The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 6th day of January in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:35 a.m. by Vanderburgh County Auditor, Bill Fluty.

Bill Fluty: Welcome to the County Council 2010 meeting. Madame Secretary, may I have a roll call, please.

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

Bill Fluty: The first order of business today is to elect a president for 2010. May I have a motion please?

Councilmember Shetler: I’d like to place a nomination, Councilman Russ Lloyd for President of County Council.

President Lloyd: First order of business, we’ll have the election of a Vice President. Can I take a nomination?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion and a second. Any further nominations? Okay, we’ll have a roll call vote, please.

President Lloyd: Yes. Six ayes and no nays, Jim Raben, Vice President. Congratulations.

President Lloyd: Next we’ll have the appointment of the County Council Attorney. Can we have a motion for that or I’d like to nominate Jeff Ahlers, Kahn, Dees, Donovan and Kahn.

President Lloyd: Yes. There being seven ayes and no nays, Mr. Ahlers will continue this year as County Council Attorney.

President Lloyd: The appointment of Committee Chairs, I’d like to appoint as the Personnel Chair Councilman Joe Kiefer and as the Finance Chair, Councilman Tom Shetler. Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Yes. Councilman Kiefer and Councilman Shetler, I know you’ll do a good job on that. Thank you.

President Lloyd: Now we’re going to deviate from the agenda due to the fact that the Vanderburgh County Redevelopment Commission meets at 8:30 as well. So I’d like to submit Bob Musgrave and Dave Abbott as the County Council appointments to the Vanderburgh County Redevelopment Commission. Roll call vote please. Oh, I’m sorry, we need a motion.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second Mr. Kiefer. Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Sutton: Yes, I’m fine with it, but I mean, you probably could just take the whole list in its entirety, if you wanted to.

President Lloyd: Well, we’ll just go ahead with these two to make sure, for time reasons.

President Lloyd: Yes. Seven ayes and no nays, so those two are appointed to those boards.

President Lloyd: I’ll accept a motion for approval of the minutes from December 2, 2009.

President Lloyd: Okay, before we get into the regular business, I’ve got a couple of items here. For his service as president, we’d like to present Tom Shetler, Jr. with a plaque commemorating President 2009 Vanderburgh County Council.

President Lloyd: All that and you get a plaque, too. Wow. And then for his unprecedented fifteen years as Vanderburgh County Council Finance Chair, 1997 to 2002, 2004 to 2009, Jim Raben.

Councilmember Sutton: We can go ahead and let you do that one more time, Jim. I know you’re just roaring to get back at it, but we’ve already taken a motion.

Councilmember Raben: I’m going to watch real careful. If I notice anything unusual or not being taken care of right, I’ll step back in.

President Lloyd: Appropriation Ordinance, we’ll start with the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor. I’ll turn that over to the Finance Chair, Mr. Shetler.

Councilmember Shetler: Alright, we have a request from the Prosecutor today for $4,739 on an increase on a Deputy, that’s line item 1080-1190-1080, and then the related perks with that, the FICA and PERF, for a total of $5,470.

President Lloyd: And then the second, Mr. Raben. Any further discussion? Okay, roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Second item, County Council, request for Insurance. Is there a motion for that?

Councilmember Shetler: I’d entertain a motion on County Council to increase its line item 1480-1920 Insurance $20,727.

Councilmember Raben: Just a note that the Commissions are repealing the same amount out of I think Legal Services account, or something.

Councilmember Shetler: I’d recommend a motion for approval on Health Department request, line 2130-1320-2130 Office Manager/Finance Manager $5,928, Disease Intervention Specialist line item 2130-1450-2130 $13,454, and then the related FICA and PERF to that, bringing a total of $22,369 additional for those two positions.

Councilmember Goebel: Maybe I need a reminder here on the – will all this come from county general or will this be split?

Councilmember Shetler: We have a transfer from the County Commissioners in the amount of $20,727. And did you want me to go –

Councilmember Shetler: That’s a repeal, I’m sorry. And then – since that came first and then it’s different on the agenda, I’m sorry. The Transfer request, our County Commissioners, from Legal Contractual line item 1300-3612 $41,809 going to County Attorney $36,229 and that’s to line item 1300-1120-1300, and to the FICA and the PERF line items which is 1900 and 1910, and that would equal the $41,809. That’s to do with changing around the contractual agreement we had with the County Attorney bringing I think to an employee level, we talked about it late last year. The other is a late transfer that’s coming from Superior Court and I know Judge Dietsch is here probably for that matter. It’s coming from line 1370-3050 Patient/Inmate Care $20,000 going to line item 1370-3949 Home Study Adoption in the same amount, $20,000. That is a motion.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second Mr. Raben. Any discussion? Would you want to add to that, Judge Dietsch or –

President Lloyd: Does anybody need an explanation? Alright, roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Now we’ll go back to the General Fund repeal request. Mr. Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: We have one, County Commissioners, line item 1300-3612 Legal Contractual in the amount of $18,323, and line item 1300-3000 Bond & Insurance $2,404, total of $20,727 that’s to be repealed. That’s a motion.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second Mr. Bassemier. Any questions or discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Does anybody have any old business? Okay, we’ll move on to new business. Before we start with the agenda items, I’d just like to briefly talk about our goals for County Council, some of the things that I – and I’d talked to some of you members about as well. Once again, I think the number one goal for the Council, keep the tax rate level, we want to protect taxpayers wherever we can. Number two, we want to listen to the public’s concerns. We’ve seen a lot of publicity that sometimes government doesn’t listen to the people, so we want to certainly be open and honest and have stability in our meetings. Number three, we want to continue to make county government more efficient. If there’s ways to combine, consolidate, we want to look for that as well as continue the hiring freeze. Number four, we want to work with our County Commissioners and the City of Evansville to promote economic growth, bringing jobs to our community. And then finally, number five, we want to continue our conservative budget management. And personally, I would like to see if we can find a way within our budget to allow for maybe a larger computer purchase than we had to encourage efficiencies and then also if there is some way this year to figure out a way in the budget for employee raises, I’d like to see that as well. I know they did without last year, they’re doing more with less, and if there is a way we can reward them next year, I’d like to see that.

President Lloyd: Now we’ll move on to item 13, New Business, A, Approval of 2010 Amended Salary Ordinance. I’ll turn that over to our Finance Chair Mr. Shetler.

Councilmember Shetler: Okay, I think everybody has a copy on their desk, I’m trying to find mine. Does anybody have any questions? Hopefully, nobody is going to ask me any detailed questions about it. I’d make a motion for approval.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion by Mr. Shetler, second by Mr. Kiefer or Mr. Raben, one of those two. Any further discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Yes. There being seven ayes and no nays, the approval of the amended salary ordinance passes.

President Lloyd: Item B, appointment of liaisons. You have a list in front of you, I’ll just read those out real quickly. Tom Shetler, Jr.: County Highway, Cumulative Bridge, Local Roads & Streets, Superintendent of County Buildings, County Surveyor, and Airport. Councilman Raben: Burdette Park, Sheriff, Community Corrections, Commissioners, Superior Court, Circuit Court. Myself, Councilman Lloyd: County Clerk, Health Department, Convention & Visitors Bureau, Voters Registration. Joe Kiefer: Auditor, Central Dispatch, MPO, County Assessor, The Centre. Royce Sutton: Prosecutor and IV-D, Human Relations, Welfare Department, City-County Purchasing, Hillcrest Home, Co-Op Extension. Mike Goebel: Public Defender, Treasurer, Veterans, Legal Aid, Recorder. And then Ed Bassemier: Drug & Alcohol Deferral, Building Commission, Weights & Measures, Coroner, Levee Authority, Area Plan Commission. Any discussion on that?

President Lloyd: Item C, appointments to Personnel Administration Committee. The second page which shows your Personnel Administration Committee, also known as Job Study: Joe Kiefer is the County Council Personnel Chair; Russ Lloyd, Jr., County Council President; Tom Shetler, Jr., County Council Finance Chair; Mike Goebel, County Council Minority Party Representative; Judge Wayne Trockman, Judge Representative; Lloyd Winnecke, County Commissioners Representative; Bill Fluty, Republican Elected Officeholder; Rick Davis, Democrat Elected Officeholder; Doug Brown, Executive Classification Representative; Robert Goedde, POLE Classification Representative; Wallace Corbitt, PAT Classification Representative; Danna Clark, COMOT Classification Representative. So those are the new appointments to the Personnel Administration Committee and I look forward to Councilman Kiefer’s leadership on that.

President Lloyd: Item D, Appointment to the ABC Alcoholic Beverage Commission Board. I’d like to appoint Bettye Lou Jerrel to that. Is there a motion?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second Mr. Raben. Per state law, this has to be a roll call vote. Any further discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Yes. There being seven ayes and no nays, Mrs. Bettye Lou Jerrel is appointed to the ABC Board.

President Lloyd: The other County Council appointments, Item E, you’ve got a sheet there. We’ll just read those off quickly: Area Plan Commission appointment Ed Bassemier; Burdette Park Advisory Gene Koch; Business Review Committee Joe Kiefer; Convention & Visitors Bureau Kristen Tucker and David Dunn; Dental Clinic Advisory Committee Royce Sutton and Lloyd Winnecke; Economic Development Coalition of Southwest Indiana Russ Lloyd; Evansville MPO Policy Committee Joe Kiefer; Evansville Museum of Arts & Science Trustees Josh Claybourn; Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville Board Russ Lloyd; Human Relations Commission Board Russ Lloyd; Initiative Based Assistance Program Royce Sutton; ITAC Data Processing Board Tom Shetler; Jail Overcrowding Assessment Committee Jim Raben and Royce Sutton; Library Board of Trustees William Miller; M/WBE Utilization Board Stephanie Rolland and Eric Cake is a late entry, so put his name there; Pigeon Creek Greenway Passage Committee Jayne Manis; Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals Carrie Hatt-Figueroa and Kraig Nance; Solid Waste District Board Russ Lloyd; Vanderburgh County Redevelopment Commission, we already did those; West Side Improvement Association Ryan Beck; Willard Library Board of Trustees Bob Davies. Any further discussion on those?

President Lloyd: We’ll move on to item F, approval of 2010 meeting dates. You have a list in front of you. Anybody see any changes, corrections on meeting dates?

President Lloyd: We’ll move onto item G, County Clerk new employee request. Is the County Clerk here, please?

Susan Kirk: Good morning. Let’s see if we can do this a little better this time. First of all, I realize that the Council needs to cut costs. I realize that and I’m all for that. I’m a taxpayer, too. Unfortunately, the Clerk’s office, in the year 2009, we filed over 64,000 cases. Unfortunately, it just keeps going up every year. And like I said, I realize that you felt like because we had 54 employees that we could certainly do without a couple and absorb the work. The problem is, is that the workload is increasing. I know, Councilman Shetler, you had asked about automation, whatever. We have been on this system for almost, well, it has been ten years. So the system is the same, the computer system, the software is the same. We don’t have anything that we can kind of press and everything kind of falls in place. It’s a tremendous amount of work. Under the circumstances, this particular position that is vacant now, it was the cashier, but being that we waited until January the 6^th to come before Council, I did fill that position, I moved someone within the office to fill the cashier’s position. So the position that is open now, their job description is, they maintain off-site storage requests for files, order books, etcetera, they apply bar codes to all requests before FAXing, research bar code data base to determine the correct code for the request, FAX requests semi-weekly, sort and distribute files, order books that have been delivered from off-site storage, assemble filing to be sent to the off-site storage, assist fellow clerks with library phones, marriage licenses, mail and filing, bar code all order books to be sent off-site for storage and scanning and storage purposes. Assist with moving the files to the basement and prepare some basement files to be sent to off-site storage. They also file, we gave them added duties, they all file about two hours a day for Circuit, Superior plus that job was also cross-trained to do tickets from misdemeanor traffic, so we’ve sort of added to the original job description. We really can’t do without any more employees. Like I said, I wish we could. I wish our business was not thriving, it doesn’t, you know, it’s not good to see so many things happening in court because these are not good things, these are not people getting married, these are people having a lot of problems. So I’m asking the Council to please, do not cut any more. Now, I will say this, if in the years to come, we see where our numbers are decreasing, I will be the first one to tell you and we will give up an employee. But at this time, you know, we closed the library down, the public – well, I said closed, we didn’t close it down, we closed it off for the librarian to assist the public and this has been quite a strain on the public. They don’t know exactly what they are doing when they look up their files to see what their case numbers are, something that’s simple, and they don’t have that anymore, someone there to assist them. So we basically have to tell them we’ll have to find someone that knows how to do that because we just, we don’t have time now to really assist the public. So I’m asking Council to please let me have this employee that I’m requesting today. If the numbers go down, I will come back and let you know and be more than willing to give up another employee through attrition or if they quit.

President Lloyd: Let me ask a couple of quick questions. What’s the COMOT level for that position?

Councilmember Shetler: We started off at basically around a three, is that correct? COMOT III?

Councilmember Shetler: We don’t have any – okay, or there are a couple, I think. So this is basically about the lowest level or entry level that we can go into.

Susan Kirk: Yes, in our office, it is. It’s the lowest level you can go into. But I want you to remember, we do average daily, we average around 3,600 docket entries daily touching over 2,300 cases daily. Now I know when you say filing and keeping track of bar coded files that go back and forth to our off-site storage and things like that may not seem, to make it simple, like brain surgery. Of which, maybe it is, but the thing of it is, the files have to be filed. We’ve got to keep track of this stuff. We can’t just let it pile up. So even a COMOT IV, that job still has to be done any way you look at it. We just – a job has to be done and we don’t have anyone else in there now that can spare the time to do all of this off-site storage. You have to remember, we have files requested every day. We can’t keep everything up there.

Councilmember Shetler: Could you estimate about how much time they really are working towards that storage facility? You know, getting things prepared and then delivered out there and or picking, retrieving information and then coming back?

Susan Kirk: Yeah, her job, or that job, I shouldn’t say her. It’s not politically correct. That job, I would say it takes up probably, oh, I would say five hours out of the day just to do this, just to keep track of these files that are going back and forth, bar coding, all this kind of stuff, getting that ready. She would spend two hours, the position would be two hours filing for Circuit/Superior. The other hours, whatever she has left, whether it’s two, three, she does tickets, she has to process tickets for misdemeanor and traffic because they went up, well, let’s see, the infractions went up 26.39% and a lot of that is traffic tickets, stuff like that, you know, seat belts, speeding, no license plate, so that’s, she’s cross-trained. Like I said, that position, I need to quit saying she, that position has been crossed-trained in other areas because we’ve just, you know, we’ve got to get the job done. We have time limits, we can’t let it sit.

Susan Kirk: No, I asked for part-time help in my budget but didn’t get it. And that’s why I had 54 employees.

Councilmember Bassemier: I’d just like to say, knowing Ms. Kirk in the past, she would never come up here and ask for a new employee unless she really needed it. And I support it 100% and I hope, like she said, in the future, if she doesn’t need it or whatever, she’ll be back up here, but she has always been, she’s always looked on behalf of the taxpayers and saving the dollars. So I hope we can give her this new employee.

President Lloyd: Okay, it’s an existing employee, it would be just filling that replacement. One other question I have, even though it’s basically entry level, apparently, that person handles funds, so, I mean, there’s some exposure there, correct?

Susan Kirk: They do. This position, she also fills in at the cashier’s office so she’s, they do numerous different things. Since I’ve taken office and during the five years that I’ve been in here as the Clerk our cases have increased every year. So due to that fact I have had to cross-train numerous employees because you have to remember, we hardly ever have a full staff working because of vacations and different things like that, sickness, so I have a lot of cross-trained, we just have to just to get the job done. When we see, like the infractions had such an increase, then we try to find somebody that can spare a little time and do that so we can kind of – not kind of – we’ve already done that. You know, we had more work so we have tried to absorb it by cross-training, so anyway, I would appreciate your...

President Lloyd: Okay, I mean, so they handle funds, so there’s some exposure there even though it’s an entry level position. Mr. Shetler and then Mr. Sutton. Mr. Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: I don’t mean to assume anything here, but it sounded like that you might be amenable to looking at the possibility of part-time employees to help offset some of the burden that you have in the office, currently.

Susan Kirk: Yeah, if we could have a couple of part-time employees on top of what we have now, at least the staff could work at a normal pace rather than such a quick pace. That’s what concerns me, you know, sometimes the faster we go, we’re apt to make a mistake, more apt to make a mistake and that does concern me. We’re such a litigious society that no one can make a mistake anymore, and I would prefer not to do that. But I need this full-time employee. If you can grant me that, let’s see how it goes. Now I’ll have to say, too, I’ll come back if the numbers decrease. But if the numbers continue to increase, then part-time help would help a lot just to do that task of filing and keeping things in order. We just, like I said, we can’t have big stacks of stuff because, you know, when a judge wants something, you can’t say, well, okay, it’s over there in that ten foot stack over there. It doesn’t work that way. It takes a lot longer to find it. It’s better to go ahead and get it filed and taken care of.

Councilmember Shetler: I guess at the moment, I guess that I’m feeling that it may be far more prudent for us to look at doing it kind of the other way and that might be to look at the part-time and then see how that works and if that’s able to satisfy and resolve the situation, that perhaps that might be our way to go. If it doesn’t then perhaps coming back at a later point in time to go for the full-time might be, once we get locked into that full-time, then I think we’re locked in. That’s my own personal preference at the moment. But...

Susan Kirk: Well, if I could have two part-time people, that would make the difference, but having one part-time person, that’s not going to help because every position over there, everybody is extremely busy. And thank you, Councilman Bassemier, I am very conservative. And I would not be here if we didn’t, if we really didn’t need it. I mean, the numbers, we have the numbers to prove. I want to compliment, all the judges except two stepped forward and helped us. They did a little bit more than what they were doing before to help us absorb some of the work from the position that we lost. But they are done, they can’t do any more either. We’re just, in other words, the glass is pretty full, we’re running over here.

Councilmember Sutton: A couple of questions. How long has this position been open that you’re requesting here?

Susan Kirk: It has been open, well, this position has been open for, what is today? The sixth? Six days.

Councilmember Sutton: And what are the qualifications for this position as it’s described right now and then the coding or the rank for this position? What are the minimum qualifications for someone for this position?

Susan Kirk: Well, we don’t really need, like a degree in business or whatever to do this. The work that the Clerk’s office does, as in most of the other officeholders, it’s on the job training. I think your best qualification for anyone that I hire is always someone that seems to be multi-task, they can do multiple things, especially at once because you’re kind of running here, there and so forth. So, in my office, that’s what I look for is someone that is multi-task as far as having a specific training in something, --

Councilmember Sutton: I guess I’m looking for, I mean, if you’re going to, I mean, if you had this position to advertise for and you put together some criteria that a person would look at, what would it say? I mean,...

Susan Kirk: Well, what we do is, I have probably 300 people who have given me applications, submitted applications for jobs. I go through those applications. I look to see, is there anything maybe that kind of stands out that would show me that this person maybe is more multi-task. We do interviews, they need to be able to get along, obviously, with a bunch of other women in the office. I want them to have courtesy and respect but it’s, you know, I don’t advertise for, gee, do you know how to do bar coding or that’s not –

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I mean, I guess I’m looking to see if someone is applying for the position, I mean, you need someone with some strong math skills or writing skills, you mentioned multi-tasking, so that can be pretty broad, I guess, in terms of what that might mean and what you are looking for, because I’m looking -- how many people in your office, this is a COMOT IV, correct?

Susan Kirk: I don’t know, I didn’t count them. I would say, you take Donna and me away, and then there’s what, five supervisors, I don’t know, 40? 35? Well, I mean, then there’s the cashier, I don’t know, 30? I’ll say 30, I guess. Sandie is counting like crazy over here.

Councilmember Sutton: I guess it just seems to occur to me, with your office being one of the larger offices in the county, which increases the probability that you’re going to have openings in your office probably rather periodically and we still do have the hiring freeze, county hiring freeze that is going on for the county. It would seem at least for an office of your size, to go in and really assess those duties and functions, because it would seem to me that you’re going to always have an issue with being able to keep functions going at a productive and at the pace that you’re wanting to go if you’re getting employee losses along the way. Now we mentioned about the cross training a little bit earlier. I’m not even sure, there might not be a need and perhaps maybe you’ve already done this to really assess those functions and duties for all of the positions that you have in your office in the event that you do have someone that leaves and have a backup plan for carrying on those duties and functions when that person may leave. You’ve only had this position open for six days but let’s say if this position was, by chance, outside of the hiring freeze and was approved, you’re still talking about a process of considering all your applicants and going through all the paperwork you have to go through here, so you’re probably talking maybe another 21, 28 days or so before that position is in place, so you’ve gone a significant amount of time and those functions still have to go on. Have you given any consideration to that?

Susan Kirk: Yes, Councilman Sutton, as I stated earlier, since I’ve taken office and our case load has increased every year. The reason that we do so much cross-training is because we have someone out sick, surgery, Family Medical Leave, so there’s always at least three people who can perform that particular duty when someone is out of the office. Because like I said earlier, with 54 people, it’s unusual that all 54 are there every day. So someone is always picking up the duties of someone else, due to one thing or another. It could be that they’re off work, not there. It could be that, say, small claims, sometimes they get bombarded with cases. Their desk will be stacked with, you know, cases. And because they’re so busy, one of those people that was cross-trained to maybe help in Circuit/Superior, they can’t go over there and do that because they’ve got to do this. So then we have someone else to try to pick up that, yes, we have done that. Everything, we have analyzed the positions, gone over them through this last five years, made numerous changes in order to compensate for the increase in case filings and work load and people who can pick up and try to do. And, even with that, we do get behind. We do get behind. There will be, you know, like ten days when a case is filed and in order for us to get certified mail, get it all out, and sometimes we don’t make that because of circumstances where it didn’t make any difference how many we had cross-trained, everybody was so busy with what they had to get done, that we were a little late on that. So, and especially now that we’ve lost one employee. Of course, the public has suffered more than anything for this because, like I said, they come in and they get on the computer, even with the instructions, they’re having difficulty in looking up their cases. Plus, you know, we have the abstractors and they’re over there and they kind of stay there a lot. And then you’ve got people waiting to get to the computers because the abstractors are there and so, anyway–

President Lloyd: Hey Royce, Sandie counted 37 COMOT IV’s out of a total of 54 employees.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, I don’t want to rehash old ground, but you’ve mentioned the law library, I guess, a couple different times. The Council did not cut the law library position. I mean, you made the choice as the manager and administrator of that office –

Councilmember Sutton: – to remove that position to rearrange your staff and your workforce to meet other needs. But the Council did not cut that position. I just want to make sure we’re very clear and on the record and we did discuss this the last couple – I just want to make sure that impression is not left out of it that this Council, anyone on this Council, made that decision. That was your decision.

Susan Kirk: Well, I’d just, by Council cutting the position, we obviously have priorities in the office that have to be taken care of. It’s just like everything else, there’s the priority. You’ve got to do this first, you’ve got to do this second. And because of the loss of an employee, something had to go. And that’s what had to go because the other things, we have to get done. We don’t have to go out there and assist someone on a computer looking up their case. We don’t have to do that but we have to get other things done within certain time limits that are prescribed by law. So those things take priority. So you have to, again, assess what you’re doing and get your priority list. And that was the only place that we had that we could cut back and take part of that job of being there all the time for the public and take that away now. She has to do small claims duties, too.

Councilmember Raben: Just a general comment. And, Susie, this doesn’t have anything to do with your office. Your office would be a great place to start because it’s probably our biggest, but I’ve had some dialogue back and forth with Commissioner Tornatta on starting somewhere within the county and doing a study, bringing in somebody that’s outside of government. And, as an example, go to Susie’s office, study the flow, study the tasks, you know, look and see where efficiencies are, where they’re not. You know, in today’s environment, and all the money we’ve spent and software, computerization, and what have you, and I’m shooting in the dark here, but I’ll bet you, we probably have the same amount of employees in here in that office today that we did in 1970. So there’s got to be some things or somebody, a firm, that can come in and look and, you know, from a different set of glasses. Not the ones that we look through every day, but from a whole different set of glasses that can study all the flow and, you know, do we file today things because that’s just the way we’ve always done it? Do we handle every task just because that’s the way it’s been done for the last 20 years? I don’t know. And I’m not telling you there’s any changes at all that could be made, but I would like somebody other than somebody that works in the interior walls of this building to come in and start somewhere and analyze our whole process. Our whole system. And start – I do believe it would be a great start in a larger office and don’t, I’m not looking to sign a big contract to study the entire county or city/county both, but start somewhere. Just see what our gains could possibly be from doing that and, you know, if we like what happens, take it into other departments and other offices. I don’t know what anybody else’s thoughts are but –

Susan Kirk: Well, our office, Councilman Raben, runs by federal and state law and our judges. So if the judges have a particular way that they like something done, that’s what we do. So I’ll just give you a little forewarning, that if you want to change something, you probably ought to get their okay, because, and I’m not saying that what they do causes –

Councilmember Raben: And my point is, you bring somebody in that has no association with any part of government. And there could be a little finger pointing. That may be good. But if the judges are the ones that are the reason why we have to hire more employees, you know, somebody needs to call them out on that. If we’re doing things, again, just because that’s the way they’ve always done it, doesn’t make it right. I mean, everybody is adjusting, you know, in the private sector, you know, Royce’s bank that he works in has made a lot of adjustments, I’m sure, in the last ten-twenty years. And we all do. And again, I’m not picking on you or your office. I would like to start somewhere and, you know, government isn’t always right. And in most cases, you know, I’m going to go out on a limb and say most of the time, we’re wrong.

Councilmember Sutton: I think, Jim, what you’re talking about is kind of like an efficiency study that would look for areas that might be duplicative or ways to streamline processes and it could be technology that could be upgraded in some areas. It could be responsibilities are shifted or moved in different areas. There may be some things that we’re doing that maybe we don’t, as you said, no longer really need to do, but I don’t think we’ve ever really had any area in county government, as far as I can recall, that really looks at the efficiency of the tasks and responsibilities that we have and how to carry those out in the best manner possible. I think President Lloyd put it very appropriately at the beginning as he talked about ways in which we can make government work better for the public and making it more efficient, why can’t we – and I think it would be a valuable tool for us by investing in something along that line. I’m not sure what kind of companies are out there that do that kind of thing, but I’m sure there are others out there that –

President Lloyd: We talked to, when Tom Shetler was president last year and I was Personnel Chair, we talked to BKD accounting firm and they’re the ones that do the job study, and they also indicated that they have contacts with some national firms that do this kind of thing, that specialize just in government. So if you like, we could request from them just maybe a sheet of some of these firms and possible pricing.

Councilmember Goebel: If you’re going on the same line, go ahead. I’ll come back with my –

Councilmember Kiefer: Well, I was just going to say, a lot of what we’re talking about, in the private sector, over the years they’ve had different names like TQM, Total Quality Management, or local governments in Baltimore and in New York, they call it Comp Stat or City Stat, so there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I mean, I think hiring somebody, you know, I’m not saying that’s a bad idea at all, but there’s also programs out there where you have the employees who do the work day in and day out, and they get together and they strategize to come up with ideas on how to make their departments run better, and they do that interdepartmentally. And they set goals and set benchmarks and then they hold themselves accountable. You know, perhaps before we hire somebody, we ought to get together and talk about this outside in a committee format and say, hey, what’s the best way to approach this. What should be our next steps, because I do think that we’re on to something here. There’s probably ways to streamline and make government work a little bit better. Just how do we go about getting started and doing that?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes, I think the idea has a lot of merit to have an outside source come in because, like Susie today has a request, and she’s been here before with her request. She’s going to fight to fill her positions in her department. And it’s going to be awfully difficult for us to determine which positions are vital and across the board because every person is going to ask and she wouldn’t come here if she didn’t feel it was very necessary. We’ve had other people, and we’re going to go through this time after time after time. I think it’s going to become even more burdensome for us as a Council. And really, sometimes I don’t know if we’re going to make the right calls because we might have a gut impression, we might hear something from a different department head or who knows what the criteria might be for us, but I really hope that we can get some guidance from another group that maybe could make us more efficient and save taxpayer money in the long term and make this job a little bit less burdensome, too.

President Lloyd: I’ll commit to the Council that I’ll get information from BKD on outside firms that do this and at least we’ll have information to take a look at. Councilman Kiefer is the Personnel Chair, so maybe he wants to pick up this ball a little bit.

Susan Kirk: Well, just as a suggestion to Council, I realize that several officeholders are coming up here wanting to fill their positions. And it seems like to me that if Council would have a criteria like I have numbers to prove that our caseloads are going up. Not by a little bit, by quite a bit. And to me, if anything would count in determining whether a position is to be filled, it would be the facts. Not just me saying, yeah, they’re really busy. But that the numbers are up. It’s a fact. This is not just some little whim thing that we’re coming up with here. That should be your number one criteria. Now, after that, yes, there may be some discussion. But when you can prove that you’ve got an all-time high, over 64,000 cases compared to 40 some odd thousand cases, just a few years ago. I don’t know that, you know, and I don’t have any problem with someone coming into the office to assess it. We have gotten together as groups in our departments, mixed in our departments, mixed within the whole office, to see what can we do to absorb this workload. We’ve done that. And we’ve actually – and we’ve done it, literally, we’ve done it.

Susan Kirk: It’s line item 1400, it’s the Administration Assistant Chief Deputy.

President Lloyd: Okay, in this salary book I’m looking at, that’s Bookkeeping Clerk. Is that the same one?

Susan Kirk: It is the Administration Assistant Chief Deputy. It’s line item 1400.

President Lloyd: Okay, we’ve got different numbers. There’s some, let’s see, Administrative Chief Deputy. 1450, maybe? Or you said it was a COMOT IV.

Susan Kirk: It’s a COMOT IV. The bookkeeping, the cashier’s position, we switched a few people around here. So the line that is open is 1400, and it says, according to the job description, it’s the Administration Assistant Chief Deputy.

President Lloyd: Okay, we’ll sit here and try to figure that out. Any other questions?

Councilmember Goebel: I think this just demonstrates, again, our problem. Susie need a replacement, we don’t exactly know what job that person would fill, totally. I mean, we’re coming right now, kind of in the dark. We don’t have the description or anything else in front of us or the numbers or anything else. We’re listening to you and I believe you, but it would be nice to have that for us to study.

President Lloyd: It’s Bookkeeping Clerk. It is 1400. My mistake. That’s a COMOT IV. Do we want to entertain a motion to approve this replacement?

Councilmember Kiefer: Before we do that, Councilman Shetler had mentioned, and I thought Susie had said, you know, if she had two, that might work. I mean, Tom, were you suggesting start out with two part-time employees and see if that works in lieu of this position?

Councilmember Shetler: I didn’t specify a number, but I think I would look at entertaining the idea of maybe looking at putting 12, $13,000 into the account for part-time help, see how that works and then a couple months later, if it’s absolutely necessary to go a full-time or another part-time, then we could certainly take up that question at another time. But that’s how I would view it, my own personal opinion today.

President Lloyd: Okay, and then the other thing is, we did eliminate one position in this office in December, so –

Councilmember Sutton: The part-time dollars, you say you don’t have any, we didn’t allocate any for 2010?

Susan Kirk: I put it in my budget for part-time help and it was not approved by Council. And, like I said, that is when we had –

Councilmember Shetler: What we could do is transfer from this line that we would be vacating, put it into the, transfer at a, you know, next month.

Councilmember Sutton: And then it also gives us some time to really mull over this matter that we talked about with the efficiency issues and maybe form an actual group or a committee that can actually move this forward. But if we fill this position, we’ve locked ourselves in to not really supporting what we’re talking about here.

Susie Kirk: And you have to remember, also, part-time help, one thing about that, ideally, if you find a couple of people that, it’s kind of like full-time, part-time, because if it’s people that’s going to be coming and going, we don’t have time to train people. We don’t have time to do that. That’s going to take up more time, so we don’t have time for that. That’s the only problem with part-time help is that, you know, if you have a full-time employee, they’re there, you get them trained, you start moving on. Part-time, they’re kind of here, there, yonder and we really don’t have time to train them, especially in some of these duties. You know, you have to remember, when we hire someone, they get access to our court records. And they need to be full-time. When you, like I said, start hiring part-time and you’re having a turn-over, ah, you know, sometimes that can be more. Like I said, I wish the Council would at least, this time, let me stay at this number and, again, thank you, Mr. Bassemier, because I will be back. I do want to save money. I don’t like paying taxes any more than anybody else does. So I’m just asking you to do it this time. Like I said, if my numbers go down I’ll be back, but –

President Lloyd: Okay, one other point, last year, the Council approved a lower hiring rate for new employees, so this person would come in at a lower rate.

Councilmember Sutton: That’s what I was going to – along with the benefits, I mean, this position, of course, is based upon the – on mine it says vacant, actually there, for 1400, but it’s 27,648, Sandie, if you – I know you –

Councilmember Sutton: If you talk about the benefits on top of the salary, roughly, what are we probably talking about annualized on a position like this? Just kind of an average.

Councilmember Sutton: So let’s say we knock that down some just to, so you’re talking about at least 45,000 total compensation for the position.

Susan Kirk: I don’t know. And my advice is, is I wouldn’t get into benefits with me standing up here.

Councilmember Sutton: Thank you. Just to your point, what do you have in mind, Councilman Shetler, as far as the amount on that, part-time dollars?

Councilmember Shetler: Well, first of all, I mean, I hate to nickle and dime a $54,000,000 budget, but you have to start somewhere. And that’s, I guess, where I’m coming from. And I guess I’d have in my mind in the neighborhood of 12 to $15,000 in a part-time budget that would allow us to, that gives you a lot of flexibility. I think our Clerk gives us a very compelling argument for why it’s important to have full-time employees and I certainly think that it is. But, by the same token, you have flexibility with part-time. One week they work 15 hours when you need them and you don’t have very many people taking vacations and sick leaves and bad weather and all the other things that come up. The next week, you’ve got a full staff in and you can slow them down a little bit and not bring them in as often. So there’s some flexibility that you have that it’s very advantageous to managing an office. So I think 12 to $15,000 would be appropriate and would work, and save the county in the neighborhood of about 30 - $35,000. Again, it’s nickle and diming a $54,000,000 budget, but you’ve got to start somewhere. I feel it’s a better move than doing nothing at all and –

President Lloyd: Okay, we need to wrap this up, so would someone entertain a motion to either replace the position or some other type of motion?

Councilmember Bassemier: I’d like to make a motion we approve a full-time employee, what she’s asking for. She knows what she needs. You’re going to get two part-time people 15,000, what is that, $7.25 an hour a person, or $8.00 an hour person. And that person would probably quit after six or eight months or a good possibility because it’s part-time, no benefits. I think if we give her a full-time employee, that person would be more conscientious to do a better job, and I think we need to give it to her.

Councilmember Bassemier: I make a motion to approve a full-time or that full-time however you call it.

President Lloyd: Is there a second? Okay, no second. That motion dies for lack of a second. Additionally, well, as I said, this would be a person coming in at the lower tier for that COMOT IV. Okay, we need another motion.

Councilmember Shetler: I would suggest, really, we just put a flat amount in there and then she has the ability to decide if, one week she may want two in there, maybe she needs one, maybe she won’t need any for a couple of weeks. I don’t know how that would be. I know in our own facility, we use some. That works out great for them. There’s people who are actually looking for it because they want to work when their kids are off to school and work from 8:00 to 12:00, or some who want to work from 10:00 to 2:00, and that kind of situation, that works very, very well. So I think that’s part of management’s decision and not for us to try to dictate how many and what the hours might be or how they might do it.

President Lloyd: What about transferring the amount of that salary to part-time?

Councilmember Sutton: Yeah, or whatever it – I mean, that sounds like it would provide a lot more flexibility. You know, there might be times where she might need only one. Maybe she needs three.

Councilmember Shetler: I have no problem with that. That would have to come back, I assume, next month for a –

Susan Kirk: I will have to say I’m disappointed because I know there are other areas that we can also save money. I’m not going to mention it right now, but I think all the Councilmen know what I’m referring to. I’m disappointed that the Council is not going by the facts, that I have numbers, that you have granted other officeholders their employees with really no facts, particularly, just by their presentation. I feel like my presentation was very good today. And I’m very, like I said, very disappointed because I know there are some other places that we can cut. So, but that’s your decision and I will abide by whatever your decision is. We’ll see what the repercussions turn out to be.

President Lloyd: Okay, to make it official, let’s get a motion and a second on this so we can move forward.

Councilmember Shetler: I move that we bring up the question again next month in reference to a transfer of funds into a part-time line item from this particular full-time position. The amount to be determined –

Councilmember Shetler: Uh, I would say not to exceed maybe $20,000, which is close. I think a new entry level COMOT was at $21,000 roughly. So...

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second Mr. Sutton. Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Bassemier: I’m not really in favor of part-time help, but I think she needs a full-time person. If it’s part-time, I wish she could at least get a 39 hour person, but for her to get maybe a good chance of getting some extra help here, I’ll vote yes.

President Lloyd: Before we do item H, a couple of housekeeping things that I neglected. Our Council Attorney is Jeff Ahlers from Kahn Dees, however, Mr. Ahlers had a deposition, he couldn’t make it here today. So in his place we have Ryan Schulz from Kahn, Dees. Appreciate you coming here, Ryan. I know he’s interested in government, so what better place to stick him than in the middle of this Council?

President Lloyd: The other thing is, on our County Council appointments, I missed Central Dispatch. And we do have an appointment to Central Dispatch, that would be Mike Humphrey. Mike Humphrey, the former fire chief agreed to take the Council’s appointment on Central Dispatch.

President Lloyd: Okay, let’s go to Item H, Board of Health, permission to fill vacancy.

Councilmember Shetler: Councilman, could I ask you if we could skip over and go to the salary ordinance amendments prior to that? I have an appointment that I need to get to and I apologize for that. But if we could go to that and then –

President Lloyd: Alright, we’re going to deviate from the agenda. Let’s go to item number 14, Amendments to the Salary Ordinance.

Councilmember Shetler: Oh, I’m sorry, we won’t be able to do that because the Board of Health is on there.

President Lloyd: Otherwise, Councilman Raben could pinch hit on that. Alright, let’s go back to 13 H, Board of Health, permission to fill vacancy.

Gary Heck: Gary Heck, Vanderburgh County Board of Health. Thank you for considering this request. Dr. Del Rio had requested this at the board meeting in December. Before I start, I would like to just remind the Council that the Health department does have some COMOT II’s and some COMOT III positions. It’s my understanding there’s been a moratorium on requests to upgrade positions since April of 2009 while there was an ongoing review of all of the county positions. The Health department is still waiting to have their positions evaluated by the contracted service, so we don’t have that position in yet. This request is to fill a public health nurse position, 2130-1240, that was vacated in April of last year. And we would have already had this position filled with the exception that we needed to use a vacant position’s funding to do an accrued payment buy-out of a long-time employee’s accumulated benefits. The hiring freeze went into effect July 29^th of 2009 or we would have already had a request to fill this position prior to that. This is our first opportunity to actually request that this position be filled because the funding just would have become available at the first part of December, 2010. I would just like to give you some additional numbers about the workload at the Health department with concerns to immunizations, which Public Health Nurses do fill in to help out in this. And then our Director of Nursing is here to also answer questions about the workload for this particular position. In 2008, the Vanderburgh County Health department provided 12,898 –

– vaccinations over the course of the entire year. In 2009, the Health department and any of the, some of the volunteer vaccinating sites, a few doctors, what have you, provided 38,384, this is a 297% increase in vaccinations. Now granted, it’s due primarily to the H1N1 vaccination that those increases are there, but that’s still part of the public health department’s responsibility and it’s still part of the workload and having an additional nurse would certainly have been beneficial and helpful.

Councilmember Raben: On that note, that’s not an annual vaccine, right? I mean, that’s a one-time –

Gary Heck: Well, it’s a one-time for this one, but, and it probably would be included in seasonal flu vaccines, so while this is, we’re still going to be receiving vaccine through May of this year so it’s not like it’s –

Gary Heck: The number will carry into 2010. Now whether it will be in 2011 or 2012 remains to be seen about with the phases, but it will carry into 2010.

Councilmember Raben: Vaccines to give out. But that’s not an ongoing, that’s not a building number, though.

Gary Heck: It is an unusual occurrence in the sense that in the last 20 years, we probably haven’t had this same type of thing. So I guess your point is correct in that regard.

President Lloyd: Let me ask a quick question. What’s the position name and number in the budget book?

President Lloyd: Okay, so it’s a person that administrates services from the Health department.

Gary Heck: That’s correct, and goes out to the public and if you have questions, the nursing director would be more than happy, Diana Simpson, could answer in probably greater detail than I.

President Lloyd: Okay, and part of that was money used for the buy-out of Mr. Elder?

Gary Heck: That’s correct. The vast majority of that buy-out came from this position.

President Lloyd: Okay. Questions by Council? Or did anybody want to have the nurse offer her thoughts on this?

President Lloyd: Oh, is there questions by Council or did Council want to have the nurse elaborate on this position?

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, or I would, I mean, I might ask a question if you, you know, I guess if we managed for all of ‘09 without this person, under the circumstances that we discussed earlier, I would find it hard to believe that we can’t go forward without the same person. I mean, if ‘09, you know, the numbers were through the roof, up 200%, and we did it without this person. And that kind of was my point earlier, was, you know, we’ll probably never see those numbers as high again.

Gary Heck: Well, in all fairness, we also had federal funding that allowed us to hire, otherwise, we would have, the board would have asked us, and they did ask us, to come back and ask for this position to be reconsidered and to do an appropriation. But we, administratively, we chose not to do that since we have this other funding that we could hire some temporary help. But that, federal funds wouldn’t be available after this episode. We really do need this position.

Councilmember Raben: How much in federal funding did we use on temporary help? For this?

Gary Heck: Well, we had 374,000, and to date, we probably have used, oh, close to $50,000 in, because we continue to run clinics. We’re having a clinic this Thursday, for example, this Saturday, and then one out at Nativity Church on Sunday. And, what you don’t hear about are the closed pod clinics where we’ve been going to childcare centers and to other facilities and anybody under the age of ten, you have to do a second, a booster. Diana Simpson can answer that question.

Gary Heck: We have the ability to claim up to $374,000 to do that, to do all sorts of related costs.

Gary Heck: Well, we’ve submitted claims. We haven’t received it all yet because there was some advancing. But that’s a one-time, if we hadn’t of had that opportunity, I can assure you we would have been back and I had a lot of pressure from within requesting this position be filled several times last year.

Councilmember Raben: As far as those federal funds, though, those funds are still available for 2010?

Councilmember Sutton: And how many people did you take on through these federal funds that you received?

Gary Heck: It varies from clinic to clinic, but we had the opportunity under three contracts that the Commissioners have signed where we could use as many as we needed at any one clinic. We could have 20 people, 20 vaccinators at a clinic or screeners.

Diana Simpson: Let me kind of explain. My name is Diana Simpson, I’m the Nursing Division Director. Let me explain this position. It’s one of those that probably people don’t know about unless we’re in the paper or there is an incident. This nurse, the money that Mr. Heck was talking about is only for H1N1. That is it. This position is a nurse who actually goes out into the community. We accept referrals, we get referrals from doctors, hospitals, CPS court appointed visits, we go into their – last year the four nurses made over 3,000 about 3,200 visits. They each had a case load of about 67 people. A lot of those required weekly visits, maybe two or three times a month. A case yesterday, a doctor called, a little eight month old, failure to thrive. One of our nurses went out that day, looked at that child, got him in, he was behind on his immunizations. These nurses go in there and what we always say, public health are the eyes and the ears for the community because our doctors can not go into those homes. When we lost the position, we didn’t lose the position but we just were not able to hire when our nurse retired in April. We saw an effect, the higher case loads for our nurses. We also do U of E and USI students, they come to the health department, they go out with our nurses. USI had such an increase in the number of students that our nurses could not handle that caseload to teach these girls and take them out. We’re very strict on how many, you know, we could actually take without affecting our other job. The H1N1 is just kind of, you know, that’s a burden right now but we have money, we’re hiring. But I would love to see this position go. We have four nurses right now. One of those nurses is on an MCH, Maternal Child Health Title V grant that is possibly going to be cut in this fiscal year, which would be October 1. So if we lose that position and this position, we’d be down three nurses.

President Lloyd: Okay, and I know, I attended the board of Health meeting where they strongly endorsed this position. It’s a, you know, a position that administers to the public. It’s a registered nurse. I think with the Health department, if you wanted to look at the possibility of eliminating or changing positions, you may want to look at the administrators. I’m not sure you want to look at an RN. But anyway, Mr. Kiefer?

Councilmember Kiefer: Thank you. Is this a position that you could possibly hire as a contractor instead of as an employee? That way, when the H1N1 and other things decrease, you could then re-evaluate the need for a full-time nursing position?

Gary Heck: I don’t believe so. Once again, we’re still waiting for the evaluation of all of our positions by the contractor. We haven’t been visited yet like all of the other departments. We have COMOT II’s and COMOT III’s that we believe should be at a much higher – because our positions, our job descriptions have been in place since 1993 and have never changed unless they’ve come before Job Study. So the vast majority of our clerks, bookkeepers, secretaries are all in COMOT II and COMOT III positions, unlike some of these other departments that only have COMOT IV’s and up. But the registered nurses, it’s not something that we can do with contractors, and the public health nursing positions are, they’re a vital part of the health department and if there was another way we could do it, we would certainly want to try and do it that way. But we don’t believe we can do it with contractors because –

Councilmember Kiefer: There’s not a pool of nurses out there in the community that would, like we talked about earlier, part-time positions where –

Gary Heck: If they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it at places that pay a much higher hourly rate than the county would be willing to pay.

Gary Heck: Well, there’s beginning to be. You’re going to start feeling the pinch everywhere.

President Lloyd: Other questions? Okay, do we want to entertain a motion to approve the replacement of the nurse, which actually had been a full-time position there, has been left vacant. Part of that was money to go to Mr. Elder’s retirement.

Councilmember Raben: How many, let me circle the wagons. Total, how many nurses do you have, health nurses?

Diana Simpson: Basically, yes. Some have other duties. We go into the schools every once in a while, especially the New Directions Program, and do classes for pregnant teenagers there. So each nurse has their own specialty or other areas, but they all make home visits. We look at the referrals as they come in. Our nurse, we have one nurse, her specialty is in lead, we have these kids with high leads, that people never know about that are being affected, that we follow up on, case manage. Pregnant women, they come, we have a nurse every day at the health department that does free pregnancy testing on a walk-in basis. We try to hook that woman up, 90% of them don’t have insurance when they come in, so we, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that people probably don’t know. And it’s hard to get numbers on a lot of that.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I still – I’m thinking back, if can use federal funds to offset the workload between now and June, why are we discussing this –

Councilmember Raben: These four nurses don’t spend a minute of time administering H1N1?

Gary Heck: Oh no, they do spend some time, but in the course of a week, it may amount to, probably at the best, six hours, four hours.

Gary Heck: Other than that, and there’s already, we’re already down one of these nurses and they’re trying to pick up this remaining caseload for the demand for these services. If there was a way we could, if we could legally use the H1N1 money, perhaps I wouldn’t be here today to ask you for this because we would have another funding source to do something with. We can’t use it for that.

Councilmember Raben: Well, if that funding source is available and you can take away six hours a week from each of the (inaudible) bringing in more federal assisted health –

Gary Heck: Just to do the H1N1 vaccinations. It’s just to do the H1N1 vaccinations. It’s not for the day to day workload, that’s called supplanting.

Councilmember Raben: I know, but that eliminates 24 hours a week of responsibility that these four are sharing in.

Gary Heck: We can’t actually eliminate it that way because our nurses have to go out to do the work, too. We’re just hiring to augment what we can’t do with the staff that we have on our own.

Dr. Ray Nicholson: Well, in our profession, it’s the doctors and the nurses that see the patients on a direct, one to one position. And they’re professionals and they’re the only people that can do that. It appears that this caseload has been cared for by other people, which is actually illegal. In order for good public relations, we have been sending a clerk to the clientele that this nurse had been seeing in order to just keep it going. But we can’t do that forever. You’re not allowed to do that. You have to have an RN degree to do that. So we’re going to have to do something with that caseload. Now when I was in private practice, just to illustrate some of the things that they do, what do you do with a 14 or 15 year old that’s had a new baby and has a husband who has barely begun to shave? Do you send them home hoping that they can take care of that baby? No, I would refer them to this nurse who would go into the home and check on this child to make sure that things are alright. And we have diabetics that would not take their medication, so I would make referrals to them, they go out on a one to one basis and handle those. So they become case managers. And this cannot be a part-time position. It is a position where a professional has to have a relationship with the patient on an ongoing basis. You can’t send a part-time employee every so often and get the same kind of result. It is a professional position and that’s the backbone of any health department and any doctor’s office. You can have all the clerks you want to and all the administration you want to, but it’s that one on one position with the nurse seeing the patient that really adds up and it is important.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, thinking back to the dental clinic and how we provide 20% services outside the county which gives me a lot of heartburn that we’re paying for things outside the county, do these nurses provide services outside Vanderburgh County?

Gary Heck: And for the record, anybody from outside the county pays a higher fee. So it’s not Vanderburgh County providing services that aren’t shared by a higher service fee for those individuals who don’t reside in Vanderburgh County.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, I just want to make sure we’re not paying for somebody to do services outside of Vanderburgh County.

Councilmember Goebel: And this replacement would make it four, and you have one other –

Gary Heck: Funded by a grant program, so they’re not under the county’s budget. They’re under a grant.

President Lloyd: Okay, do we want to entertain a motion to either approve it or – approve the request and then either vote it up or down?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Kiefer, second Mr. Bassemier. Okay, this would be to approve the filling of the vacancy of the public health nurse. Start with a roll call vote please.

Councilmember Bassemier: Anything that will help the health of our community, I’m going to vote yes on this.

Councilmember Kiefer: Based upon the strength of Dr. Nicholson’s request, I’m going to vote yes.

President Lloyd: Yes. So that’s five yes, one abstain. The motion passes. Thank you.

(Motion carried 5-0/Councilmember Raben abstained and Councilmember Shetler left the meeting prior to this vote)

Gary Heck: Thank you and I hope you all got the information you requested. I emailed to you the dental clinic information, and some other financials concerning the prescription drug card. Thank you. And thank you again, Sir.

President Lloyd: Okay, we’ll move to item I, and now, you thought that was fun, we’re going to travel requests. You should have in front of you a memorandum that was sent out to all the county officeholders and elected officials. And this is something new this year that we can thank our former president, Councilman Shetler, on this. As a way to control county costs, we’re looking at the Council approving travel requests. The memo is self-explanatory, the Commissioners passed an ordinance to this effect that now travel requests go to the County Council. Some of the county budgets have a small amount for travel in their budgets, but the majority, there’s, I believe, $20,000 in the County Council budget for travel. So now we’re going to start entertaining travel requests. The first one on the list would be the County Engineer. You should have a copy of the paperwork –

Councilmember Sutton: Excuse me, Councilman Lloyd? I just want to reference back to the memo you just were talking about before you get into the actual requests themselves.

Councilmember Sutton: A couple of questions. You said that the Commission has taken action to approve that the Council would take on this responsibility?

Councilmember Sutton: So are we looking at moving all of the travel budgets into the County Council budget? That would seem like would be the – because there are several travel budgets out there with various, not just the Commission, but several offices. Is that what is proposed here?

President Lloyd: Yes, and I believe, and I could get you a list. There’s a few offices that have small amounts of travel money, but where they have, I guess, routine, annual travel that they do. But the majority of it is in the County Council budget. And that was agreed to by the Commissioners.

Councilmember Sutton: I guess I’m a little puzzled, I guess, to a certain extent. Our function as Council, we put the travel budget in place, so by virtue, we are approving travel in a generic way and the Commission, who has the administrative function, would then actually review the travel requests. And, of course, as our responsibility from a fiduciary standpoint, we would monitor it to see if it’s being used properly and the way it’s supposed to be. But we don’t have to go back and take a second action, I guess, on any travel requests. So I guess I am a little puzzled about their action on this because that would seem to be more of a County Commission function to actually approve the actual travel requests that come before them as opposed to a Council duty. Because it’s not really dollars being –

Councilmember Raben: I think their thought, Royce, was that it was more of a Council function because it was a matter of dollars and cents, that they were approving travel requests and having them come back to us to get money to fund the line. I think it’s really, it saves them a step.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I don’t necessarily say that the old is good and that the new is bad, I guess I’m just trying to get an understanding on just the logistics of who is making what decision and how this really coordinates. It seems like we’ve already taken the action we need to take by approving the travel budgets, I guess, that’s –

President Lloyd: So, and I guess in this year’s budget hearings, what we did is in a number of departments, I think we put zero in for travel. So we’re saying that we don’t know that they need to travel, so I guess that’s why this new mechanism, they’re going to come before Council to request those funds from a common fund for travel. I know you’ve been on the Council a long time; we’ve never done it.

President Lloyd: I know. Well, and in past years, if you had a department or an officeholder that exceeded their travel budget, then it would come to us as an additional appropriation. So now we’re just starting from square one.

President Lloyd: Okay, the first on the list, County Engineer, which is item L, travel request. Is the County Engineer here? Okay, he was here earlier. I guess he had to leave. I did talk to him briefly about it, and this is a trip to the Storm Water Drainage Conference, they go every year. And the dollar amount, $650. Any questions on that? Is there a motion to approve?

(Motion carried 5-0/Councilmembers Shetler and Kiefer were not present for the vote)

President Lloyd: The second item would be item M, Health Department travel request. They’re still here.

Gary Heck: For the record, if you all don’t approve these, then the Auditor’s office can’t reimburse on any claims, and that was the process when the Commissioners used to do these. Since you all only actually meet to approve things once a month, it means that you want a 30 day advance notice of the travel, and some departments won’t have that 30 day advance notice time. So if you have to set up a travel line item in a department’s budget, unless there’s a way that you can work out a mechanism that either department heads or somebody can say it’s okay for that travel till they run out of money or whatever, it would certainly speed up not having to have requests come to you so far in advance, and you may not even have that in advance.

President Lloyd: If we have notice we can take official action at Personnel & Finance. So we can do that. I mean, that’s another thing. The other thing would be, I guess you could communicate with the Council office and they would forward that to the members.

Gary Heck: Okay, I just know that the Auditor’s office can’t pay a claim for travel unless there is an approved travel request form, or at least that’s the way it was under the old system with the Commissioners.

Councilmember Raben: So Gary, you’re referencing like state called meetings where you might get a week notice or something.

Gary Heck: In some regards, they could call a meeting that quick. A lot of times you know nine months in advance if it’s an annual type meeting. But if it’s, like under this H1N1, it’s not unusual for Dr. Nick to get a notice that they’re having a meeting next week that they need him to attend, and we wouldn’t have that 30 days advance notice on something like that. And so we would be at the risk, if somebody attended the meeting hoping it was approved and then it wasn’t, then you’d have people potentially making trips or trying to make a decision that it’s okay to go or not go.

President Lloyd: Okay, the request in front of us is $425, auto reimbursement for state called meeting. Is that correct?

President Lloyd: Oh, okay, there’s also $150 for state called meeting and that’s mileage as well. Are those in Indianapolis?

Gary Heck: I believe they are, Sir, yes. And we didn’t have an actual form to submit them on, so we kind of made a temporary one similar to what the Commissioners used that had a, hopefully, a spot for the County Council to sign off on.

President Lloyd: Okay, one of them is for Dr. Nicholson to ISDH, Indiana State Department of Health.

President Lloyd: And the other one is for Gary Heck, Indiana State Department of Health for one day. Dr. Nicholson for two days.

President Lloyd: Okay, we’ve got a motion, Mr. Bassemier, second Mr. Sutton. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

(Motion carried 5-0/Councilmembers Shetler and Kiefer were not present for the vote)

President Lloyd: Okay, item number M, or no, we just did that one. I’m sorry. Item number N, Soil and Water Conservation District travel request. There should be four of those. Is anybody here from Vanderburgh County Soil and Water? Hmm. Okay, start with questions on this. Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Are these four, are they driving four vehicles to this conference?

President Lloyd: That’s a good question. Based on what, yeah, I guess the information Mrs. Deig supplied, the county had approved one person to do this last year, and there is two county employees at Vanderburgh County Soil & Water, but now we’ve got requests for three additional employees or volunteers that the county would provide their travel when they’re not county employees.

Councilmember Raben: You know, my recommendation is this: it doesn’t take four to attend the meeting. You know, one or two, and those folks come back and they take good notes while they’re there. They bring back any of the materials that are given out and share it with the other office members, board members and what have you. I’m with Mr. Goebel on this one. One person is probably enough. I might lean towards two, but definitely not four.

Councilmember Bassemier: I think in the future, anybody wants some kind of appropriation or some kind of request to come before us, unless they call Sandie and give us a good excuse why they can’t be here, I think we ought to table it until they can be here. Because there are some questions we need to ask and it’s only fair that we ask the questions.

President Lloyd: January 10^th, Indianapolis for a – it doesn’t say what the meeting is.

President Lloyd: You know, if we approved one person last year, the person out of these four, the one that’s a county employee would be Bonnie Bittner. I mean, I would be comfortable approving the one and let them come back and get reimbursed for the other ones. But I’m not sure why the county would reimburse non-county employees. This department is funded, they also have state funds and federal funds for soil and water, not just county funds.

Councilmember Sutton: Where does this show that they are – a couple of those are non-county employees? Maybe I’m missing that? On the forms here? I see, under the employees, where, on the requests they have the people listed that are intending to travel under the employee line, so how do we –

Sandie Deig: (Inaudible – microphone not turned on) they’re not county employees.

President Lloyd: Well, they work for Soil & Water. They may be funded by the state or federal monies.

Councilmember Sutton: Yeah, I see their names, but it doesn’t really give any indication on what their position is.

Councilmember Raben: If this were, you know, 50 – 100 bucks and it, you know, that would be one thing, but this is $2,700 worth of travel, so was there a motion made to approve –

President Lloyd: I would suggest, do it for one person and that’s it. The county employee, or we could do it for none.

President Lloyd: Okay, so Councilman Raben, $689 for one employee. Is there a second?

Councilmember Sutton: Or let them decide who they want to send. I mean, all we’ve done is approved the money.

President Lloyd: Okay, Royce. Okay, $689. Councilman Raben and Councilman Sutton seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye.

(Motion carried 5-0/Councilmembers Shetler and Kiefer were not present for the vote)

President Lloyd: Now we go to item 14, amendments to salary ordinance. The finance chair had to leave for a business appointment, so I’m going to turn this over to Councilman Raben, our previous Finance Chairman.

Councilmember Raben: Back in the saddle again. I move salary line 1080-1190 Deputy as previously approved. The current employee is an Executive II/Step 2 with an annual salary of $57,663. Health department, amend salary line 2130-1320 Office Manager/Finance Officer as previously adopted. The current employee is a PAT V/Step 4, with an annual salary of $44,921. I also move we amend salary line 2130-1450 Disease Intervention Specialist as previously approved. The current employee is a PAT MED I/Step 4 with an annual salary of $37,653. Position title change approved and recommended by the Personnel Administration Committee on December 16, 2009. I move that we amend salary line 2130-1240 to allow the hiring and fill the vacancy of the Public Health Nurse. Under County Commissioners, salary line 1300-1120 County Attorney as previously approved. The 2010 salary is $36,229. The line number and salary was approved on December 1, ‘09. I make that in the form of a motion.

President Lloyd: Yes. The amendments to the salary ordinance passes six to zero.

President Lloyd: Before we adjourn, I’d just like to offer, is there any citizen that wants to make a comment? We want to have open meetings accessible to the public.

Rick Davis: Rick Davis, the County Treasurer. I just had a quick question on the salary ordinance. We recently had a position go to Job Study and it’s not on here today –

President Lloyd: It was prepared in the new salary book prior to – we’d have to do an amendment.

President Lloyd: You’re welcome. Any other citizen comments? Alright, I’ll entertain a motion for adjournment.

President Lloyd: Second Mr. Bassemier, motion Mr. Kiefer. We are adjourned. Thank you.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 10:15 a.m.)

1080-1190-1080	Deputy	4,739.00	4,739.00
1080-1900	FICA	363.00	363.00
1080-1910	PERF	368.00	368.00
Total		5,470.00	5,470.00

1480-1920	Insurance	20,727.00	20,727.00
Total		20,727.00	20,727.00

2130-1320-2130	Office Manager/ Finance Mgr.	5,928.00	5,928.00
2130-1450-2130	Disease Intervention Specialist	13,454.00	13,454.00
2130-1900	FICA	1,484.00	1,484.00
2130-1910	PERF	1,503.00	1,503.00
Total		22,369.00	22,369.00

From: 1300-3612	Legal Contractual	41,809.00	41,809.00
To: 1300-1120-1300	County Attorney	36,229.00	36,229.00
1300-1900	FICA	2,772.00	2,772.00
1300-1910	PERF	2,808.00	2,808.00

1300-3612	Legal Contractual	18,323.00	18,323.00
1300-3000	Bond & Insurance	2,404.00	2,404.00
Total		20,727.00	20,727.00