The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 4th day of February, 2009 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:33 a.m. by County Council President Tom Shetler, Jr.

President Shetler: Good morning and welcome to the Vanderburgh County Council meeting. Today is February the 4^th, it’s a little past 8:30 and the first thing I’d like to do is have the attendance roll call please.

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

President Shetler: If Councilman Sutton could lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

President Shetler: Next I need a motion for approval of the minutes of January 2^nd.

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded. Do I have any questions? Roll call please.

President Shetler: Yes. There being seven ayes and no nays, motion for approval of the minutes passes.

President Shetler: Next then is the appropriation ordinance and at this time I’ll pass it to Councilman Raben.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, good morning. Thank you. First on the agenda is 1051-1301 Civilian Overtime for the Jail in the amount of $10,000, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: Its been moved and seconded. Do I have any questions with regard to the appropriation? If not, roll call please.

Councilmember Lloyd: I had a question. In this line item, we’ve used up almost a whole year’s worth of overtime in one month. I’d like, I guess, someone to address that. Oh, there he is.

Eric Williams: Good morning, Sheriff Eric Williams. That budget is also accounting for our new additions to the union overtime with the additional medical people, the other thing is the way that budget is set in. We can never predict what they’re going to choose at the beginning of the year. The union agreement allows them to choose comp time or overtime, and this year we’ve had again, a shift of people choosing overtime as opposed to comp time. That budget will replenish multiple times throughout the year. The amount set in at the beginning of the year is not an annual budget for that one, it’s just what was set in.

Bill Fluty: I think last year, $8,000 was spent for the full year. Is that correct?

Eric Williams: I don’t have the numbers with me, but probably. But again, with the union agreement, they’re allowed to choose between overtime and comp time, and that line item now has some other people in it because of the change in the union agreement, so there’s more people in it now than there used to be.

Eric Williams: It would be my civilian union. It’s all the Teamsters that are civilians, which now includes my medical office because they were added to the union.

Councilmember Kiefer: Mr. President? Sheriff, on the $10,000, will that then cover you for the rest of 2009 or is that just to get to –

President Shetler: Other questions? We have a motion on the floor, roll call please.

Councilmember Lloyd: I’m going to vote yes, but I’m a little concerned that it seems like it’s an open-ended commitment here and just be interested to see what figures you can bring to us.

Councilmember Kiefer: I’ll vote yes as well, and I would appreciate seeing an estimate for the remainder of the year. Thank you.

President Shetler: Yes. I think that’s six and a half ayes and no nays. Seven ayes and no nays, the motion passes.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, 1081-1190-1081 Enforcement Agent in the amount of $4,748, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: It’s been seconded. Do I have any questions? Roll call please.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, County Assessor, 1090-1971 Accrued Payments in the amount of $240, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. Do I have any questions on the request?

Councilmember Lloyd: It looks like this was an error in last year’s salary ordinance. Is that correct?

Councilmember Raben: Okay first, Mr. President, is FICA in the amount of $462, then we have Extra Help in the amount of $6,038, and Contractual Services in the amount of $361. I’ll move that we approve the $462 and the $6,038, zero out of the $361. I make that in the form of a motion.

President Shetler: Okay, we have a motion and a second. Probably ought to give an explanation on that.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, on the reason to zero out the Contractual Services, back, in fact, there was some discussion on this at budgets back in August and this basically would reinstate an extra half of a percent. Purdue, which funds a large portion of these salaries, Purdue granted a three percent increase; the county, we approved and budgeted a two and a half percent. So this is just keeping this line consistent with the rest of the county employees at a two and a half percent.

Councilmember Lloyd: So, I guess, Cooperative Extension, they wanted to give a raise of three percent, when all other county employees had two and a half percent? Okay, and that was because Purdue gave three percent?

Susan Plassmeier: Susan Plassmeier from the Cooperative Extension Service. That three percent was what Purdue did statewide, and they pay 70% of our salaries. The county picks up about 30%. It’s 69/31%. So it doesn’t necessarily just, it’s not just salary increases, but benefits is kind of also bundled into that. There’s some other things: our computer line, so it’s not just all 100% toward salary. And I have to find that money somewhere. If I have to pay it out of my pocket, Purdue is not just going to say you can’t pay $361, and it’s okay. So that’s just the way they operate.

Councilmember Raben: Well, you could file an appropriation for an upcoming meeting for whatever that difference is for the computer and the FICA. You said, you’re talking about this $361.

Susan Plassmeier: I’m saying it’s just bundled all together. It’s not just our salary. It takes into, Purdue pays all the Extension Educator benefits and in that figure that they give us, it also encompasses our computer system, our T-1 line. We are not through the county computer system, Purdue maintains that, so that it’s statewide, so every county is operating the same. So it’s not, I guess what I’m saying, it’s not just toward our salaries, that three percent that was charged. It was for the total package.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, so they increased your total package by three percent?

Susan Plassmeier: No, not the computers. We have a separate computer line item that pays for our lease for our computers. But what I’m saying is, that that encompasses not necessarily that computer line item, but like the T-1 service that they provide for us. They provide our technical assistance when we have problems. You know, the county doesn’t come out, it’s Purdue that could come down or they get in our computer system and you see the little arrows moving around where they’re up on campus fixing something within our system. And also it goes toward some training money also. Have I totally confused you?

Councilmember Raben: Somewhat, but is there a figure that gets us closer? I mean, I don’t think we want to approve the $361 because part of that $361 in some form or fashion will be that –

Susan Plassmeier: Purdue University pays the balance of the educator’s salaries, benefits, staff development training expenses. Their contribution is approximately 69% of the salary and benefit package and the county contributes 31%. In addition, Purdue is paying approximately $1,000 this year per educator for staff development. We also have two part-time staff that are totally funded by Purdue for the family nutrition program. They pay their staff and pick up their benefits, training and teaching materials, and then this value of the high speed internet connection, they value at $8,000 per year on the T-1 line. So it’s all that lumped together.

Councilmember Raben: But you can’t tell me how much of this 361, how much of that represents the half of a percent increase?

Councilmember Raben: Okay, there’s funds in place to fund you for the next month or two, correct? I mean, this $361 does not have to be approved today.

Susan Plassmeier: Well, I’ve got to let them know. So, yeah, we send up like half a year at a time or so, of the money up to Purdue.

Councilmember Raben: Why don’t we do this: let’s leave the motion as is. You come back to us next month with a request for an appropriation for the items you’ve stated less the half of a percent increase on salary.

Councilman Sutton: I guess I did have a question not on the Contractual side, but on that Extra Help side. The length of time for this grant that you’ve received, is it just the current academic year?

Councilman Sutton: Goes through summer. And is the program already in place or is this something that’s going to pick up in the summer?

Susan Plassmeier: No, it’s already in place. This is the second year for that grant, so it’s a continuation of the program. And it’s an in and out thing. I mean, the county gets reimbursed by the school corporation for that money, for the salaries.

Councilman Sutton: The cycle for this grant, are you intending to reapply for the next academic year, I guess, that will start in September?

Councilman Sutton: So the monies that you are requesting here won’t carry over into the next grant cycle? It’s just this one only.

Councilman Sutton: I guess what do you do in the interim? I guess our calendar year is different from the academic year, how do you make up for that period where the funds are exhausted?

Susan English: Susan English, office manager. Its not really happened because, yeah, it’s just that our cycles are off. So we’ll be back in the fall if, for sure, the grant happens again for the 2009 - 2010 year, and then we’ll have to come back again. We do have some money in our part-time help line item anyway, so that’s what gets us through, I guess, is what you’re asking.

Councilman Sutton: Yeah, just wondering if you guys are going to come back in the fall asking for –

Susan English: Yeah. We’ve done this. This is the second year for the grants that we’ve done. Yeah, because they won’t get us the money up front, we have to – after they’ve worked, then we have to request that from the school corp.

Councilman Sutton: So the total cost actually is just a shade over 12,000, I guess?

Bill Fluty: I just have a clarification. You signed a contract with the Commissioners for $72,934 for Contractual Services. Would this 361, is it an increase to this amount?

Susan Plassmeier: That would be on top of that. It would be an additional one, so if they–

Bill Fluty: You’d have to come back and correct it? That’s what I wanted to ask.

Susan Plassmeier: Yes. The amount that I was asking was $73,295. And that was what, 72-something, you said?

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next Legal Aid, 1460-3600 Rent in the amount of $1,362, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded? Questions? No questions, call for the roll.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next under County Highway, 2010-1530 Shift Differential in the amount of $335, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: Yes. Again, there being seven ayes and no nays, the motion carries.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next under Superior Court. We have several items for a total of $9,249, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, Mr. President, the Probation Officers, what is this money for on the Probation Officers?

Terry Dietsch: Terry Dietsch, Senior Judge Superior Court. Mr. Kiefer, the state has a minimum salary schedule for Probation Officers. We use our probation user fees to supplement those salaries to bring them up to the state level. We do this and we’ve done this for years so that we don’t ask you to appropriate money from the county general fund and use the probation user fees to augment those salaries. This changes very little year to year. The only reason we’re here today is because some clerical error was made by someone between the time we submitted this supplemental budget and it was actually approved.

President Shetler: Any other questions? We have a motion on the floor then. Roll call please. Thank you, Judge.

Councilmember Raben: Mr. President? Well, we have repeals. I move that we accept the repeals as listed.

Councilmember Lloyd: Do we want to accept the repeal for Knight Township? Is that correct?

Councilmember Kiefer: Jeff Ahlers? Are we legally allowed to repeal something that’s been – elected official’s salary?

Jeff Ahlers: Well, this presents an interesting, I suppose, scenario. I mean, clearly, the law says you can’t change the salary of an elected official for the year in which it’s fixed. The Knight Township official has sent correspondence stating that he does not want to accept those funds. So that creates a little different scenario than normal, so, you know, I mean, I guess, technically, he’s still an officeholder and didn’t resign the office. So –

Councilmember Kiefer: – so if we change the salary, we’re taking the money back.

Jeff Ahlers: Yeah. I mean, that’s essentially what’s occurring, so, I mean, I guess it can be put back on a line item if something would change there. But it’s a little different scenario there.

Jeff Ahlers: But, I mean, technically, the salary can’t be changed, so it’s a matter of whether you’re moving the money out, but you’re keeping that salary line item the same. I suppose what occurs is, is whether or not he needs to – well, I guess he’s just not going to accept the money. And the question becomes whether or not it’s better at the end of the year that it just becomes leftover money in the line item that gets put into the general fund versus changing it now. So I guess if there’s not necessarily a need to do it now, you can leave it in that line item and then bring it back into the general fund at the end of the year. I mean, it’s –

Jeff Ahlers: I would say for now, that’s probably what we ought to do. I mean, this is an unusual scenario that we’re faced with.

Councilmember Raben: Mr. President, I will amend my motion for County Prosecutor, 1080-1450-1080 to accept the repeal in the amount of $4,547 and under 1090-1590-1090 set that repeal in at zero.

Councilmember Goebel: I would think with the quagmire that we were placed into, that we should just accept as is and be done with it.

Councilmember Bassemier: Jeff, did we get a letter stating that he would not accept this salary? Do we have that in writing?

Jeff Ahlers: That is my understanding that we do have that. Now, the only reason that causes me pause is that I suppose, technically, what you’re really talking about here is an office, not a person. The person in that office has sent a letter saying that he does not want to accept that salary. But I suppose if that office became vacant, and that it were refilled with someone else, I suppose they could feel differently. So understand that it is that office that you’re talking about the salary and not really the person, potentially. I mean, again, this is a case of first impressions, so in terms of how you deal with it, I’m just saying the safest way would just be to leave it. Now if the county is $25,000 short of making ends meet, maybe we look at this a little differently or whatever. But I’m just saying at this point, I, you know, that might be the safest way.

Jeff Ahlers: Yes. It exists until the term expires, by law. I mean, what essentially happened, and we discussed this, I think, in the November and December meetings is, what that legislation did was it left those offices in place – it just left to the discretion of the County Council as to what they get paid when, even though many of their duties have been transferred to the County Assessor. But, I mean, the office still exists.

Councilmember Goebel: I understand that, but I would think this would be a good time just to be done with it, not to revisit it. If it’s a technicality, who is going to check that?

Jeff Ahlers: Well, that would be for the state budgeting department of finance and board of accounts would be the ones that would check that.

Councilmember Goebel: There might be some technicalities they passed our way that they probably should check first with the changes that they put upon us and left it up to our discretion and every other county’s discretion. So I think we should accept the repeal.

Jeff Ahlers: Yes, he is. I mean, as far as I know, I’ve not seen any correspondence where he has resigned the office. He has just, as I understand it, stated that he will not accept the salary. The office itself, the legislature did not abolish. So, technically, I suppose if there were a different officeholder this year, I suppose they could view it differently than he does. He personally has said that he will not accept it, but that office still exists for what, two more years. Now, next year, obviously, you know, you can zero that out. The problem is, as we talked about in November and December, is that the law puts you in this conundrum of saying you can’t change the salary of an elected officeholder in that year, and that’s why all that had to be done by December 31. But because of the transition going on, the legislation, I mean, all this stuff obviously created a perfect storm in terms of, unfortunately, how Council had to deal with this.

Councilmember Kiefer: Jeff, but the money, at the end of the year, if it’s left here and at the end of the year it’s not used, then it goes back to the general fund, correct?

Jeff Ahlers: Yes, you can sweep that back into the general fund. Is that correct, Mr. Fluty?

Councilmember Kiefer: So I think we should be okay just to leave that where it is unless the general fund, you know, like you said earlier, you know, unless we’re in a tight spot and you actually have to – you know, that’s a situation to deal with at that time, but I think the correct way to do it would be to leave it in place until – that way, you’re not violating any kind of situation, law or anything else.

President Shetler: I might add that all of those positions, I believe, by law all of the township assessors are also, if they’re Level II, still are going to be paid $1,000 per year and that was by statute across the state of Indiana. So it is a bonafide office that is being paid at least a minimal amount of money. The rest of it was up to the discretion of County Council to go beyond that $1,000. I see no reason why we would rush into, nobody is going to spend that money no matter where it’s placed and I see no reason to rush into transferring it immediately out of that and put into the general fund or to repeal at this moment. I don’t know what advantage we’re gaining from it.

Councilman Sutton: I guess I asked my question earlier as I did because for some unforeseen circumstance, and say he was no longer in that office, does that office have to be filled by someone? I would assume that it would be, yes, and that person may have a different change of thought than Mr. Folz has about the compensation on that and may decide that they feel like they ought to be entitled to whatever has been appropriated here. That’s why I seem to believe that by repealing the money, I think we were probably on the right course there because one person has decided that they won’t take it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else may not see it another way.

President Shetler: I think the way that I read the Attorney General’s opinion of it was, that whatever was appropriated January 1 was what was going to be set for the entire year. So I don’t think any action we take now will actually take that money away. It just means that we wouldn’t have that money sitting there in reserve if, in fact, we would need it for some reason. Then we would have to come back and reappropriate the money back into that line if the scenario that you’re outlining would come to fruition. So we could be backdooring this thing going around in circles here. I’m not so sure that there is any reason to rush into something and have to redo it and come back to it at a different point in time. I think that we can let it sit and let the taxpayers enjoy a benefit of $25,000 thanks to Mr. Folz’s generosity of handing it back. So I don’t see any reason why we should put that into any other fund right now to take a chance on spending it. Yes?

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. President? Jeff, what was your recommendation again?

Jeff Ahlers: Well, like I said, unless you have a great need for it right now, obviously, the safest thing to do would be to leave the money in place. If, in the meantime, if you think you want this dealt with rather than waiting until the end of the year, I can certainly consult with the State Board of Accounts or the Department of Local Government Finance and see what their opinion is on this, whether we can remove the funding from that line item even though, I guess in the salary ordinance, we would leave that salary in place. I mean, that becomes the real question is whether you can remove the funding from a salary line item while that’s still there because – so that would be the safest way to handle this.

Councilmember Lloyd: I agree with Councilman Goebel, but it seems like we probably need to spend a little bit of time researching this. I mean, we could bring this back up next month.

Councilmember Goebel: Mr. President, I still feel strongly, Mr. Folz has done the right thing, put the money back in. I think we ought to put closure to it today. Accept the money back and be done with it.

Councilmember Raben: Just a brief comment. Either way, I think we probably need to get a new clarification from the DLGF because we’re talking about two other officeholders, too. There is a risk that one can resign and somebody would be entitled to a salary, and you’ve got two others. And I’m fine repealing the amount today. If we’ve got to come back in at another date and appropriate the fund back in. I mean, it would be nice to bring closure to it today if we can. But by the same token, we might need further clarification as to if it’s even possible for somebody else. Because again, we’re talking about three offices, not one.

Councilmember Goebel: This is unchartered territory. I mean, it was placed upon us. I think we take our chances, which would be about 100% that nothing else is going to develop after today if we accept the repeal.

President Shetler: Where we are today, the motion on the table is to repeal only the Prosecutor’s office at this point in time.

President Shetler: And then we could revisit the Knight Township after we get some more information from the State and get clarification on that, we can revisit that next –

Jeff Ahlers: What you might want to do is just, given all the discussion, I don’t know if you just want to pull the existing motion and amendments off and then remake the motion for the Prosecutor, and then it’s just so that we have a clear record, perhaps.

Councilmember Raben: Alright, Mr. President, I’m going to pull my original motion. My new motion is 1080-1450-1080 under Prosecutor in the amount of $4,547. I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: You’re going to pull your second. Okay, then we have a new second. Okay, any questions about that motion? Okay, roll call please.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, 1090-1590-1090 in the amount of zero. That’s what you’re asking for, correct?

President Shetler: Okay, we can put that in there at zero then. I assume that will work?

Councilmember Bassemier: Jim, can you do it the other way? Put it in and – I got a reason for that.

Councilmember Raben: Here’s my motion, 1090-1590-1090 Knight Assessor in the amount of $25,560.

President Shetler: If you want to repeal, you vote in the affirmative, yes. If you don’t want to repeal it, then you’ll be voting no. Questions? Questions about the motion or how it’s stated? Alright, roll call please.

Councilmember Raben: I’m going to vote no today but I would like to bring this to closure immediately, as soon as possible.

Councilmember Kiefer: No, because I’d like to get a little bit more research on this. Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, now Mr. President, will you get some clarification from the DLGF on this?

Councilmember Raben: Okay, we have County Clerk in the amount of $2,476, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: We’ve got a motion and a second. Any questions? Roll call please.

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded. Any questions? Roll call please.

Councilmember Goebel: We’re in the middle of a vote. I was wondering for how long is the replacement? Is this a set time or...this is probably the wrong time to ask since we’ve started the roll call.

Mike Duckworth: Mike Duckworth, Superintendent of County Highway. This is a situation where we have a union member that is on an extended leave of absence. According to the contractual agreements, they’re allowed up to a year for extended leave. This transfer would take the temporary person through July 31^st of ‘09, which is at the end of the leave time period and so they would either come back to work at that time or we would proceed with hiring a different person.

Mike Duckworth: The only pay involved according to the contract is for health insurance benefits so there is no actual pay, so it’s just moving money from a salary account to a temporary account because the employee that is replacing her is a temporary employee.

President Shetler: Yeah, we were in the middle of the vote. Okay, Mike, I don’t think you –

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next under Reassessment/PTABOA in the amount of $10,000. I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: Yeah, several times the County Assessor has been here and maybe, Jonathan, you can come up front and explain a few things to us, but I have yet to see a written plan and, personally, before I could vote in favor of bringing any more people on board, I’d really like to have a written plan of exactly how we’re going to consolidate this office. So, if I recall back in December of last year, you had indicated that if these were all consolidated into one office, that there would be a great savings due to the county and every month, I keep seeing your face back here requesting more and more. I hear rumors in the halls about software packages being needed to increase the load and stuff. I hear things about maybe a quarter million dollars or so to revamp the offices and I’m starting to wonder where the savings is going to be had. So I’d really like to see a written plan.

Jonathan Weaver: So where do you want to start? Jonathan Weaver, Vanderburgh County Assessor. What’s your first question?

President Shetler: My first question is, are you able to get a written plan to us so that we can look at the office, see how you’re laying out full-time employees, where you need the part-time employees, and what kind of work load you’re expecting during the coming year?

Jonathan Weaver: You’ve all been invited down to check things out. You know, we segmented it into departments: we have a real estate department, we have a personal property department, we have an appeals department, inheritance, deeds, transfers, sales disclosures. And everything is running smoothly. You know, we want to open up the office so we can be like the Auditor’s office, the Treasurer’s office, the Recorder’s office. You know, we feel claustrophobic, we need the space. We crammed 45 people down there.

President Shetler: Okay, is it possible to put together a written plan so we know really what your total expenditures are going to be during this next calendar year?

Jonathan Weaver: Well, you know, I had all intentions of going back to your other comment about saving money. The opportunity was there to save over $100,000 in salaries. I gave you back a position from Center Township that paid anywhere from 25 - $30,000, so I’m doing my part in saving the county money. We moved everybody in-house from the out township offices, where we’re saving $3,500 a month in rent, utilities and phone bills. So my part, I feel like, we’ve been doing that. You know, the law says I inherit the budget of the township assessors. As far as I know, I’ve been cut $75,000 in part-time money. So that’s one law that’s broken. You know, we need Level II pay. And as far as I know, we’re not getting the Level II pay. You know, we’re the most specialized office on the second floor of the Civic Center. You know, my staff deserves the pay. We deserve to be paid higher than everybody else and, you know, we have 27 Level II’s in the office and they’re entitled to their bonus.

President Shetler: Okay, so back to the question, is it possible for you to present to the Council a written plan of what your expenditures will be during the next eight to twelve months and that way we could start planning and what we know are the cost requirements of this office of consolidating the township offices and –

Jonathan Weaver: The plan is there. That’s what the budget is that we formulate every August. I mean, there’s my budgetary plan on what I need. And yes, we need to –

President Shetler: So you’re not intending to come back to this Council to ask for any additional software, you’re not planning on coming back to this Council to ask for any additional capital expenditures for remodeling the offices and revamping?

Jonathan Weaver: Well, I mean, the remodeling needs to be done. I don’t know where that –

President Shetler: Okay, well, that’s not in the budget and those are the kind of things I’m asking for as well as employees both part-time and full-time.

Jonathan Weaver: The money should be there for the remodel project from my understanding from Mr. Rector and the Commissioners.

President Shetler: What we need is a plan so that we understand exactly what you’re going to need for the next several months, and are you going to be able to comply with that?

Jonathan Weaver: I could write a written plan, but you’re adding more work for me to do. You know, we have enough things to do. The budget is there, you know what I need the money for, the salaries and other line items that are in the budget.

Councilmember Bassemier: John, we’re here to try to help you, so we’re trying to get a handle on all this, so we’re not trying to put you on the spot or anything, we’re just trying to help you because there’s – not saying your people don’t deserve extra pay or deserve more pay, but so does everybody else.

Jonathan Weaver: And, you know, prior to the first transition, this was very smooth and I don’t know what happened in the month of December that’s caused an uproar with what’s going on. I wasn’t here for the December meeting, but three of my full-time people were cut. Where in a public forum was that mentioned? I stood before you on January 2^nd for 20 minutes or so getting grilled with questions and not one time did it come up that you were cutting my entire part-time staff or reducing the pay of four people in my office.

President Shetler: I think you had 20 full-time employees prior to what, in July, and you have 42 now? I don’t see where you –

Jonathan Weaver: The law says I inherit the line item budgets, so we had 18 originally. With the referendum, I inherited 23 more plus Ms. Stucki and, you know, it was a misunderstanding. I forgave you for that misunderstanding, but then when I came back in January and you cut my seven part-time people and reduced the salary without Job Study for my four other people in my office, I mean, there’s a problem there. I mean, I need to know what’s going on.

President Shetler: I think I was going at your word that you were able to make some efficiencies out of the consolidation of the townships and that you weren’t expecting 100% of everything that was in the line items of all the townships before to be, automatically assume that you’d be having some kind of kingdom there of 48 - 49 people, that you would be able to realize some efficiency. That’s why we need a written plan from you so that we understand exactly what the workload is, what the responsibilities are of the various different people in those line items, so that we’ll be able to determine what you, in fact, need, 42 - 46 full-time employees, and whether or not you need any, and if so, how many part-time employees.

Jonathan Weaver: Well, right now, you know, I have a reassessment coming up starting July 1 and, you know, my part-time budget of $75,000 was cut. You cut $70,000 out of my reassessment budget before this year even began. And then you’re cutting $57,700 for line items that the law says I need to have and, you know, especially need that Level II pay. So I have been open, I’ve been honest on what’s going on since all of this started last year. And, like I said, the last two months, something, you know, it’s not being mentioned in the public forum, especially last month when I was standing up here before you.

Councilmember Raben: Jonathan, you brought up the Level II a few times. I mean, I think everyone here’s intent, certainly mine, that everybody that obtained their Level II will be compensated for their Level II, but I don’t know where that’s been cut.

Jonathan Weaver: I have notes here saying that it’s part of $57,000 that you’re not allowing me to keep.

President Shetler: I think that’s by statute that we have to pay an extra thousand dollars for Level II.

Councilman Sutton: There wasn’t any action taken by this Council to change that compensation for someone who has their certification. We’ve always compensated for that and, you know, we had discussions over the last couple of months where we talked about the number of people in your office, you shared how many you were bringing on, how many you weren’t going to retain, and we worked from those numbers. This is the first year that we’ve had all the assessing duties housed within one office. Here we are the first week in February, I would assume that we would have had some things that maybe were unanticipated, but as far as intentional actions on this Council to take away from or hurt the Assessor’s office, I’m unaware of any actions that’s been taken by this Council unless there is something that I’m missing or someone else is missing. Now if we are asking for some clarification on some things, if we’re asking for a plan on how to move forward, I think it’s in the mutual benefit of both of us, the Council and the Assessor, for us to see what the picture will look like, will only help to improve where we’re going forward. If those things can’t be put together, whether it’s mutually put together or whether you’re putting it together and presenting it to us for us to review, I can’t see where there’s any harm in doing that.

Councilmember Lloyd: This request, we’re looking at the Property Tax Board of Appeals, 10,000 to go to Extra Help, I guess one of the things that the Council had questioned, you know, when your office goes from 18 full-time to 42 employees and I know the salary was roughly 670,000 for that office last year, to this year, 1.7 million approximately, we were just wondering why at the very beginning of the year, that you would need extra help, part-time people doing this type of work when the reassessment won’t start until July. I mean, will you need Extra Help money in July, as well?

Jonathan Weaver: Well, you know, we have to start putting a plan together. I need to know what’s available and those part-time people were paired up with a full-time person to go out in the field, measure, check on properties and do that sort of thing. And now it’s taking away from the data inputters, now they have to go out in the field, I have to go out in the field, so it creates a little headache there.

Councilmember Raben: Do we actually have people out in the field measuring right now as part of the reassessment?

Jonathan Weaver: Yes. Not at this second, but not last week, but we were doing it the first couple weeks of this year, yeah. I was out there with one of them.

Councilmember Lloyd: So the Property Tax Board of Appeal, you were requesting this transfer to take that budget from $15,000 to $5,000, you won’t have that many meetings where you’ll only need $5,000 in that line?

Jonathan Weaver: At this point, I don’t believe so. We didn’t have one in January, we have one next week coming up, so – I feel like I’ve done my part in trying to cut and now I just feel I’m not being informed. You know, like I said, I don’t understand what happened last month. You didn’t say a word to me about cutting my seven part-time people until I got a memo four days later. And then three days later when they get their paychecks, four of my staff come to me and they have a pay cut, you know. This is not good for morale in any direction. First I had to ask seven people to go home and then four people I have to explain that I didn’t know why they got a pay cut, you know.

Councilmember Raben: I would hope we don’t have seven part-time people starting January 1 to prepare for reassessment that starts in July. But there’s nothing you do that can’t be fixed, there’s nothing we do that can’t be fixed. I like Tom’s idea, come to us with a plan on what we’re going to do moving forward. I’ve heard the same rumors, too, that there’s some big numbers floating out there with software packages and stuff like that, and the renovation has gotten to be, or the word that’s floating out there, the number that’s floating out there is a lot higher than I would have ever thought it would be. So come back to us in thirty days, if it takes you forty-five days, I don’t care. But come back to us as soon as you can with a report on what you think your real needs are going to be for the balance of ‘09, how many part-time people you’re going to need, you know, in preparation for July 1, and we’ll work with you.

Jonathan Weaver: I’m not asking for a super remodel, I just want the walls taken down. You know, I’m not asking for new carpet and, obviously, we’re going to have color differences because Center got new carpet and all four offices had a different color carpet. You know, I don’t know what’s going to happen with that, but at this point, I just want some walls knocked down, so we can open it up and breathe.

President Shetler: I do want to clarify something is that on the Level II, that’s by statute and we have no course in that action, whatsoever, and those folks are paid twice a year. They’re paid in June and paid in December. So that’s why they haven’t received their pay yet. It’s not due until June, and that’s a thousand dollars on an annual basis for all those with Level II’s.

Jonathan Weaver: I mean, we just want to make sure the money is there in the future so when they’re paid twice a year, they’re available.

Councilmember Goebel: – I’ll repeat what I’ve said all along, that you’ve been put in a trying situation, I’m sure, with the mergers of township assessors to your office and from my understanding, things are going pretty smoothly, all things considered. It’s nothing, I think, that this body wanted or maybe the Township Assessors in your office thrown right into your lap to work with. But I think this Council also is trying to work with you and to follow up on what Mr. Sutton said, we have not consciously done anything that I know of to damage. I think what we need to know exactly is if you’re getting extra help, where that help maybe is going or what the need is right now and I think down the road, perhaps, a schematic or a plan for your office might be very beneficial for us to understand a little bit more of your problems. Thank you.

Jonathan Weaver: So what are we going to do about the four pay cuts? I mean did you guys not know you voted for that? I mean, --

Sandie Deig: You said there was one Chief Deputy and one Assessor in your office. We also treated your other people coming in the same as Glen Koob and her staff was. Glen Koob went to a PAT IV, her Chief Deputy went to PAT III. That’s what the Council did for the other three offices.

Jonathan Weaver: Now those people, in their defense, were expecting, you know, a Job Study was done in August, I believe, so they were expecting a Job Study –

Jonathan Weaver: Well, one of them wasn’t a former Chief Deputy that got a pay cut.

Sandie Deig: She got – a former Chief Deputy went to a PAT III – are you talking about Mauer?

Jonathan Weaver: No. So we had three Chief Deputies and they were reduced. And they knew that was going to happen at some point, but they didn’t expect it so soon. But there was another woman in the office who wasn’t expecting a pay cut, a staffer.

Sandie Deig: Chief Deputies were made PAT III’s and the Assessors were PAT IV’s, and the one person I think you’re talking about, maybe I could be mistaken, she could have been a PAT III, but her salary was more as a COMOT VI.

Councilman Sutton: Councilman Kiefer, I think you’re the liaison for the Assessor’s office? Is it possible, maybe, for the two of you guys to get together, kind of formulate this plan that we’ve been discussing?

Councilman Sutton: He is supposed to bring something back to us, maybe address some of these issues that maybe are just now coming to light today.

Councilmember Raben: These issues are Job Study related issues really. And I think that is – who is our Job Study Chairman?

Councilmember Raben: But these are, I mean, how jobs are factored, that’s all Job Study.

Councilman Sutton: Well, but the question was about these additional expenses that may be coming down the pike at some point in time.

Jonathan Weaver: We could talk about the software, I don’t know where you’re getting $250,000, but, you know, we’re talking about a new GIS aerial photograph being taken.

President Shetler: I think back to those four employees we were talking about, is that they fell into certain groupings. It had nothing to – it was just by ordinance where we have the Job Study ordinance that’s there and it happens to fall into certain categories and they were declared a PAT III or COMOT VI or whatever the heck they were, I have no idea. I don’t know who they are, or what positions they are, or what we’re even dealing with on a specific basis, but in general, what was done is that given their job description and their title, their responsibilities, their tenure with the county, etcetera, were placed into certain categories and that’s really pretty well a generalized thing that we have no control over. The only time that they can be changed is when we have actual Job Study meetings which we suspended those because of the review that BKD is currently going through right now with various different departments within the county. So there was nothing done by any purpose by this Council body at all. I mean, it simply wasn’t a factor.

Councilmember Lloyd: Real briefly, so the three elected officials, their jobs were eliminated by the voters, so we had to figure out a way to put them into the current county classifications, same with their chief deputies, you don’t want three other assessors running around with you in that office as well as their Chief Deputies. I mean, they had to be put into certain classifications and that’s what was done as far as I know. And unfortunately, the pay of an elected official and the pay of the Chief Deputy, you can’t have four or five Chief Deputies in your office.

Jonathan Weaver: Right, and I agree with that. But they weren’t expecting it so soon, so that was my question, why it happened so soon. And they were expecting a Job Study. So I was just seeking clarification. But thanks.

Jonathan Weaver: – the fourth position that wasn’t a Chief Deputy, why she received a pay cut.

President Shetler: Alright, any other questions? We have a motion on the floor to approve. Roll call please.

Councilmember Sutton: I want to make sure I get clarification before I take this vote. This is – the Extra Help is strictly for the July reassessment?

Jonathan Weaver: I don’t know how any office can operate without part-time people. You know, you have things that happen, deaths, people going on vacation, sickness, you know, I think I need part-time people year round.

President Shetler: No. There being no ayes and seven nays, the motion does not pass.

Councilmember Raben: Next under Local Roads & Streets we have a late transfer in the amount of $100,000 and that is from Bituminous Materials into Calcium & Chloride.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. Does anyone have a question of why –

Councilmember Raben: I can cover this if you’d like. Everybody knows that our last event used a fair amount of salt and I think the intent is, is to have some funds in place if the superintendent and the Commissioners can locate some salt, the funds would be available to purchase more salt in the event that, you know, we should run out before the end of the winter. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell, isn’t it?

Mike Duckworth: That’s exactly it. I will tell you that we started the season with 3700 ton, we had a few minor events early where we used some and this last event, because of the reoccurring snow storms and especially the ice, we’re at the end of this event probably going to be down to about 12 - 1300 ton tops. I, personally, don’t feel that that may not be enough to get us through February. I can’t predict, like any of the television stations, I can’t predict the weather very well, and we’ve had some systems come through that we weren’t expecting, but I would much rather have the money in place. I will tell you that I have located some, but it’s not any better news than it was when I was back here in, I guess, August or September. I think the lowest amount I’ve received an estimate on is $132.50 a ton at this point.

Mike Duckworth: No, we were getting it, was the bargain. You couldn’t find it. But yeah, it went from like the previous year, somewhere in the 40's, 45, $47 a ton and I tried to go through INDOT, they supposedly had some surplus. But because of this event, they’ve diminished their surplus and so none was available. And I would be, I think remiss in my duties if I said to you that I would feel comfortable about us trying to take the rest of the season with what we have.

President Shetler: Are we mixing it with sand and thinning it out as much as we can?

Mike Duckworth: Well, sand is, of course, not a deicer and it doesn’t help in our hilly areas in the county. And when we can do that, we do, for traction. But to be very honest with you, this last event has, as they say, has been the worst since 2004 and it has not only been the fact that we’ve been out salting and deicing and pretreating and those kind of things, but about the time we get done we get hit with another system, and so we have to go and completely go over our roadways again. And our crews have just been excellent and putting the time in, I mean, it’s – you know the situation. It’s been very tough. But I have to say to you that this is a need that I think substantiates what we do and I wouldn’t be here unless I thought it was important.

Councilmember Bassemier: Yeah, I just want to tell you, tell your guys out there that they’ve done a fantastic job. They worked very hard and we’re getting some real good reports about how good the roads have been taken care of. And I think you’re on the right track by getting this money in place just when a deal comes around the corner, you can jump on it.

Mike Duckworth: Right, I appreciate that. I would just tell you, I would rather have the material here and not worrying about having to get it when I run out.

Mike Duckworth: And Commissioner Tornatta and I have spoke and I would recommend to this Council and the Commissioners that we start a search for salt this spring to get the very best price that we can get and get it here and get it secured for the next season. I think you’re going to have to work ahead of time to do that.

Councilman Sutton: Mike, I’m going to ask you a question I asked you back in September when you made the request, where are you going to put all this material? We’re not going to leave it outside now are we?

Mike Duckworth: No Sir. We have an agreement with the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation. We have a building that in late March they’re going to demolish as a part of their strategic plan and renovations to Cedar Hall school, and it’s kept inside there.

Councilmember Lloyd: What did you say the price per ton was now or did you tell us?

Mike Duckworth: The best price I’ve been able to get in the last few days is $132.50 a ton. Now we, just to be very clear about this, we have 60,000 in our existing Calcium & Chloride account. But if we get 1000 ton, which is a conservative amount that I think we need to add to what we have, it’s going to be $132,500, and that’s going to be my recommendation to the Commissioners to go ahead and do that if we can’t find it in the next few days any cheaper. Because when you find it in this market, you better get it and secure it. And that’s having it trucked in from, I believe, Peoria, Illinois.

Mike Duckworth: I’m going to estimate – I have it here. We started with 3700 and we have 1200, I’m going to say we used somewhere around 1700 tons in this last event.

Councilmember Goebel: I was going to ask the same thing, you used about 60% of your entire supply?

Mike Duckworth: Yes. It’s hard to figure this and Troy and I talked about this, is the fact that, you know, we don’t have a scale to weigh it, that’s an added expense, and we do it by buckets and we have different sized trucks that we use and, you know, we’re in about the ninth day of a seven day event. And I really haven’t had the time to, with handling everything else, sit down and really put a microscope on this because we’ve had everything from truck breakdowns to county residents with concerns and dealing with Vectren because they have lines in trees and we can’t remove the trees until they prepare the lines, and so we’ve had a number of different issues. And, once again, I will tell you that not only have we depleted a lot of our salt or calcium chloride budget, we’ve depleted a lot of our overtime budget as well. And I don’t know that in April or May that we’re not going to have other kinds of storms and events come through that we’ll need to pay overtime. So I can tell you that there should be some expectations that we’ll be coming back to you for those kinds of appropriations as well.

Councilmember Raben: Two quick questions. Mike, you made mention that we were housing it in an EVSC building that’s going to be demolished, so are we looking at, if we don’t use this salt, we’re going to have to find a home for it?

Mike Duckworth: No, we’ve almost depleted, we’ve not had the time to – we have probably 5 or 600 ton left in that facility that we can move over to our facility that we’ve depleted out of. What I’m saying is, at the end of the day, we’re going to have 1200 ton, which our existing facility, our existing salt barn on our property can hold. So if we buy another 1000, I’ll probably have about 700 over there that I’m sure – I’d be willing to bet that we would use. So the thought is, by the end of March, we would need all existing salt back over to our facility and our agreement is to vacate that at that time.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. The next question, if you were to locate salt tomorrow, how long would it take to get it?

Mike Duckworth: In this particular company that has given me the low bid at this point. It can’t come by barge at this time because we’ve got waterways that are frozen and all that.

Councilmember Raben: And then the other thing, when you are talking and the tonnage that’s coming in and going out, I mean, are you, I mean, I guess when you’re loading it out, you’re using however many yard bucket, what does salt weight a yard, does anybody know?

Mike Duckworth: I don’t know offhand. We basically, we measure it by the size of trucks that we have and how many truckloads that are being used. I just haven’t put that together.

Councilmember Raben: Because it just seems like 500 ton, if we’re, like you and I talked about, if we’re putting 5 to 6 tons on a truck at a time, that’s –

Mike Duckworth: And I misspoke, it’s an average of about ten ton per truck. And we have a couple trucks that are a little bigger and we have a few trucks that are a little bit smaller.

Mike Duckworth: And you separate that by 12 trucks, you know, it’s three our four trucks a night, normally, three to four hoppers full per –

Councilmember Goebel: December and January have passed, now we have February and March, so maybe if we get through this month. I just hope we don’t get too much and have an oversupply at a higher cost. And I think your idea of trying to find it when the price maybe will come back down is the best avenue to take. But I just hope we don’t buy too much right now. We’ve got to have enough to protect us the rest of this winter, but if we had about 40% of it left, maybe we’re close already.

Mike Duckworth: We asked that option with the providers, the vendors that we’re buying it from and we’re really at their mercy as to how they ship it. I mean, when you put in on rail, you have to offload it and I think there’s some cost with that because they had one of the vendors we had talked to had offloaded it at Jeffersonville or they had it on a barge, well, it would cost us $15 a ton to have it reloaded. I mean, that’s just the cost that I’m trying to stay away from and they’re telling me the cheapest way to do it at this point is to have it trucked. So we’re kind of at their mercy there.

Mike Duckworth: If I may make one comment, because I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be doing this, but I would just recommend to this body to work with the city, and we have been, and also the school corporation to find a piece of property somewhere where we could have a reserve supply of 5000 ton. Now the reason I say that is, right now in the middle of a snow season is not the time to look for salt. And if you had a barn with that kind of a reserve in it, then as you use it, you could replace it and so you would always have the knowledge that the community is protected by having that kind of reserve there. And I know that’s an up-front cost and I know the economic times we’re in, but this is really about public safety and I don’t, in the position I’m in and I know the Commissioners and you all don’t want to have to risk not being able to get an emergency vehicle or someone back to a subdivision or back to a residence where someone is having a medical problem. So that’s just my recommendation that we look out from where we are now and try to do something in that regard to make it a safer situation for our community.

President Shetler: Well, it’s a good one and I think maybe we should either look at third party storage, for example – someone that’s got water, rail and all the transportation modes available, so that –

Mike Duckworth: I have checked with Mulzer, they are not in a position to do that right now, but that doesn’t mean that –

Mike Duckworth: – that doesn’t mean that in the future that they wouldn’t be. But I think all those things, the other thing is, I would love for local communities to get in on the Indiana Department of Transportation’s purchase power. I mean, these big companies that deal with this salt only deal with the DOT because they buy such massive amounts. DOT, as I understand it, got theirs for 60 something dollars a ton. Now maybe that’s going to take us working with the state and trying to get on that, I don’t know if that’s even possible, but that’s another avenue that I think we can look at.

Councilmember Goebel: I think we have to explore that because if you spent $100,000 now to get it, maybe get twice as much in the spring for that same $100,000, we’ve got to look for the bargains.

Councilmember Goebel: I hope we don’t spend all this money now, is my statement.

Troy Tornatta: Commissioner Troy Tornatta. How about we put something in motion where the County Council President and the County Commissioner President would have to sign off on any expenditure on these monies for salt? So it would have to run through both boards? Is there anything that would be illegal about going through that process with the monies that have been appropriated?

Councilman Sutton: Well, right now, what’s being requested, I mean, is an appropriation that would be controlled by the County Commissioners. I guess it’s totally up to you guys –

Troy Tornatta: I guess my point is, there is going to be a lot of questions of this Council and I know that there’s some uneasiness about giving that money over and, you know, in times like these, I mean, I think it’s good to have dialogue back and forth and, you know, maybe it would make this Council feel a little bit more at ease.

Councilman Sutton: I don’t think we have any issues with the expenditure, it’s just the amounts that the expenditures will go out and the most efficient way, I guess it’s more so –

Councilmember Raben: I don’t think anybody is questioning that you’re going to do the right thing. I mean, that’s why –

Troy Tornatta: But it would allow you guys to know what you’re spending that money on, at what cost, and have a little bit more stake and knowing what money is going out because, obviously, what I’d like to do is repeal as much of that money back into the general fund as possible. And I think we do need dialogue to decide, you know, because it’s your constituents as well as mine that you have to serve in those areas, and it’s your monies that you have to put out there to know that we are making the right decision as a whole.

President Shetler: I guess I’d rather see us spend our energy perhaps getting together with Mike or whoever his successor might be, school corporation, same thing we’re doing on the other purchasing powers there on consolidating and look for some facilities and try to consolidate this so our purchasing power one, is greater, two, that we’re able to get it where all transportation modes are accessible so that we can drive that price down as well. That’s the kind of thing I’d like to see us do, plan for the future.

Troy Tornatta: We’ll bring that up with the new purchasing director and get that going right away. I think there’s something, one of the house bills is talking about just this type of scenario, so you know, if it passes through the state, we might have that problem alleviated.

Councilmember Bassemier: Troy, we’ve got that dialogue right now, don’t we? I mean, you’re welcome to come here any time and talk to us and give us the information. We’ve all got email and –

Troy Tornatta: Right, what we’ll have, we could have a position where Mike would be able to find something at a lower price and at that point would let this body know. Obviously, yeah, we have the right to be able to do that. My position is to make sure that the Council is as comfortable as possible.

Councilmember Goebel: I’m sorry, I think we’ve belabored it enough, but I know Mike is going to look and Troy will look for the best possible purchase, but if we can hang on to our money, this weekend, the weather is going to be in the 50's, maybe we’ll get rid of some of this stuff naturally and maybe we can get through it without – if you said that INDOT got it for $60 and we paid $142, and now it’s $132 –

Mike Duckworth: INDOT got it because of the volume that they buy. When you’re going to buy 1000 or 2000 ton, and we are, the city is in the same shape that we’re in right now. They’re going to buy another thousand ton or whatever because they’re low. I guess my point I’m trying to make to all of you is this, it is so rare because of the availability, that I would hate passing up, when it’s available, and someone else purchases it, because we’re looking for a lower price, and I sure understand that, but in a week, there may not be any available. And I think we’re unfortunately in a position to where, if you can get it, you better get it while you can. Because a week from now, these other communities in this area, Madison, you know, all through the region here, have had this same kind of events that we’ve had, some worse, some okay. But they’re going to be looking for some, too, and whatever the availability is going to diminish. So that’s just my caution to everyone. I think when you can get it to finish out this year, you get it, you have it in storage ready to go. If you don’t have to use it, you can sure use it next year.

President Shetler: Alright, thank you. Alright, any other questions? I think we have a motion on the floor here. So roll call please.

Councilmember Raben: I think that concludes all the transfers, we’ll move to the amendments to the salary ordinance. We have several today: we have the Jail, Prosecutor IV-D, County Assessor, Co-op Extension, County Highway, Superior Court Supplemental Adult Probation, County Clerk and the Health Department, Mr. President, I’d like to move that these amendments be entered in and made part of the minutes.

President Shetler: We have no old business. Under new business, we have appointments to the PTABOA board. The two that I recommend for the Council to appoint will be the republican nominee Carrie Hatt-Figueroa, who is a Level II, and Kraig Nance, who is also a Level II, would be the democratic appointee. Do I have any questions?

President Shetler: It’s been seconded by Councilman Bassemier. Any questions? Roll call please.

President Shetler: Next is a – I’m going to skip over that one. The preliminary resolution of the Vanderburgh County Council declaring an economic revitalization area for tax phase-in for real property located at 2700 South Green River Road.

Libbie Au: Good morning. For the record, Libbie Au with GAGE. This is the preliminary resolution for Equal Development Group for the construction of a 48 unit affordable rental housing apartment complex. This project will contain two and three bedroom units for families and seniors whose income is less than 60% of the area median income for Vanderburgh County and the project will also utilize section 42 housing tax credits. The total project invested is 1.7 million and there will be two jobs created. The project did score a total of 70 points, for a phase-in of seven years. With me today is Mr. Bill Hollingsworth, he is the president of Equal Development Group to answer any questions or concerns from Councilmembers.

Councilmember Kiefer: I have a question. Did you say the total project cost was 1.7 million?

Councilmember Raben: Libbie, I had a question. I don’t recall, and maybe some of those records are still available, but unless, I’m trying to think if there’s any other members, Councilman Sutton, possibly. We’ve only, that I can recall since I’ve been on Council, had two similar situations where we had housing developments. One is on North Green River Road and the Burkhardt area, before that was the Burkhardt area, the Spurling development. And the other one was at St. Joe by the Rural King, McCullough Development. Do you recall or do you know how many years they were granted?

Libbie Au: Yes. Those two projects were actually granted under the old ordinance, so under the old ordinance you had the discretion to award three, six or ten years and it was solely based on the amount of investment as well as job creation. I believe what happened was initially, three years were awarded and then I think, looking back at the records, based on the amount of investment, it was bumped up to six years.

Libbie Au: I believe so, yes. Oh, I’m sorry, on Lakeside, it was initially three and bumped to six and then on Leisure Living it was three years based on the investment amount.

Libbie Au: And again, this is the first housing project that has come before this Council under the new scoring system.

Councilmember Raben: You know, I don’t know that the scoring system makes a huge difference for this type of project because, you know, so much focus is put on employment levels and stuff like that. We were kind of shooting from the hip before, but the recommendation is seven. Mr. President, I think we ought to, I mean, it would be my wish not to exceed either of the two projects prior, in fairness to both those individuals. I mean, we probably need to not exceed six years.

President Shetler: My only concern, I guess, at this point is that I don’t want to call that a depressed area, but it is an area that we badly need investment in to keep it stable and –

Councilmember Raben: The Leisure Living project was in a depressed area behind a Kmart that had sat empty for 20-something years and in almost a flood plain area. I mean, that, as well, was depressed and that one we granted three.

Councilman Sutton: I would say, too, probably the difference between this project and some of the others that we dealt with is this project here is a section 42 housing or taxpayer project is exclusively for – your income cannot exceed a certain level. Whereas the other projects, the seniors, for the most part, we were anticipating that the income levels wouldn’t be off the charts, but there were no income restrictions on those units necessarily. This one, you can’t – you have to meet certain income eligibility standards to actually – to live in this project here. So if we remove the site off the equation, and just look at the residents who actually will occupy it, it will be some of the most – probably the neediest, and I know there is a need for this type of housing. We’ve had probably four other projects here locally that I’m aware of that are designed to meet this particular need. Most of your multi-family housing projects here are really open market type of projects and very few are geared toward the low to moderate income market.

Bill Hollingsworth: Mr. Sutton, my name is Bill Hollingsworth, I’m actually the owner of Equal Development. Actually, precisely right, one of the issues, I think, there are three stages for this particular project. One is the tax abatement for the seven years, the second is to get approval from the state, which is the Indiana Housing Community Development Authority, and then the third is actually to go out and get all the stuff that I have these letters of intent from financiers and banks and stuff like that. But the biggest part of this is that, I guess, it’s affordable so my rents are substantially lower than most of the markets, which is great, because it provides for housing for first time firemen, fire persons, police persons, school teachers, all that stuff that. Boy, that’s worth to me -- a lot of the job opportunities coming to town and say, do you have affordable housing? And I know as a region, Indianapolis, Evansville, and the area has a pretty good, I guess, equation for that and that’s why a lot of folks choose to be in this area when they plan new plants. But I think from the economic part of it that also with the economic times, I’ve got to tell you, it’s tough to get this stuff through and I don’t know when the other opportunities were for the other apartment complexes, but I’d tell you that from a – yeah, it’s tough to get anything built now. From a person that’s been doing it for more than ten years, it’s about – it is by far the toughest I’ve ever had. And I guess this is one of the three lynchpins, if we get it or we don’t, that the project goes forward or it doesn’t.

Bill Hollingsworth: No Sir, it’s three stories. Each individual unit is single level.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, but they’re three story and that was the other thing that we needed to consider ten years ago was, you know, particularly for handicapped and elderly, everything was single level, you know, they weren’t climbing stairs or, for that matter, using elevators, and the cost of those projects really got up there because, you know, it’s much cheaper to go up than to spread out.

Bill Hollingsworth: Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt, I guess just one thing as far, I guess, an aside or a dovetail for that, we actually are setting aside five units at no cost to the resident, for handicapped residents. We’ve had some support of services scheduled with Aurora and a few other, the Housing Authority, to provide for some handicapped accessible (inaudible) and all the first floor units will be adaptable.

Councilmember Bassemier: I’ve got some concerns. Right now there is three large complexes out there right now and, of course, their price range is about the same as yours. We’ve got Hornbrook Estates out there, has got 240 units, we’ve got the Village Green Apartments out there, just the same neighborhood, we’ve got 384 units. I talked to the managers out there and they’ve got some concerns, they’ve got a vacancy rate of about eight percent and they’re running about 92% full vacancies and they’re kind of concerned with a new complex going out there, that might hurt them and you got something to say to that?

Bill Hollingsworth: Yeah, actually, and I appreciate you asking that. One of the things that we have to do as part of even getting to this point is to have a ridiculously expensive third party market study. And, I tell you, 92% is actually probably one of the tightest markets in the state. Our (inaudible) are averaging about 95% of folks that would be in the same economic stratification as we would provide for. So, as far as opportunity for new apartment complexes, I’d tell you that I understand someone sitting behind the desk saying, well, I don’t want you to make my job any harder and what I’m going to tell you is going to be, don’t make my job any harder by putting a new apartment complex in. At least that would be my vote if I was sitting at that desk. But from an overall view, those things happen and there is a very much needed, particularly for this income, in the market. And the market study bears that out, it’s a third party market study that does this nationally, Vogt, Williams & Bowen out of Columbus, Ohio, and they probably do, you know, five hundred of these studies a year and that’s all they do is feasibility studies for apartment complexes and it was a very favorable recommendation, particularly, I mean, they went to every single apartment complex in Evansville.

Councilmember Bassemier: Okay, I got a question. Are you going to pay for the utilities or are they going to pay for their own?

Bill Hollingsworth: The residents are going to pay for their own, but one of the, I guess, the unique things about this property is it’s probably one of the most green residential properties that I’ve ever heard of or I’ve ever done, for sure. We’re going to have tankless water heaters, which saves somewhere around 40% in water heating costs, geothermal heat pumps in the ground, below three feet it gets to be 54 degrees year round, so in the wintertime it’s a huge savings, we’re actually going to have some bamboo flooring which will be just in small areas, but it’s a very sustainable green, renewable flooring instead of using petroleum based carpet or a vinyl. We actually have extremely efficient LED exterior lighting. Each unit will be, and this is as far as I know, the only one in the state will have each unit be Energy Star Rated, meaning that the EPA is going to have some third party company verify its EPA rated by the number of appliances that are energy star, dishwasher, refrigerator, HVAC system, which is the geothermal (inaudible) for and several other items. And then the other, I guess part of this is the low impact procurement procedures which is, you know, an industry term that means that, as much as I can, I suspect you folks have concern for this, too, as much as I can, I’m going to not waste and use as much local stuff as I can. It provides for me generally, so I’m not traveling in from out of state, out of city, lower costs and also a better warranty service when things are done.

Councilmember Bassemier: Okay, I know in the past on tax abatements we usually vote in favor of them because they hire a lot of employees. Is two, is that all you’re going to plan on hiring in the future?

Bill Hollingsworth: Yes Sir. That’s as much as I can commit to. I’d tell you that during lease up, I’m sure we’d have another part-time person down here and I guess for an apartment complex, it’s not necessarily the folks that we hire although I’m happy to employ the folks and they will be very professional and they’ll be on site every day, there will be a clubhouse, which also has a green roof. But that’s, I don’t know if that answered your question, it’s the folks that are afforded the opportunity to live in an apartment complex that has an A- bill level, utilities are substantially lower, so they can go out and eventually go on to buy homes, and it provides for a much better community in that process. I mean, I’m probably the least likely person you’d imagine, but genuinely the most likely person to tell you that I want my residents to buy homes in four or five years because they’re not being charged more than a third of their income in rent. It just provides for a better story. My residents refer and I stay full.

Councilmember Bassemier: Have you already purchased the property or is it an option to purchase?

Bill Hollingsworth: It’s under contracts and it’s conditioned on this, the approval of the Indiana Housing Community Development Authority, the application we submitted, and then also just getting all the loans closed. And time wise, the Indiana Housing Community Development Authority award comes out in April, the third Thursday, I believe, and then it would probably take two or three months to get the rest of this done.

President Shetler: I do appreciate you going green, but I tell you what, that tank water heater came in handy when my electricity was out for 84 hours, taking a warm shower, at least some semblance of it anyway. So, yes, Joe?

Councilmember Kiefer: A couple of question, comments. First, I guess, being in the real estate development business, I’m absolutely amazed that you’re able to get this project done under these financial climates, but, you know, I just want to make sure I understand this clearly and maybe Ms. Au can answer this, but under the data that you provided to us, it looks like you did some kind of estimated tax revenue without project, this property pays approximately $84,106 over the course of ten years or roughly somewhere between 7 and $9,000 a year in property taxes.

Councilmember Kiefer: And under the proposed plan, over the ten years it will pay $893,000? You know, where the first year is zero but then it ramps up years five, its’ paying $84,000 and then over $100,000 after that?

Councilmember Kiefer: Okay, and that’s after all the deductions where finally, year eight, it’s paying the full amount of $143,000?

Libbie Au: And that estimate is based on the amount invested. So we’re only looking at the additional increase, so the phase-in is not on the current taxes and the assessed value, but the –

Councilmember Kiefer: But even at that, year three, you’re still paying 32,000, where under the current system, the way the land is today, it would only be paying $7,900?

Councilmember Kiefer: So there is an increase in tax revenue to the community even with the phase-in? I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly.

Councilmember Kiefer: Okay, a question for Mr. Hollingsworth. Are you going to build this, the complete project is not done in phases? It’s going to be all done at one time?

Bill Hollingsworth: Yes Sir. It should be three, maybe four buildings, but more than likely three buildings and a clubhouse. And I just completed 128 units in South Bend in one phase, and we started September of ‘07, and finished in August of ‘08. So eleven months for 128 units. I suspect this will probably be about seven or eight months of construction.

Councilmember Kiefer: And how, your pro forma, how quickly does it show you being leased up and what vacancy factor are you using?

Bill Hollingsworth: The state requires for the applications to use a 7% vacancy, that’s when Mr. Bassemier had said 8% vacant is actually pretty normal, good. So I’m underwriting at 7%, which is right in that same range of normal. And then lease up wise, the market study always proclaims somewhere around 6 and 8 units per month. And this particular market study, I believe, said nine or ten units per month because of the demand in the market, which is good. I tell you that in South Bend, we moved in the first residents just last September and we’re at 95%, which is about 26 people per month, which is probably, arguably, one of the fastest in the state, which is a testament to the developer being (inaudible) about it.

Councilmember Kiefer: Just out of curiosity, what kind of cap rate are you using on this project?

Bill Hollingsworth: Because it’s affordable, cap rates kind of don’t apply because as you think about our income, it’s genuinely half of what you’d expect this cost of product to be, so cap rates aren’t applicable, I guess, if that makes sense. Because if you value it out, it doesn’t make sense because the equity investment from the tax (Inaudible) you sell off. I don’t know if that helps you or not.

Councilmember Kiefer: Well, the reason I’m asking is because I want to know if your intent is to turn around and sell this project after you’re completed or if you’re going to retain ownership.

Bill Hollingsworth: Actually, it’s part of this section 42 process. I actually have to retain ownership and I’m the sole owner for the next 15 years, which is, you know, in my opinion, a very good thing. At least you have consistency and someone you can trust and, you don’t know me from Adam, but I tell you, I can.

Councilmember Kiefer: One last question, Councilman Raben had mentioned that some of the other projects were done in six years, does this kill your IRR if you did six years instead of seven?

Bill Hollingsworth: I tell you that I’d prefer ten because you can underwrite it with the loan. Seven years is going to be hard to get banks to underwrite. If you can understand like a seven year mortgage on there, if you will –

Bill Hollingsworth: To get seven years, I’ve got my bank to write off on it, and that was pretty tough. I tell you, six years is going to be harder, particularly in this market. Like you said, it is, it’s tough to get anything built.

Councilmember Lloyd: I had one question. I wondered about the vacancy rate in the general market for apartments.

Bill Hollingsworth: Yeah, in general with market and affordable (inaudible) being the tax credits, I think it’s around the 91 - 92%, which is genuinely, of all the markets I’ve seen in the last ten years doing this, it’s probably the tightest. South Bend was about 90 ½, which was, at the time, the tightest I’d seen. But I’ve been doing this for ten years, and you know, Indianapolis is happy at 85% full, which is scary.

Councilmember Lloyd: Indianapolis is quite a bit tougher than this market here, this market is pretty good for apartments, especially affordable.

Councilmember Raben: One last question, what percentage of the overall project, the construction, is going to be hired by local contractors?

Bill Hollingsworth: We haven’t set a particular amount, but I’d tell you that because of this process, and it’s a new green standard process and something I had done previously because it makes sense, which is kind of what half the green stuff is, is that as much as I can, South Bend, I think we did somewhere around 20% locally which (inaudible), Elkhart, I guess it was also Elkhart County, St. Joseph County, Elkhart, and part of this stuff you just can’t get locally. Truss buildings and that stuff, you can, or bricks, whatever, but some of those appliances, obviously, you can. If you can buy them, you know, everything I can, locally, labor wise, electricians, plumbing, all that stuff, I know in South Bend, they’re required that everyone have a local subcontractor that’s licensed in the city, itself, so they practice in the city prior, which provided, I don’t know if you folks have that or not, but that’s something that actually helped out quite a bit from my perspective to get things going. So, no percentage, but as much as I can, honestly.

Bill Hollingsworth: Construction. Purchasing, we do as much as possible locally. And part of it is, you know, you don’t make whatever it is that you don’t make here, you can’t do. And then labor wise, every time that someone comes in and stays in a hotel, it helps your economy short term, I’d much rather have somebody that costs cheaper to do the same thing, and stay at home, from a labor perspective. So, as much as I can. It’s just the nature of some of these businesses. New construction apartment business are somewhat more specialized and have a little bit more traveling than local homes. You know, you have the finish carpenter, but the finish carpenter to go in and do 48 units over the next three weeks, it’s a different type of pitch and I’m sure there’s someone here, but –

Councilmember Raben: We, locally, we do other apartment and office buildings and all sorts of complexes, so I’m sure we’ve got the skilled labor, the contractors that will meet every need. When it gets into geothermic stuff, you know, that might be, you might have to look a little harder, but, I mean, it’s important to us that anybody that can screw a wire on a nut or put a hammer in a board or put mortar on a brick, do it here locally.

Councilmember Raben: I don’t know that this project requires a different brick than any other facility here.

Bill Hollingsworth: Yeah, and I tell you my commitment is to always be a good neighbor and be as wanted in the neighborhood as possible, which means if, you know, the plumber down the street does my plumbing, I’m a happier guy because I can call him because he’s local and he’s usually cheaper because he’s not staying in a hotel. So I appreciate your questions for sure.

Councilmember Goebel: I was just going to mention, I think we have some pretty innovative workers in this community already that are working green, so I would hope you would exhaust our resources here first. Thank you.

Bill Hollingsworth: And I tell you that Ms. Au had talked about some kind of list of local subcontractors or even the building department having those if you, in fact, have to have them. My expectation is I have 72 people bid on an individual sub and then five that, you know, my, people I have used before. I have no problem using as many local as possible, and encourage it.

Councilmember Kiefer: Since you use, there’s some federal tax credits on this, are you going to be using minority contractors?

Bill Hollingsworth: I’ve actually committed to use two minority contracts. It was not something we had to do, it was something I offered to the state, so two of subs will be minority, state certified.

Councilman Sutton: How much of a tax rate allocation are you using on this project?

Councilman Sutton: And just one point that was mentioned a little earlier about just the credit markets being as they are, granted, you don’t have your allocation as of yet, but do you have any type of commitment on the credit side for this project?

Bill Hollingsworth: Yeah, and actually, that’s a great question given the market, to sell tax credit now is actually very, very, very tough. And what it is, is folks that have that opportunity, I guess, the old number one buyer of tax credits used to be Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which used to be quasi government needed them and now the government don’t need them. So the market has gone from 90 cents to a dollar, to 65 - 70 cents. And the people that are still out there are very much picking the absolute best plum deals, which is why the tax abatement for me makes it so -- I’m in the running for it, where there’s no financial issues, it’s good, it’s a solid deal, it covers (inaudible) ratio, so tax abatement is imperative, but I have two: National Equity Fund and City Real Estate Securities, which is part of City Security –

Councilman Sutton: Is City, I thought they had pulled out of Indiana? Are they still –

Bill Hollingsworth: Part of City Securities, which is actually their real estate division. That’s who did my South Bend deal as well, and they syndicated it to Fifth Third Bank and National City Bank, so I have two, which is very rare, and they’re letters of interest, so I tell you that I’ll be spending a lot of money before I get to the point where I’m at the closing table, and I hope so.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just real quick, and I was actually on the Council when we did the Leisure Living, so I can appreciate what Councilman Raben said about the five years, but, I mean, looking at the project and what Mr. Hollingsworth has presented to us, based on the scoring, I would like to see us go with the seven years. I mean, do we need a motion for that?

President Shetler: Well, I think what we’re going to do is this, first of all maybe I’ll get a sense here, if we need it, but first if everybody is in agreement that we go with the seven, then we’ll just make one motion. If we’re not, then we’ll go with the motion to give preliminary approval of the resolution and then we’ll vote separately with a different motion on establishing the year of it.

Jeff Ahlers: It’s not really necessarily a first or second reading. What it is, you’ve got the preliminary resolution and then the confirming resolution, so it’s just a little different than an ordinance, so there will be a confirming resolution that Ms. Au will bring back to us next month, so what Mr. Shetler is stating is correct. You can either do it in one motion or two. The advantage to doing it in two is if there is a disagreement on the number of years then you don’t run the risk of defeating if it would have been your intent to create it as an economic revitalization area and that your only disagreement is over the number of years, that it is not defeated because then it can’t come back to the confirming. So, as Mr. Shetler stated, if there seems to be a consensus on the number of years, I guess you could do it in one motion on the preliminary or you might want to divide that up if there is a disagreement on the number of years. But in either event, it has to come back for a confirming and at that confirming resolution, you could amend the number of years at that time as well, it doesn’t –

President Shetler: Okay, so we’ll try to clean this up today if we can. We had two different opinions of a six –

Councilmember Kiefer: I’m with Councilman Lloyd, I think we need to go to seven because I know from my own experience how difficult and challenging it is to get the financing, and I would like to get a verbal commitment that you can do better than 20% on local contractors. I think that’s the more disturbing thing to me, just saying hey, 20% versus the seven years because I think the numbers prove out that there’s going to be some good tax income, so I don’t want to see us shoot ourselves in the foot and lose out on that.

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. President, I’d like to see us vote on the resolution first and then vote on the number of years afterwards. Could we do that?

Councilmember Bassemier: I mean, it’s got to pass first. No use getting the number of years –

President Shetler: Well, if you would like to make a motion in that regard, that would be fine.

President Shetler: So we have a motion on the floor to approve the preliminary resolution without a stipulation of the term. Do I have a second?

President Shetler: We have a motion and second. Does everybody understand the motion? Is there any questions about the motion itself? Alright, roll call please.

Councilmember Bassemier: First of all, I’d like to, I wish you were hiring more than two employees, and I’m afraid it’s going to hurt those other complexes out there. I’ve talked to the managers out there and they’re very concerned. And I wish you was using more than 20% of local contractors, and I’m going to vote no.

Councilmember Kiefer: I’d like to say that, you know, if at all possible, you can use more local contractors, I would appreciate it, but I will vote yes.

President Shetler: Now we need a motion to establish the term. Do I have a motion?

Councilmember Raben: It’s quite possible a motion could be made here since that is a concern shared by a lot of us, that for the first reading, the motion be made for six years and if, you know, hopefully within 30 days he’ll have a closer look at who the contractor is going to be and if we can get that up to 50% local contractors, we’ll go to seven years. Some might call it blackmail, some –

Bill Hollingsworth: May I speak? Actually, I appreciate that. In the next month, to get to the point where I even have construction drawings, it’s not going to be until April, which is after I get the award, the construction drawings are several hundred thousand dollars, so I don’t even know –

Councilmember Raben: We’ll have to have a confirming resolution again what, in twelve months? Or, not the confirming, but the –

Councilmember Raben: Compliance review in a year, and at that point, it’s going to be important that that number be greater than 20 percent, so I make a motion that we approve for a period of seven years.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second for a term of seven years. Are there any questions about the motion?

Jeff Ahlers: I would clarify, Mr. Shetler, that what the motion is, is to fill in the blank on section five of the preliminary resolution, that the length of deduction to be allowed for the project for real property shall be for seven years, correct?

Councilmember Bassemier: Since I voted no on the resolution, I vote no on the years.

Councilmember Lloyd: I wanted to point out, I guess, when we did this in the 90's with Leisure Living, we were flying blind, we didn’t have any guidelines, so how we ended up with five or six, I mean, I think we did a good job on that. But since we have these guidelines, I think it looks, I think it will be a good project for the community, and I vote yes.

Councilmember Goebel: Since we’ll revisit the years, I’m more inclined to think six, but to get through today, I’ll vote yes.

President Shetler: Yes. There being six ayes and one nay and no abstentions, the motion carries.

President Shetler: Next is appointment to the Economic Development Commission and I’d like to nominate Michelle Peterlin. I think she’s held that post in the past and so this is basically reappointing her to the Economic Development –

President Shetler: Alright now, there are a couple of other things real quickly and I know it’s getting late, we’re combining two meetings into one and that’s probably one of the reasons why it’s taking so long, so I apologize, but the snow was in the way. So the next is on a resolution that has been requested of us from the Mayor’s office concerning the stadium and I think we might have a proposal to put that off to another time. Councilman Raben, you’ve been working closely with that, if you –

Councilmember Raben: That is correct. In fact, Sandie, did we check availability on this room for Friday of this week and –

President Shetler: Now we’ll have to do that after 10:30 because we have to give 48 hours notice.

Jeff Ahlers: Well, I would suggest probably after noon because by the time Sandie sends out the notice, that, I mean, I can draft that up real quick or –

Councilmember Raben: I’d had, in fact, I guess until the 11^th hour, thought we had a resolution that we would be ready to prepare today but it – the President and I have had a lot of dialogue back and forth with the mayor on a resolution that he would like to see this body pass and the City Council would need to pass it, hopefully, Monday, but with it, it’s an extension of our Innkeeper’s Tax, the one percent that we lose in 2009 and that, granted we’ve already passed that, but the House Bill that the resolution relates to still in its current form, only has it in there, the extension for two years and then along with that is an extension or some changes in the Food & Beverage. But again, our legal counsel will complete the resolution and hopefully tomorrow afternoon have something for everybody to look at.

Jeff Ahlers: Yeah, that should be fine. In fact, I’ll get with whoever wants to speak with me later today. My goal would be, while it’s fresh in my mind, and I’ve read through the ten page bill, that I’d like to go ahead and get that done today. So anybody who has comments or what have you, please call me today and if there is differences of opinion between the seven of you as to what it says, then perhaps I’ll have different versions and you can sort that out on Friday. If I can, do you have something, Mr. Raben, or do you want me to go ahead with a few comments that I have on this to –

Councilmember Goebel: Actually, it’s not about the bill. I think it’s very important that there’s a real strong chance that I won’t be in town on Friday afternoon if that will make a difference on the vote. I just want to make you aware of that now.

Councilmember Lloyd: I think we would need a quorum. I would hate to have Councilman Goebel not there.

Councilmember Lloyd: Real quick, we also have in front of us a resolution that passed the County Commission last night and it refers to House Bill 1588, which you have in front of you, and as Councilman Raben stated, there’s a provision in here that I would deem unacceptable to the County Council regarding the way the funding is distributed. So I would say that we do not want to pass what the Commissioners did and we need to just draft our own. And the bill refers to the Vanderburgh County Council so, other than for county unity, what the Commissioners passed, to my mind, is irrelevant.

Councilmember Raben: Well, that was no fault of theirs. I mean, it was brought to them late yesterday. All this kind of was given to us late last week and the Commissioners legal counsel only had a short window to work on that, and I’m sure they’ll be glad to pass a new one that mirrors ours with hopes that the city will pass one that mirrors ours as well.

Councilmember Lloyd: I know talking to the state representatives, we need to have exactly what we want in that resolution because that’s what the state assembly, they’ll use what’s on paper when they do their crafting of the bills and horse trading at the end of the session, so I mean, we need to determine exactly what we want and not just assume that they’re going to get it right or that they’re going to even read the minutes of our meetings. That’s why we need to really be careful with what we’re asking for in the resolution.

Councilman Sutton: What are you, Councilman, what are you proposing? I mean, you say there’s some areas where you feel like there’s numbers you have issues with, what, I mean, are there some specifics so that, I mean, as we begin to try to address this we’ll see where the differences might be?

Councilmember Lloyd: Well like, just one thing, the Convention Centre operating expenses reduces from two percent to one percent after December 31^st, 2011. I believe we had requested five years, as one small example.

Councilmember Raben: We need to, and it’s –yeah, we want it back for five, which would be the –

Jeff Ahlers: To follow up on what Mr. Lloyd stated and I would direct your attention because most of you probably still have fresh in your mind, if you recall at our last meeting, we passed a resolution for the Indiana General Assembly to amend IC 6-9-2.5-7.7 to extend the expiration date for depositing funds at the rate of two percent into the Convention Centre Operating Fund and that was resolution number 2009-CO.R-01-09-001. And to follow up on the comments made, in that, what you passed was to request that the General Assembly modify that statute so that through January 1, 2015, that those funds would remain at that rate to go into the Convention Centre Operating fund. House Bill 1588, and I made sure to put a copy of that on everybody’s desk because I think it’s important for you to take a look at it, has in there that it only goes through 2011. So unless any of you have changed your opinion since we passed that resolution last month, we are in the resolution, you’re going to want to request that that be consistent with our last resolution. One of the other things, in a quick read and I’m going to go through it again, in the bill is that what essentially it does, is that – and keep in mind that the first resolution that we dealt with last month had to do with the Innkeepers Tax, so that portion would need to be changed. The other provisions of House Bill 1588 concern the Food & Beverage Tax and what is sought in this bill, generally, is that the Food & Beverage Tax would continue, that a portion of it would continue to be used to pay for the bonds on the Vanderburgh Convention Centre. When that expires, then that money would then shift to, if County Council enacts an ordinance, would shift then to pay for a municipal arena or event center to contribute toward the payment of bonds or leases or the financing for that project. Now one thing I would direct your attention to is if you look on page 4 of that, it talks about that the County Treasurer is the one that would make the determination as to whether or not there’s excess funds. So you may want to give some consideration whether County Council would want to make that determination or whether we want to spell out more specifically what determines excess funds because currently, right now, you know, there’s, you know, some excess money in that fund. And from time to time, I know that the county, that you use that money to, whether it’s to put on a new roof or to make, you know, some capital improvements, and so we need to make sure that we clarify the language so that we don’t have a statute that’s vague, that we have fighting over in the future, is that it is your desire to make sure that you keep that balance that’s in there now and that that would continue through the date of the payment of the bonds. When that is done, then that money would then shift to the municipal arena. So you might be thinking about, in terms of if that’s consistent with what you want to do. And again, if different of you have a difference of opinion as to what it should say, I’ll draft more than one resolution. You know, I’ll be happy to try to draft however many we need to suit everyone and you’re obviously the Councilmen who need to vote on it and sort it out. But those are the things that I would point to as to what probably needs to be clarified. The other thing is, is in terms of your resolution whether we want to focus more on the House Bill or whether you also want to, as part of your resolution, make an endorsement of the arena. I see in the County Commissioner’s resolution that it essentially endorses that project, and so, again, that would be up to you whether to include that in here or just address the provisions with regard to the funding of the Convention Centre bonds and operating funds. So you need to give me some direction as to how you want to do that. And then, if you have any other questions, let me know.

President Shetler: Okay, the room is secured for 3:30 Friday afternoon. So we will set that up for 3:30 Friday in this room. Any –

President Shetler: I have one other business to bring up and that is with regards to the Chamber of Commerce has asked us if we would at least compose a letter that would basically be in support of the one single county exec, that is being proposed by the State Legislature. I believe there is a hearing this afternoon on that. Councilman Kiefer has been pretty directly involved in that. Do you want to elaborate, Joe?

Councilmember Kiefer: Sure. After talking with Steve Schaefer from the Chamber yesterday afternoon, he thought maybe the best approach would be hold off on the letter, wait to see what they come up with and then we can kind of write our letter in response to what they created.

President Shetler: I think that’s probably a good suggestion. Mr. Goebel and I have spoken a little bit about it. We have reservations of getting into the same fiasco that was created last year by the township assessor ordeal.

President Shetler: See what they’ve got in front of us before we say yes or no.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, so at this time, there’s no letter or ask for anything.

Councilman Sutton: Well, in light of what we learned from the township assessor situation, I think we just need to stay as plugged in and as close to that situation and how it progresses, and then what ultimately is passed by the State Legislature, making sure that there are enough, if it goes in that direction, make sure that the provisions are put into place to implement that so it doesn’t have a negative impact like we may have seen on the assessors side or questions that aren’t being answered that should be included in. I think that’s about all we can really do at this point.

Jeff Ahlers: What we’re going to do is okay, the meeting is going to be noticed for Friday at 3:30, is that correct?

President Shetler: I’m sorry, I do have a correction on that. We’ll make that at 3:00 on Friday.

Jeff Ahlers: And what I will do is I will work with Sandie after the meeting, because what we’re going to do is to comply with the notice requirements, we just need to send a notice to all the media outlets and such that are requested to be notified. Now, you know, we’ll state that the purpose is to consider, you know, the House Bill and any other business. However, we’re not going to be advertising appropriations and that, just so that you know that we can’t take up some types of business that would require other types of notice. The other thing I have is that I placed on your desk a letter with a lot of attachments concerning budget and assessment deadlines so that everybody knows, given that the new duties that the County Council now has with regard to reviewing other taxing unit budgets and such and other things going on, I think this is fairly comprehensive in terms of giving you an overview of all those dates and what you need to be looking forward to as your responsibility and responsibilities of some of the other officeholders. If you have any questions or need any other information, let me know. But, and some of you may get that. I wasn’t clear in talking from some folks, some of these memos say they go to County Council, some of you say you don’t get them, so I just wanted to make sure you had these because I thought these were informative.

President Shetler: I think what we were trying to do is accommodate everyone the best we can. But is that creating a problem for you, then?

President Shetler: So he would rather go 3:30 if that’s okay with Councilman Goebel, then...

Councilman Sutton: Well, hopefully, everyone has not got that all penned in there. But yeah, 3:30 will work a lot better.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 10:44 a.m.)

1051-1301	Civilian Overtime	10,000.00	10,000.00
Total		10,000.00	10,000.00

1081-1190-1081	Enforcement Agent	4,748.00	4,748.00
Total		4,748.00	4,748.00

1090-1971	Accrued Payments	240.00	240.00
Total		240.00	240.00

1230-1900	FICA	462.00	462.00
1230-1990	Extra Help	6,038.00	6,038.00
1230-3530	Contractual Services	361.00	0.00
Total		6,861.00	6,500.00

1460-3600	Rent	1,362.00	1,362.00
Total		1,362.00	1,362.00

2620-1100-2620	Chief Probation Ofcr.	152.00	152.00
2620-1110-2620	Probation Officer	5,477.00	5,477.00
2620-1220-2620	Probation Officer	374.00	374.00
2620-1230-2620	Probation Officer	374.00	374.00
2620-1240-2620	Probation Officer	576.00	576.00
2620-1270-2620	Probation Officer	576.00	576.00
2620-1900	FICA	576.00	576.00
2620-1910	PERF	1,144.00	1,144.00
Total		9,249.00	9,249.00

1080-1450-1080	Investigator	4,547.00	4,547.00
Total		4,547.00	4,547.00

1090-1590-1090	Knight Assessor	25,560.00	0.00
Total		25,560.00	0.00

2010-1530	Shift Differential	335.00	335.00
Total		335.00	335.00