move that we set the appropriation request in at zero and approve the transfers.

Councilmember Sutton: Which one at zero, Mr. Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Both. Both Jail and Sheriff requests.

Councilmember Sutton: So the motion is just only on the appropriation and when we get to the transfers –

Councilmember Raben: We’ll approve the transfers.

Councilmember Winnecke: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

SHERIFF                                                                REQUESTED       APPROVED

JAIL                                                                       REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

VOTER REGISTRATION

Councilmember Raben: Okay next, Voter Registration in the amount of $1,131, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Sutton: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

VOTER REGISTRATION                                       REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

REASSESSMENT/PIGEON TOWNSHIP ASSESSOR

Councilmember Raben: Okay next, under Reassessment, Pigeon Township Assessor, Maintenance Contract, in the amount of $772. I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Sutton: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

REASSESSMENT/

PIGEON TOWNSHIP ASSESSOR                        REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

JAIL PROJECT

Councilmember Raben: Jail Project, 3660-4196 in the amount of $374,000, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Leader: Second.

Councilmember Shetler: I have a question in one area here. I’m trying to find it real quickly. I think it had to do –

President Abell: Mr. Shetler, do you want the Sheriff to come up?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes, if he could, please. The medical negative air, $21,000, and the question I have on that is, I believe that this might be something involved with a design element, at least I think its in question here, I think, between the Commissioners and the original people who designed the building. So, I don’t know, Sheriff, if you could –

Eric Williams: I think that’s – Sheriff Eric Williams. Councilman Shetler did come out to the building and we went through each one of those items on the list last week, and I appreciate that. Yes, that one item is one of the items that we feel is probably a design error or oversight and I do believe the Commissioners and Building Authority are working with the design people and the building people to correct that. It is our intention just to get that corrected as quickly as possible because of the Health Department and our needs, but yeah, I think that falls into that category of it probably is an oversight or a design error.

Councilmember Shetler: So I didn’t know if it was something we want to appropriate now within this bundle here or if its something we should wait on to see how far they can get with the contractors on it from past on it, and if we can get that money from them. So that’s kind of where I was at the point right now.

Eric Williams: I have no issue if you want to subtract that amount from the total amount at this point in time because of that reason. We’re going to have to get it fixed one way or the other down the road.

President Abell: Do you know how long, how far in the process the Commissioners are?

Eric Williams: I know the Building Authority has hired an outside source and they have been going to meetings and reviewing back and forth. And I can’t speak on their behalf but I know its an ongoing process trying to work those details out. I believe Mr. Rector is here if you’d like to ask him. He may be able to address that more closely.

President Abell: Mr. Rector, could you come to the microphone?

Dave Rector: Good morning. Dave Rector, Building Authority. Commissioner Nix and I have had several meetings with the design firms and architects. We are, in fact, this week trying to schedule a conference call with them to resolve some issues and hope to have resolution to some of those issues, I don’t know that we will or not. The negative pressure in the area for the medical isolation is a necessity. We’ll have to do it one way or the other. But, like the Sheriff, I understand if that’s something you want to remove from there and we’ll handle it in another way. But it will have to be done.

President Abell: Mr. Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: I was going to ask, with the, I mean, you’ve got a lot of different items within this request here, are you intending to bundle this all into one bid package or has that process already begun?

Dave Rector: Those numbers you see are reflected from either contractor quotes or estimates. If we get approval for this money, then I’ll go out and actually get firms quotes on these items that are required to do the projects.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, I guess I’m – I don’t know if, from our standpoint, if at some point in time that is drawn up on the original contractor, the one element and pulled out, unless we believe that there is going to be some overspending here, I don’t know if there’s necessarily any need to delay approving this, I guess, request today, so that you guys can begin the bidding process. And so I guess we will be anticipating a repeal at some point in time if the contractor does come back and make good on the other item.

Dave Rector: Yeah, I hate to see the whole list of projects held up because of this one item. And so if that’s important to all of you to take that out, please do so and we’ll move forward with the others and we’ll try to resolve this issue with the negative pressure in another manner.

Councilmember Sutton: And that’s kind of the point I’m making, so I mean, if you can just keep us in the loop where that – I mean, how long do you anticipate the bidding process to take on all of these projects?

Dave Rector: We’ll immediately get to that. This time of year, we all know the holidays, it will delay, but I hope by the end of January we’ll have firm pricing on all of this. And then weather dependent on some of them, as you can see, we’ll get started in early spring, some of them this winter if its approved like the sound insulation in the pods, that can be done during the wintertime. The outside projects will wait till the spring, but we’ll go ahead and start getting pricing on them immediately.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, and I guess my other issue is just there are a couple of things in there that are security areas that I really wouldn’t want us to delay on, like the camera situation, the glass that shields from the public. I’d like to see us not delay on at least those projects.

Dave Rector: We’ll start the projects we can immediately and the Sheriff, with our security vendor that did the original jail, we’ll work with them to install the additional cameras.

President Abell: Mr. Shetler, did you have something?

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, I might point out, I’m really solidly in favor of every aspect of this and I’m really in favor of even the medical negative air aspect, except that I would hate for that to interfere with the negotiations going on and then for some reason we’re not able to get the $21,000 back from the architect/designer on that, and that’s my main concern. I’d like to see the county be able to keep that money in their pocket, so I would like to see us approve everything but leave that out for the time being, and then if the negotiations break down and we’re not able to do it, then we can take that matter up, because it needs to be done. It has to be done, but its something we can deal with at a later point in time, I think. That’s my feeling.

Dave Rector: And I’ll talk to Commissioner Nix, but at some point when I hope we resolve these issues, we’ll update you on how things turned out.

President Abell: And possibly by the time you get the actual figures on it, it will be resolved anyway, so –

Dave Rector: I hope so.

President Abell: Mr. Goebel, did you have something?

Councilmember Goebel: I was just curious, Mr. Rector, this has not been addressed through the duration or the length of time we’ve been using that jail, what type of setting or time frame do you think we have to have the negative air pressure in place?

Dave Rector: Immediately. It worked at first. We had the area under negative pressure and then we started quarterly checking the balancing reports and its just diminished over time until the point where it was failing and continues to fail and we have a new design to correct that so that we can get it under the negative pressure. The Health Department, I believe, had told the Sheriff, do not use it until its corrected, so we’ll have it corrected. I mean, we have the design complete, to begin on it.

Councilmember Goebel: Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. I mean, are we relatively sure that we do have a legitimate complaint with the original contractor and that there is a better than not chance that we are going to get reimbursed for this?

Dave Rector: There is no doubt it’s a legitimate design error that it wasn’t working for whatever reasons. Do I know that there’s going to be resolution through them for that? No. I do know that we will correct it one way or the other because the Health Department has said so. But it’s a flaw in the pressurization across the coils and the reheat coils and the filters, and it was just – we need to beef up the motors, actually, and change out some fans, that’s what we’re going to do.

Councilmember Raben: And you had stated that the Health Department has told us, don’t use it until its corrected. How does that affect us? What are we – is this the entire unit?

Dave Rector: Sheriff, has that impacted you?

Eric Williams: It hasn’t caused great grief yet. The negative air section of the medical unit is for those areas where we would house an inmate that has tuberculosis or something, we’re still using the cells, the standard cells when we need to, but when we encounter an inmate that would need that kind of treatment, we’re at a loss. We’re right back where we started before we even built this section. At this point in time it hasn’t created a lot of grief yet, but you know, tomorrow we could get an inmate in our custody that would have be to in that kind of setting.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. The other option is take them to Deaconess as an example and let them –

Eric Williams: That’s one option. The other, you know, historically, a lot of times you’ve just done your best to do it by keeping them in the far corner of the jail and hoping for the best.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, we could probably spend it in outside medical care if we had one or two episodes between now and fixing it. But I would encourage you, and certainly urge you to fight it and try to get the county reimbursed for this.

Eric Williams: I think that’s everybody’s plan.

President Abell: Any other discussion? Mr. Raben, do you want to present a motion?

Councilmember Raben: Yes, I thought I had. The motion was –

President Abell: I didn’t know if you wanted to change it or leave it with the 374?

Councilmember Raben: The original motion was for 374. I was going to allow it to stay at 374 with hopes of being reimbursed and not spending it with outside providers should we run into the situations that the Sheriff had described. We could be out this in a few days, probably.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

JAIL PROJECT                                                      REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

Eric Williams: Thank you, and once we get the projects done, anything that’s left in there, we’ll definitely repeal back to that fund for you.

SHERIFF                                                      JAIL

ELECTION OFFICE                                     COMMISSIONERS

WEIGHTS & MEASURES                            PUBLIC DEFENDER

CIRCUIT COURT                                         SUPERIOR COURT

CUMULATIVE BRIDGE                               FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES

REASSESSMENT/PTABOA                       REASSESS/PIGEON ASSESS.

CIRCUIT COURT SUPPLEMENTAL           LOCAL EMERGENCY PLAN COMM.

GERMAN ASSESSOR (LATE)                    SUPERIOR COURT (LATE)

BURDETTE PARK (LATE)                          COUNTY COUNCIL (LATE)

CUMULATIVE BRIDGE (LATE)                  REASSESS/GERMAN (LATE)

REASSESS/KNIGHT ASSESS. (LATE)

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Madam President, we have a lot of transfers including some late transfers. I’ll give everybody an opportunity to review the ones they’ve not already seen. We can ask if there’s any questions of any of those transfers. If not, we’ll lump them together. I do have a request on the County Assessor’s regular budget transfer.

President Abell: Mr. Weaver? I don’t think he’s here, Mr. Raben. We could – do you want me to have Sarah call him and ask him to come in?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

President Abell: Would you have Sarah call Mr. Weaver and ask him to come in?

Councilmember Raben: My question on this one is, back in March we approved like $120,000 for outside contractual services for doing the commercial and industrial trending and I want to first find out if that trending is completed before we pull $13,000 out of there. Does anyone have any other questions if we – we’ll skip over this one – is everyone okay with all the other transfers?

Councilmember Leader: I’d like to ask Mr. Craig to come up and ask him about the request at Burdette for Other Employees we’re transferring into Security, unless you’ve spoken.

Steve Craig: Steve Craig, manager at Burdette. Good morning.

Councilmember Leader: Thank you. If you would, Steve, discuss that transfer from Other Employees into Security. Are you adding additional hours for security or what is that $3,000 for?

Steve Craig: Well, there’s several things that is involved in that in a year. One of them is the amount of hours that the security works if the Discovery Lodge is rented, then my security stays until everyone leaves the building. They’re supposed to be out of the building at 12. In a perfect world they’d all be out of there at 12, but a lot of times they’re not. Some of the venues have seven - eight hundred people. Bands, stuff like that, the security stays over so that they can lock the building down and set the alarms. Some of the other ones, I have not got any extra money in the last few years in the security and every year we’ve got a raise, especially on my Sheriff’s Department. The Sheriffs that I employ have got a raise every year just like we do, a three percent, and it finally caught up with us. A lot of times I try to cut them back some on weekdays when we’re not as busy, but like I said, when we have buildings rented all the way until midnight, sometimes they don’t get out until later. And over a year, it adds up. And then we’re transferring the money out of our part-time account.

Councilmember Leader: This is through the end of December, would you anticipate additional security costs next year as well?

Steve Craig: We could have it. Like I said, I try to keep it down and then there’s instances where we can save without compromising the integrity of the security, but I may be back here next December asking to transfer some, too.

President Abell: Thank you, Mr. Craig. Any other questions of anyone?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

President Abell: Mr. Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Is anyone here from Superior Court?

Sandie Deig: They just left.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, well, their request, they’re transferring out of that YCC Operating cost and really, -- do you know something about that, Bill?

President Abell: I think Mr. Fluty can answer that question. Mr. Craig, you can sit down.

Bill Fluty: Yes. We have some bills that came in from, I think, the Patient/Inmate Care is for the ones we send out of county. And then they have enough money in their YCC account, which is really just the same money, to pay the November and the December bills for that, and this will take care of the rest of the ones they send out of the county. So we asked them to move that money over. And then, of course, they will get new money January 1st.

Councilmember Sutton: Does this take care of Patient/Inmate Care for the year?

Bill Fluty: Yes.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, are we anticipating this kind of surplus in the– even though it is the same thing, the YCC account in 2008? I mean, are we over budgeting there?

Bill Fluty: It varies between – you know, that cost goes up depending on how they are sentenced and at this time, that’s where the money is. So its just – its used for the same purpose whether they’re locally detained or if they’re sent out of the county.

President Abell: Mr. Sutton, I think one of the reasons there’s some money in the original YCC account is, as I recall, could be because we didn’t use, the building wasn’t ready. We had budgeted for being in there last year in January , February and they didn’t have it ready. So we have – yeah, it was a long time, I remember, and so there’s a surplus because of that. That’s why that money is there.

Bill Fluty: That is one of the reasons. Actually, they didn’t have the opportunity to send anybody to the local facility and, of course, they had to move them out of the county, so it did leave some extra money in there.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Okay.

President Abell: I noticed Mr. Weaver is here if you want to ask him a question, Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: I’m sorry, oh, there he is. Okay.

Jonathan Weaver: Good morning. Jonathan Weaver, Vanderburgh County Assessor. I’m sorry for my tardiness. The last time I came up here I got stitches above my eye a couple of months ago, so I haven’t been back. What’s up?

Councilmember Raben: The question is, on Contractual Services 1090-3530, this is in your transfer, your General Fund budget, that Contractual Services money was monies we put in place in March for commercial and industrial trending to be completed this year. Is that completed now?

Jonathan Weaver: Oh yes. It was completed on time – well, it was completed in September.

Councilmember Raben: Completed and its just this much under budget, then?

Jonathan Weaver: Yeah, from what I understand, its being transferred for Office Supplies.

Councilmember Raben: And that would be the next question. That’s a lot of money in Office Supplies and Office Machines. Do you have a particular –

Jonathan Weaver: Well, from what I understand, you know, we have 9,600 appeals, we need folders, we need toner, we need paper to make all the copies, so this has been what we’ve been about basically all this year is trying to organize all this stuff.

Councilmember Raben: Questions?

Councilmember Sutton: Is that an error on your transfer request, Mr. Weaver? It doesn’t list that there was an amount budgeted for Supplies, Machines, well, you’ve got two office supply accounts there, and, of course, this is showing a balance of zero, were you guys not budgeted anything in those line items?

Jonathan Weaver: I’m sorry to appear unprepared but, yeah, I was going over it with my Chief Deputy right before and as far as I knew, this is money that was there that we just wanted to be transferred for stuff we needed like those folders and toner, office supplies in general.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, I asked because that’s really, on these forms, that’s really helpful for us to be able to see the amount that’s budgeted and then how much has been dispersed during the course of the year. So, you know, when people come back for requests we can kind of get a good sense of the spend rate on those requests.

Jonathan Weaver: So what do you need from me?

Councilmember Sutton: Well, on this form here, on the transfer form, it lists in this area, you plug in how much was budgeted for the year and then how much you’ve actually spent, and then that gives us, because its right here, there’s zeroes all across and I assume there should be some numbers in here, some way or another unless we were anticipating you finding another way for you to pay for your office supplies and what have you.

Councilmember Raben: I might be able to answer that. If you recall, that probably went into the Reassessment side, all the 2000, 3000 and 4000 accounts, we put on Reassessment. But there is also another transfer for like $1,050 in the Reassessment side as well. I guess this just kind of – sends up a flag because I don’t know of another office that we appropriate $10,000 in Office Supplies. Well, with the Reassessment side, it’s a little over $11,000 in Office Supplies, so I’m just curious what the real needs are there if we’re talking about –

Jonathan Weaver: Let me talk to the person that –

Councilmember Raben: -- I mean, that would be a lot of supplies.

Jonathan Weaver: Do you want me to run downstairs and come right back up with an answer or –

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, that would be great.

Jonathan Weaver: Okay. I apologize for being unprepared.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Madam President, we’ll do that. I’m going to move that all other transfers with the exception of the County Assessor/General Fund budget and County Assessor/Reassessment budget be approved.

Councilmember Shetler: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

SHERIFF                                                                REQUESTED       APPROVED

JAIL                                                                       REQUESTED       APPROVED

ELECTION OFFICE                                               REQUESTED       APPROVED

COMMISSIONERS                                                REQUESTED       APPROVED

WEIGHTS & MEASURES                                      REQUESTED       APPROVED

PUBLIC DEFENDER                                             REQUESTED       APPROVED

CIRCUIT COURT                                                   REQUESTED       APPROVED

SUPERIOR COURT                                               REQUESTED       APPROVED

CUMULATIVE BRIDGE                                         REQUESTED       APPROVED

Table continued next page)

FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES                        REQUESTED       APPROVED

REASSESSMENT/PTABOA                                 REQUESTED       APPROVED

REASSESSMENT/PIGEON TWP. ASSESSOR    REQUESTED       APPROVED

CIRCUIT COURT

SUPPLEMENTAL ADULT PROBATION              REQUESTED       APPROVED

LOCAL EMERGENCY PLAN COMMISSION       REQUESTED       APPROVED

GERMAN TWP. ASSESSOR                                REQUESTED       APPROVED

SUPERIOR COURT                                               REQUESTED       APPROVED

BURDETTE PARK                                                 REQUESTED       APPROVED

COUNTY COUNCIL                                               REQUESTED       APPROVED

CUMULATIVE BRIDGE                                         REQUESTED       APPROVED

REASSESSMENT/GERMAN TWP. ASSESSOR  REQUESTED       APPROVED

REASSESSMENT/KNIGHT TWP. ASSESSOR    REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I’ll move on to the Amendments to the Salary Ordinance. First, under Sheriff, I’ll move to amend salary line 1050-1301 Civilian Overtime as previously approved. 1050-1210 College Incentive as previously approved. under Jail, 1051-1850 Union Overtime as previously approved. Election Office, 1210-1120 Election Assistant as previously approved. Public Defender, 1303-1970 Temporary Replacement as previously approved. Superior Court, 1370-1370 Bailiff as previously approved. German Township Assessor, amend salary line 1120-1972, it’s a Level II Certification as previously approved and the transfer, this is the Level II Certification for the township assessor, Tim Schaefer. Burdette Park, 1450-1190 Security as previously approved. County Council salary line 1480-1971 Accrued Payments as previously approved. These are payments for an employee on FMLA and will not be returning. Under Cum Bridge, 2030-1971 Accrued Payments as previously approved. These are to pay out the benefits for a deceased employee. And that’s all I have, and I make that in the form of a motion.

Councilmember Winnecke: Second.

President Abell: Discussion? Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

COUNTY ASSESSOR

REASSESSMENT/COUNTY ASSESSOR

President Abell: Mr. Raben, I notice the County Assessor is back.

Lori Gonyer: I’m Lori Gonyer, the Chief Deputy and I’m the one that took care of the paperwork for the transfers, and I guess I don’t understand why there are questions, so I’m here to answer any of them.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. Well, the question was, is we’re transferring money out of a contractual account in the amount of 13,000, and we are putting 10,000 of it into Other Supplies and 3,000 into Office Machines. and 10,000, if that is Office Supplies along with another transfer later that is $1,050, it just seems like $11,050 will be a lot of Office Supplies, so we were wondering what was –

Lori Gonyer: Right. What its for is, we are expending a lot of money on toner and paper for all the 9,500 appeals, plus the folders cost us, for five boxes of 100 costs us $170 and, you know, that’s not enough to – like one box of appeals takes over 500 folders and we have tons and tons of folders. And so we’ve been going through those left and right, and labels. And so all of this is being used for the appeals process and all of the equipment use and, you know, that kind of stuff that we’ve been using. So that’s the reason for all the added expense.

Councilmember Raben: Well, and that’s understandable. I don’t think we’ve reached the number of appeals that we’ve reached this past year.

Lori Gonyer: Yeah, definitely.

Councilmember Raben: So I understand that and I’m good with that. Motion to approve.

Councilmember Sutton: I think, too, you have to understand that you deal with this every day and we come to see your request once a year or twice a year, so helping us to understand the degree to what you are experiencing helps us and then some of the questions that we may ask, it may seemingly raise a flag, you can help shed light on that type of, the situations that you’re dealing with.

Lori Gonyer: Okay.

President Abell: Any other questions? Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: The only question I had is, when we got the explanation, it just said routine supplies and that leaves it pretty wide open on this end. And this is not a routine year as far as appeals go. Do you foresee next year being another landslide or will things settle down?

Lori Gonyer: We’re hoping it will be less but, you know, its hard to say. We would think it would be less, but how much less, I don’t know. I mean, some people, you know, maybe that didn’t appeal this year will see, you know, my neighbor has got it changed so maybe this year I’ll appeal, too. So its really hard to say.

President Abell: Mr. Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, would we be better off taking it entirely out of the Reassessment account and transfer there rather than taking it out of the General Fund?

Councilmember Raben: Well, the funds, I’m sure there’s not $10,000 in Reassessment within their account today. So we would probably have to do an additional appropriation and if they’re buying the supplies yet this year, that won’t happen until January.

Councilmember Shetler: I didn’t know on that line 2490-1090-3530 that shows a balance after it was all said and done of $19,000, if there was room to take the 10 out of that or...on that Reassessment. I’m talking about on the request for transfer, the bottom part there.

Lori Gonyer: I believe what that’s left for is the last installment payment to the commercial/industrial trender. Until the appeals are finalized, his last payment is not paid until that’s all complete.

Councilmember Shetler: So this doesn’t include December year-end?

Lori Gonyer: Right. So that’s what that is.

Councilmember Shetler: Thank you.

President Abell: Any other questions? Mr. Raben, did you have more questions? Just as a note for next year, we look at them pretty close at the end of the year. Its okay to put money back in the General Fund at the end of the year. You don’t have to spend it all.

Lori Gonyer: Okay.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton? Or, actually, you don’t have a second for this.

President Abell: I’m sorry, we don’t have.

Councilmember Leader: I’ll second.

President Abell: Okay, now we’ll have a roll call.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: I wish you would give that speech in some other areas. Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

COUNTY ASSESSOR                                           REQUESTED       APPROVED