The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 11th day of January in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:34 a.m. by Vanderburgh County Auditor Joe Gries.

Joe Gries: Good morning, everyone. I’d like to open the January 11^th, 2012 County Council meeting. I’d like to ask Teri to call roll please.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Terry	X
Councilmember Bassemier	X
Councilmember Koehler Lindsey	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Swaim	X
Councilmember Shetler	X

Joe Gries: Okay, the next item on the agenda, if everyone would please stand and join me in the Pledge.

Joe Gries: Okay, the next order of business is the election of the 2012 president. I’d like to ask for a motion, please.

Councilmember Raben: Mr. Chair, I’ll move that we nominate or appoint Councilman Shetler.

President Shetler: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity this year to serve the county in this capacity and the next item on the agenda is the election of the Vice President. I’ll entertain a motion for Vice President.

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: Mr. President, I would move that Councilman Raben serve as Vice President this year.

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

President Shetler: Yes. There being seven for and none against, election of Councilman Raben for Vice President approved. Thank you, James.

President Shetler: Next is the appointment of our County Council Attorney. Mr. Ahlers has done an outstanding job for the six years that I’ve served on County Council and I greatly appreciate his counsel, his advice, and would entertain a motion to retain Counselor Ahlers.

President Shetler: Yes. There being seven ayes and no nays, the appointment of our County Council attorney, Jeff Ahlers, is retained and we appreciate that.

President Shetler: The next is appointment of Committee Chairpersons. We have two standing committees, the first is the finance chairman. Councilman Raben, I’d like to ask if you would continue on with that. You’ve done an outstanding job for the last couple of decades and we greatly appreciate the work you’ve done. You took one year off there, and I was landed with that opportunity, and I’m glad to see you back in that role again. And then the other is personnel chairman. Because of his tenure on the board, I greatly respect what he’s done and stuff, I’d like to appoint Mike Goebel as the personnel chairman to head that up. So I’d like to ask Mr. Goebel if he would please take on that task this year.

President Shetler: Next is approval of the minutes – no objection, I assume, Mr. Goebel, since you didn’t speak quick enough. Approval of the minutes, I need a motion for approval of the December 7^th minutes.

Councilmember Raben: Yes, with a comment. I will say there’s no replay in these meetings, either.

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

President Shetler: I’m going to deviate just a little bit from our agenda, real quickly. I know Commissioner Kiefer has some other pending business, but I would like to call Commissioner Kiefer up. As many of you know, Commissioner Kiefer was Councilman Kiefer just a few days ago, and served as our president last year and did an outstanding job. And I’d like to present you, Joe, with this plaque, token of our appreciation.

Joe Kiefer: I’d just like to briefly say thank you very much. It was such an honor serving on this Council and it was great for me to be here because already on the Commission, what I learned on the Council was so critically important; mostly that we don’t have a lot of money. But I do take this and thank you and this will go up on the wall over there in the Commissioners office. Thank you very much.

President Shetler: Next is approval of the budget minutes from August 16 & 17^th of 2011, September 22 and 28, 2011, and I should separate that for the taxing units, or not? Okay, we’ll do this all in one motion, then. And also for the taxing units that we had on September 28^th, 2011 and October 5^th, 2011. I need a motion for approval on those minutes.

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

President Shetler: The next is the appropriation ordinance, and I’d like to ask Councilman Raben to take over at this point.

Councilmember Raben: Thank you. Good morning. Before we start I’d like to just mention one thing and this is typical of every year in January and really spreading into February most every year and has gone into March before. But as everyone is aware, we really don’t have a true snapshot of what our finances look like until we receive our final stamp from state which is usually middle February sometimes and early March. So we don’t have any real picture of what our unappropriated balance looks like today. So with that being said, over the course of our next few meetings, we need to be careful what we spend. You know, I think we need to, we can look at small amounts where absolutely necessary, but any big appropriations, you know, it wouldn’t be advisable for any of us to take any action. So first on the agenda under Prosecutor, it’s in the amount of $18,762. This was an error in the salary ordinance. I’m going to move approval of the first request from Prosecutor, the Prosecutor IV-D, the first one in the amount of $163,288, there is an offsetting repeal later on in the meeting, so that is basically a wash, zeroing additional dollars out, and the third request under Prosecutor IV-D for four Enforcement Officers including FICA & PERF of $114,423, my motion is going to be to zero those items. So approve the first two Prosecutor requests and zero the last one, and I make that in the form of a motion.

President Shetler: There’s a motion and a second. Are there any questions about the motion? We are retaining the first two sections, the Prosecutor and Prosecutor IV-D, the first two sections and then the third section, we are zeroing that out. Any questions? Roll call please.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you. Next under Superior Court, 1370-3460 Consultant in the amount of $7,800, I will move approval.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. Any questions about the motion? Roll call please.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, that’s it for the General Fund, now we move into Circuit Court Supplemental budget. We have a request for 13,207 and I make that in the form of a motion.

President Shetler: Motion and a second. Do we have any questions about the motion? Roll call please.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next is the repeal that I referred to earlier in the meeting for Prosecutor in the amount of $163,288, I’ll move approval.

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

Councilmember Raben: That’s it for appropriations, then we have three transfers: we have a transfer for Prosecutor, Superior Court and the Health Department. I’ll move that we approve the transfers as submitted.

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded. Do I have any questions about the motion? I think we’ll take a voice vote on this. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Alright, next, we haven’t any old business that I’m aware of here, is approval of the amended salary ordinance for 2012. Everybody should have gotten a copy of this on their desk and –

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded. Do I have any questions? Voice vote – legally, we can do a voice vote as long as there’s no objection. All in favor signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Next is appointment of liaisons and I think you all should have gotten a copy of this on your desks. I’ll just ask that this be recorded as part of the minutes of the meeting and submitted. I don’t think we need a motion on that. Does anybody have any questions about their assignments? It’s all fairly close to what it was in the past. I don’t know that there’s any radical changes.

President Shetler: Next is appointment to the personnel administration committee. I mentioned earlier, Mike Goebel is the County Council Personnel Chairman, and I would serve, the Finance Chairman serves, and then in addition to that, Wayne Trockman, County Judge representative; Marsha Abell, County Commissioner representative; Bill Fluty, the republican elected county officeholder; Rick Davis, the democrat elected county officeholder; Doug Brown, the executive classification rep; Robert Goedde, POLE classification representative; Wallace Corbitt, the PAT classification representative; Lynn Underwood, the COMOT classification representative. In addition to that, Sandie Deig, County Council Executive Assistant;

Sarah Nunn, County Council Administrative Assistant II; and Jeff Ahlers, County Council Attorney; and Tim Deisher, Job Study Consultant are the official members of the committee as well. Are there any questions about that?

President Shetler: And then we have an appointment to make to the ABC board and I would like place the name of Jeremy Meeks and appoint him as the ABC representative for the County Council. Do I have a motion on that?

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded. Do I have any questions? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: The other County Council appointments, I think all of you have gotten our County Council appointment sheet on your desk. Rather than me going through and trying to skip through the dates here and making sure I have everything correct, you have that in writing and I’ll submit this as part of the record as well. We need a motion for approval on that.

President Shetler: Then the next is the approval of the meeting dates. Again, you each have copies of the meeting dates on your desks and including the tentative budget hearing dates. So any questions? I need a motion for approval.

President Shetler: That might be all of the necessary work that we have to do there, next is, I think we have Circuit Court here, request to fill staff attorney.

Kelli Fink: Good morning, my name is Kelli Fink, I’m the magistrate of the Circuit Court. I apologize that Judge Heldt isn’t here today, he had to be in Indianapolis today, but I do apologize. We are requesting to be able to fill the staff attorney or court administrator position, which we have a person right now who is set to leave on January 20^th. This is really an indispensable position for us in our court. This person acts as a third judge for us, if Judge or I are stuck in other hearings or trials or out of town, this person would actually handle the regular matters which we have every day at 9:00 and 1:00, so it is very, very important to us. The person leaving that position is being transferred to Superior Court and that person was at the five year mark, I believe, as to salary and the person that would come in would begin at the bottom line or the beginning salary, which is $48,880. And that’s our request, please.

Kelli Fink: January 23 is the opening date. The person we have currently is leaving January 20^th.

Councilmember Goebel: And, Sandie, there’s no problem with the transfer or anything?

Kelli Fink: Yes, it is. It is an attorney position, yes. They pro tem, so they sit on the bench, so they have to be an attorney.

President Shetler: And how much experience, how long are they out of school usually?

Kelli Fink: Generally, sometimes they’re right out of school maybe a couple of years or maybe, – they have to have passed the bar in order to sit on the bench, obviously. But sometimes we hire someone that might be five to ten years out of school.

President Shetler: Alright, any other questions? Alright, we can’t typically take a motion –

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second for approval. Alright, all in favor?

President Shetler: Alright, nobody has any opposition or a problem with that, filling the vacancy. Alright, thank you.

Eric Williams: Good morning, Sheriff Williams, I believe you’ve got my request in front of you. I’d be glad to answer any questions.

President Shetler: Its been moved and seconded. Any questions about the motion? Alright, all in favor, signify by saying aye.

Nick Hermann: Good morning, and welcome to the two new Councilmembers. I think you have our request as well. I don’t know if anyone has any questions.

President Shetler: That paying over, that’s paying overtime for this calendar year.

Nick Hermann: That’s correct, I believe we had to put that back on because we went over the calendar year. It’s the same as what we have been doing for, I want to say since August or September.

Nick Hermann: I believe that we have to come back and request each calendar year is what I was told, yes.

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: Do you have any estimation when the process is going to be complete as far as going paperless?

Nick Hermann: We expect, based on the quotes that we got to send that out to private companies, we hope to have it done inside of a year and a half to two years. There is about 17,500 files. I think the company that gave us an estimate, estimated about two million pages and we hope that we can be more efficient than they would be. The problem with sending it off was obviously the cost, and then also we would have to send our files away for four months, and people aren’t real happy when you can’t help them with their case for four months. So we feel like by doing it in-house, we can do it more efficiently and hopefully get it done as expeditiously as possible.

Councilmember Goebel: Back to my grind, Mr. Hermann. Are these people working, are they coming in early and then leaving late, or if they’re doing this overtime, when are they –

Nick Hermann: They are working until about 7 - 7:30 typically, and then they come in on the weekends. The County, we’ve tried to stay – we’ve tried to stay close to the county handbook because our judicial circuit hasn’t put one together, so we’re not allowing overtime, for example, when there’s a holiday. It kind of messes up the whole week, they’re not able to work the Sunday before or the Saturday after and get any overtime. But they’re coming in on the weekends, there are some groups that stay until about 7 - 7:30.

Councilmember Goebel: It just seems to me from the outside looking in that if it’s going to be a year and a half or a two year process that there are some recently graduated law students or even interns who have background, who could help out and it wouldn’t necessarily cost us overtime. And I brought this up before and I know that the people in your office are much more familiar, but I would think if it’s transcribing and making copies and that, that perhaps there would be people –

Nick Hermann: It’s not transcribing or making copies, it’s going through a legal file, determining what needs to be kept, what doesn’t, because if we can get rid of paper and don’t have to scan it and don’t have to process it in, that saves us a lot of time and a lot of money. That’s one of the attractive things that doing it in-house did, was we felt like we could eliminate a lot of the paper. It takes us typically, if we were to hire a new Enforcement Agent today, it takes about six months or so before they’re fully trained and up and going. To bring somebody in off the street, get them through the course with the federal government with regard to their having people’s social security numbers and having access to their unemployment and all those types of things, learning the computer systems, learning what documents are worthwhile, I think there is some room that could be gained by hiring some additional people, but I think right now is probably the most efficient way that we can do it. I really don’t know what else to say, I mean, if you’re offering a bunch of part-time, we’ll gladly take it, but I don’t know that they’ll be able to work on this project.

Councilmember Goebel: I was just thinking in lieu of the overtime and also maybe to give someone a temporary position, that might be an option, but I understand a little bit more about the people who are familiar with the cases, so I’m not going to put up a big argument, I’m just curious.

Nick Hermann: I’d be happy, if you’d like to come down and take a look at it, we’re doing it as efficiently as we can. If anyone has any suggestions on how we can do it better, I would be happy to take those. I’m not going to say we can’t use part time because we’d love to have 20 people down there working, but I don’t know that they would be working on this specific project.

Nick Hermann: We’re paying overtime. You are not paying anything, it’s not costing the General Fund any money, it comes out of the Child Support Incentive Fund, one of the few prescribed things that we can pay out of that, and that’s how IPAC recommended that we do it, quite frankly.

Councilmember Raben: You know, I do like Councilman Goebel’s point, I mean, when you’re paying time and a half, which is what we’re doing, I don’t care what fund it comes out of, but at the end of the day, it still belongs to the taxpayers, but if a person from within inside served as supervisor and you were able to bring in, again, some interns or something like Mike suggested, it seems like you could get a lot more people doing this work and probably speed the process up, supervised by the right person. You know, I think it would be in your best interest to revisit that idea, frankly. I like it.

Councilmember Goebel: I did have one more. This is going to be about a two year process now or one year or?

Nick Hermann: It’s hard to say. It was going to take a company with, I think they have about forty employees they were going to dedicate. It was going to take them four months, full time. It’s difficult to say when we first started this. We didn’t take into consideration the problems that not being able to pay them to work on the weekends when there’s a holiday, and then we’ve had a holiday every week for the last, you know, it seems like forever.

Nick Hermann: You know, they’d be more than happy to come in and work. It seems to be going very well at this point. You know, it’s something that – the problem with it is, and I want the Council to understand, it’s not a matter of going in and scanning or copying pages, it’s a matter of getting a computer program set up in a logical way that somebody sitting in court is able to access those documents quickly and efficiently, and that’s the technical piece. I mean, aside from the privacy issues, aside from all the regulations, we have to deal with the federal and state governments, that goal is to have this to be an efficient thing that speeds the court process up, that allows an office with a 64% higher case load to be able to do their job. We just had over a thousand new paternity actions filed in the last year. I mean, you know it because you hear it from every speaker that gets up there about how many new cases are coming in and quite frankly, we take it very seriously, dealing with the single parents and trying to help them get money to support their families because we know the overall effect that has on the community and it’s something we take very seriously. And I’m all for saving money and I’m all for doing things as efficiently as possible, but at the same time, we have to have a good product come out at the end.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, I’m not questioning any of that, I think it’s obvious you’re working for the betterment of all of us here, so I was just thinking maybe there might be an alternative method to do it, that’s all. Thank you.

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: Thank you. Mr. Prosecutor, do you feel that as this process is ongoing, that you’ve been able to speed it up a little bit and you may land closer to the year and a half rather than the two year mark?

Nick Hermann: I’d love to be able to tell you that. We’ve only really been doing, I think this got approved in I want to say August or September. We started it in November and December and January. So far, we’ve had holidays in every week, so it’s kind of difficult to say. Based on the amount of volume of paper that we’re shredding and what’s coming out, I think it’s moving; it’s too early for me to give you any type of number with regard to that. Luckily, we’ve already started all the new things that come in, we’re scanning in, and so there’s going to be some level of attrition, if we did absolutely nothing outside of regular work hours, 18 to 20 years from now, we’d be done. You know, so there is a level of attrition at the end, so it should speed up as we move further and close cases, but as far as, quite frankly, my people have enough to do during their day to begin with. Then when you add this on top, I can’t give you an idea how long it’s going to take. Maybe in a couple more months, we’ll have a better idea.

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: Okay, and then just for my knowledge, you said this doesn’t come out of the General fund, so give me just a brief explanation of the incentive fund and where those dollars come from, as a new person.

Nick Hermann: Sure. Each county in the state of Indiana is charged with IV-D collections, which is collection of child support. Of the money that is spent, there is a formula that decides how much money will be reimbursed to the county or paid to run the office and I want to say our number is somewhere around $144,000, some random number, they pay 100 percent of that amount. Beyond that amount, we get reimbursed two/thirds of anything we spend over that, so the majority of our department gets reimbursed at two/thirds. Then we are graded on four different criteria: child support collection, collection of back support, what percentage of cases we have orders established, and in what percentage of cases we’re able to establish paternity. Those are kicked into a formula. Every year the federal government gives the states money, and then the states turn around and distribute that money to the counties. And that’s based on those four criteria. That money comes to our office in terms of child support incentive money. It goes, I believe, to the Clerk’s office and a portion of it comes to the General fund. That money is tied down, it can only be spent on child support issues, on these types of projects, and so that’s where that money is coming from, so the overtime allotment is not coming, there’s not a penny of it coming out of the General fund.

President Shetler: Okay, any other questions? We need a motion for approval if that is your desire.

President Shetler: Motion and a second for approval. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Next, again, I’m going to interrupt the agenda for just a second and then ask former Councilman Lloyd if he could come forward please. Boy, I tell you what, this is a beautiful plaque. Nice, it’s blue, listing out your tenure of service two different times, and we appreciate the service that you’ve given the county and we’re going to miss you.

Russell Lloyd: Thank you. Mr. President, if I end up coming back, we can just add a line there. I enjoyed my time on Council and enjoyed working with each one of you and good luck in the future. I’m across the hall if you ever need me, dealing with these other situations. Thank you.

Steve Owens: Good morning. I think you have my request before you. This is one that was approved to convert two part-time positions to a full-time position at the budget hearings last year.

President Shetler: Okay, do we have any questions? Will this be an entry level – full-time?

Steve Owens: After you average it out over for the year, it comes out about 50. It starts out at 48,880, there’s a step increase at six months, so assuming that person gets that step increase, then it’s going to be for the first year, it’s about 50.

Steve Owens: On both, so you’re going to save about $50,000 thereabouts, well, probably not quite that, but –

President Shetler: Okay. The starting salary, and is that pretty well, I noticed earlier when the Circuit Court came before us and she was talking roughly 48, is that all pretty consistent between the Prosecutor’s office and your office and the courts for starting salary, or is it, I mean, I just want to make sure that we don’t have somebody paying 53 and someone else paying 46, and it sounds like its fairly close at 48, 49,000.

Steve Owens: My understanding is that for all of the classified attorney positions, they would all be uniform. There are agencies and there are departments that use non-classified positions and my understanding is that the salaries for those is whatever the Council approves. So in this instance, this is a classified position, I think they’re all classified as Executive Level II positions and the salary is 48,800, something like that.

President Shetler: I don’t mean to put you on the spot and I really meant to ask our Prosecutor as well when he was up here earlier on this, but the question that does come to my mind and that is, on the salary levels for a starting attorney, I’m not speaking of one with a few years of experience underneath his belt, but I’ve had a niece recently graduate, been out for a couple of years, and just others that I know that have graduated from law school and passed the bar, and it seems like some of the bigger firms in town, that 50 would be kind of pushing, and not quite the benefits and some of the other perks that we have available in county government.

Steve Owens: I think the difference would be, Tom, that if I had to look at it, and we have looked at that in comparison to other counties. If you look at what our starting salaries are in Vanderburgh County compared to similar positions in other counties, we’re comparable. We’re not totally out of line with Lake County and Marion County or any of the other counties. In terms of what you compare it to in a private entity, probably in Vanderburgh County, that’s fairly comparable to what a recent graduate would start at with one of the firms. The difference is going to be, is after five years, our attorneys, if they’re progressing under the normal salary ordinance, they’re going to be making about 63,000. I suspect that in the private firms, if they’ve been there five years, they’re going to be making more than $63,000.

President Shetler: Right, and that’s kind of getting to, I guess the point that I would want to eventually get to, and that is we want to retain good help as much as we can, and it seems like we might be a little beefy at the bottom starting out, and then at the same time, we don’t progress quite like you might in the private sector. So we kind of get short changed a little bit and aren’t able to keep perhaps some of the more experienced, and I’m just wondering if maybe we looked at that a little tighter and kept the same dollars in the budget, but were able to look at starting salaries a little bit lower, a little bit more like you might find in the private sector, and I’m comparing all the benefits that you have being in the public sector compared to the benefits that you’d have in the private, that we might be better off if we perhaps cut that back a little bit, and then use some of that money when they get to that five and ten year experience level so that we could boost those up a little bit.

Steve Owens: Well, I certainly can’t speak for Mr. Hermann or the Circuit Court personnel, I can tell you that based upon my interviewing for this job that we’ve just had open, I probably would not be in favor of lowering it at the beginning level. I think if you’re trying to attract qualified candidates that you’re going to try to keep, you have to offer them something that is attractive enough for them to want to come in here and do public service either as a prosecutor or a public defender or court administrator or whatever it would be. One of the selling points is hey, our salary may not be as high as what you could go to in a private firm, for example, the 50,000 or 55,000, or whatever the private firms are paying, our benefits are maybe better in terms of insurance and that sort of thing, so I think it’s something that is a selling point. Is it tougher to keep these people after they’ve been here for five years or ten years? Perhaps. But if you – I think if you do a good enough job in terms of the initial hiring, you normally get people who want to stay in this sort of sector and like the benefits. So I don’t know that I would agree with a reduction at the starting salary stage. I don’t know what Mr. Hermann or what the Circuit Court would feel about that, but I would not be in favor of that.

Councilmember Bassemier: Sir, would it be beneficial to hire a full-time person versus two part-time people? You just said, you know, you save several thousand dollars by this full-time person we’re getting ready to put in now, since you’re paying benefits on two of them and benefits only on one with a full-time. Would it be more beneficial just to hire more full time attorneys?

Steve Owens: Well, that’s what we’ve been doing. I mean, as we have been transitioning from part-time felony attorneys to more full-time positions, as we get openings, as we’ve had people either resign, retire, pass away, we’ve tried to consolidate those part-time positions into full-time staff. We’re somewhat limited just by physical space in terms of our office arrangements and we have some issues with experience levels. Obviously, I’m not going to get a ten-year experience criminal defense lawyer to come in at 48,8.

Councilmember Bassemier: Well, how many part – I know you’ve told us in the past, how many part-time employees do you have right now, attorneys, versus full-time?

Steve Owens: Let me think here a minute. In the felony division we’ve gone from 16 part-time felony lawyers to 10, with this position. I have three part-time misdemeanor positions, which we’ve had for 12 years. We have four part-time juvenile lawyers which do the civil juvenile work, the CHINS determinations, the paternity cases. So, total, I look like I’m at about what, 17?

Councilmember Goebel: I was just going to reiterate what Mr. Owens said. This process of going from two part-time to one full-time to save the county money and still continue the workload, that has been going on for what, six or seven years now?

Steve Owens: Yeah, we’ve probably been doing it for the last five - six years.

President Shetler: Alright, for the new members , I might explain that this office is reimbursed by the state for basically 50% of all the –

Steve Owens: If I might correct you, Tom, it’s 40% for non-capital cases. So everything that we spend, goes through that office for indigent defense in a non-capital case, gets reimbursed at 40 percent. I mean, that’s rent, benefits, office supplies, salaries, anything that’s spent on indigent defense, and it really doesn’t matter what line item it comes from as long as it’s spent for indigent defense, so if we do an office remodel, or add an office or we buy a piece of equipment, it gets reimbursed at 40%. We take in, for the new members, and I know I’ve talked to the Council about this in the past, there is what’s called a Supplemental Public Defender account. Frankly, we couldn’t handle the number of cases that we handle without having the Supplemental Public Defender account. Our theoretical maximum number of cases that my salaried lawyers can handle and stay in compliance so that you get the 40 percent is about 1,600 a year. We’ve got over 2,000 appointments last year. The excess appointments have to either be farmed out or some of those cases have to be farmed out anyhow because of conflict rules. We pay most of those attorneys that we farm out on a case by case basis, out of the Supplemental Public Defender account. We take in about between 200 and 250,000 a year. We don’t have a lot of control over how much that amounts to. It’s limited somewhat by what the Judges give us, it’s limited somewhat by what the people post in bonds. Those supplemental funds get reimbursed at the 40 percent rate as well. So even though the money doesn’t come from the General fund, the money that is returned, that 40 percent that’s returned for those expenses comes back to the General fund. So in any given year, there is between 80 and $100,000 that is coming back to the General fund, that never originated from the General fund. And absent that particular amount of money, we would not be able to stay in compliance and we’ve struggled with that mightily for the last two years. I anticipate this year we’re going to have some significant problems trying to maintain compliance because of just the sheer number of cases.

Steve Owens: Misdemeanor cases are not reimbursable, civil juvenile cases are not reimbursable. I’m sure you’ve heard from Judge Niemeier, have read in the paper, that the CHINS termination cases have gone up tremendously and our attorneys that handle those kind of cases are not in any way close to being in compliance with the Public Defender Standards, however, since they don’t reimburse for those cases, they don’t require the counties to maintain that compliance to get reimbursement. Same thing with misdemeanors. My misdemeanor public defenders handle somewhere between one and a half to two times the number of cases that they should handle under the Public Defender Standards. Again, since they don’t reimburse for those, they’re not going to require us to come into compliance. If they did, we’d be looking at somewhere around six to seven part-time lawyers to handle the number of misdemeanors that we get assigned. I don’t know that I can predict the future. I know that there has been a move afoot at the state level to bring misdemeanors into the reimbursement program. I am not particularly in favor of that for a number of reasons, one of which is the sheer number of attorneys that we would have to have to handle that number of cases. It would be great to get the 40 percent, but I don’t really think the Council wants to give me four additional part-time lawyers.

Councilmember Goebel: Steve prepares a quarterly statement as far as reimbursables and things like that. I get a copy of that and I think the Council President does. Does anyone else receive that copy?

Steve Owens: Normally, Mike, I send that to the Council President, the Finance Chairman, you, because you’re our liaison, and that would be the only three Councilmembers that would normally get it. I think Joe gets a copy and Commissioners get a copy.

Councilmember Goebel: I think it would be beneficial if all of us received a copy if we could maybe just zap copies so we all have an idea of what’s coming back and if, in reality, that money does actually come back. I know it’s presented to come back, but –

Steve Owens: It’s coming back. You’re getting over 700,000 a year going into the General fund.

President Shetler: Okay, we need a motion for approval, if that’s your desire.

Susan Kirk: Good morning. I believe you all got the paperwork I sent in for the replacement of the Child Support Clerk. That will be a new position, so it will be less in salary, obviously, than the person that was there before. They’ll come in at the beginning salary.

Susan Kirk: It was vacant basically for, what, 12 weeks. She had a baby and then she came back and worked the first part of the year and then it’s been, I guess, probably a couple of weeks now, I think. She came back and worked like the first week.

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded. How many employees do you have, full-time employees, do you have in your office now?

Susan Kirk: Fifty-two and one part-time, and we’re like the Prosecutor, we would like to have more, too.

President Shetler: Okay, and you, what, had 53 a couple of years ago, a few years back?

Susan Kirk: Uh-huh. Well, there’s 54 when I started, so we lost one and then one full-time was replaced by part-time.

President Shetler: Okay, any other questions, then? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Opposed? I’m opposed again. So we have six for and one opposed then.

Joe Gries: Good morning. The Auditor’s office is asking to fill a vacancy we have in the Bookkeeping department. This is the Insurance/Retirement Bookkeeper. We submitted a letter and some information and I’d be happy to answer any questions.

Councilmember Raben: None other than, you know, this person is handling primarily insurance for 800 plus county employees, it’s probably one of the more stressful jobs within these walls. I’ll move approval and I think it’s also important to recognize the fact that this office, over the last, what, probably five years, has reduced their staff by three or four?

Joe Gries: At least. Actually, just to expound on that a little bit, we had an individual leave last year in our exemption department which we did not include in our 2012 budget, and then we had an individual leave after budget hearings late last year, and because of new technology the Assessor’s office has implemented, we’re not asking to fill that position, as well. So those are two just within the last year and before that, probably another two or three, as well.

Councilmember Raben: You know, I think that, as a county, that speaks volumes. You know, we spend a tremendous amount, millions of dollars on technology, software, hardware, everything, and there’s few offices that we ever see a real benefit from doing that. I mean, a lot of offices are asking for more people and times are different, I hope that when we’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on software, that we’re actually using the software or that we’re not using bits and pieces of it, that we’re spending the time to really figure all the ins and outs and what it really can do for us, and this is a prime example. This office is working with far fewer today as a result of technology and we’re just not seeing it everywhere and we should be.

Councilmember Goebel: I was just going to ask Joe if he would consider giving seminars in the other departments. Thank you.

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: Mr. Auditor, what would be your number on your full-time and part-time employees in your department?

Joe Gries: We have 24 full-time employees and we have one part-time employee. And the part-time employee is actually paid out of the Reassessment fund.

President Shetler: So I think a few years back, and our Assessor, who was the Auditor, is in the audience and could, but we had roughly 27 - 28 full-time employees in the Auditor’s office a few years ago, and we have been able to cut back roughly, what, 15 percent of our staffing in that office, which was exactly why I had an issue on the last office, is we’ve got to be able to make these kind of cuts across the board. You know, we still don’t know what our unappropriated balance is going to be for next year. It’s going to be razor thin, it’s going to be tight, and we’re going to have to figure out ways to make these offices more efficient like you all have done in this office in order for us to be able to sustain the kind of financial position that we’ve been able to have and have the luxury of having over the years.

Councilmember Raben: Well, and it’s not just there, I mean, you mentioned the former Auditor, he’s in the audience, but as Assessor today. And, you know, in a matter of a few years, I think that office has eliminated two or three people. Four or five years ago they were telling us they needed more. And the County Treasurer, you know, I think they’ve eliminated a person or two. Treasurer Davis has done a wonderful job there, I mean, some offices that are interested in making a difference are making a difference, and I can’t imagine why that cancer can’t spread through the entire building, be it county or city, but those that are doing their best to utilize today’s technology that’s already bought and paid for, you know, hats off to you.

President Shetler: But back to this position, this is a necessary position, we’ve kind of made the agreement before when an essential position became vacant, that because of what you guys have done in the past to try and make that office as lean and as efficient as possible, that we would honor those and so I have no problem with replacing, in fact, I know it’s going to be difficult to replace the position as it stands. So, Councilman Goebel, did you have anything further to add?

Councilmember Goebel: No, I was just, maybe for the benefit of the two new Council persons and really all of us as a refresher, if we could get maybe a hit sheet in Excel or something for each department, how many people work in the department full-time, part-time and maybe over the last few years. I don’t know how difficult that would be, but we can see if there has been some downsizing in certain departments that might, instead of going over it every time in this meeting.

Joe Gries: That’s something that we could probably pull out of our payroll system and we’d be glad to –

President Shetler: Maybe you could go back eight years, four years, and then present.

President Shetler: And then let us know. And then put a separate category in for part-time because, you know, if we could utilize part-time people, I’ve stressed this before, rather than the full-time, we could save quite a bit and also be doing a real benefit to some people out in the community who are looking for part-time work as well. Alright, I need a motion for approval.

President Shetler: Its been moved and seconded, all in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Joe, before you leave the podium, this isn’t for discussion for today’s meeting, but maybe in the future, another day and time, but how big of a deal would it be to give us a list of employees with comp time and how many hours of comp time?

Joe Gries: Within the Auditor’s office, the payroll system that we have, if the departments are reporting that to us, but not all departments report that information to us, they keep that within their books and that’s something that they kind of control themselves. We can give you what we have, but it’s not going to be across the board, I would say.

Joe Gries: You would encompass everybody. We wouldn’t have all 40 departments within the county.

President Shetler: Yeah, I think it’s a good idea. We need to have a handle –

Councilmember Goebel: We haven’t found a couple hundred million sitting around unaccounted for to help us out?

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: Mr. President? Would that be something that you would want to have, the comp time sent to the Auditor’s office, to keep track of that or should we just see what we get from the memo and go from there?

President Shetler: I think it’s – I’m not sure that this body can require, is that part of the Commissioner’s responsibility?

Councilmember Raben: I think we can because at the end of the day, it’s an issue of funding.

President Shetler: It is funding, okay. But I think it’s a great idea to do that because it ought to be coming through the payroll system.

Councilmember Raben: And I think along with that, should be that it is by Council order or something, but that information is passed on to the Auditor’s office.

President Shetler: Why don’t you put that in the form of a motion. That might make it a little bit more solid.

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: And I’ll second that, and I think that it sounds like this is an issue that we’re going to have to deal with on the comp time, so we need to know what we’re looking at as far as the numbers and where we need to go from there.

President Shetler: Right, it is, in some respects, an unfunded mandate. In the other respect, though, we don’t fill the positions until that is all expired as well. So if it were an emergency position, though, you could have a cost effect to you, but I think it is something we should have a handle on in the payroll department. So I have a motion and a second, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: We voted on the Auditor’s position, so the next is Health Department, and we are in need of a dentist. It sounds pretty critical to me.

Gary Heck: Gary Heck, Vanderburgh County Health department. I think you have our request, we need to hire a dentist, and I’d be happy to answer any questions.

President Shetler: We do have a working plan at the moment to be filling that position, is that correct? On a temporary basis?

Gary Heck: We’ve been seeking a solution but I think we need permission from the County Council to try to do something. To try to hire even a replacement, we need some type of an approval from here. We were going to do a contractual thing with a temporary dentist but I believe we still would need –

President Shetler: Correct, but my point is, is that we’re not leaving people with aches and pains and without service where we’re not covering it.

Gary Heck: We’re not able to service anyone without a dentist, so the answer is no. Without a dentist, we can’t. We can refer them to other offices, but it’s –

President Shetler: Okay, my understanding was that we had some things worked out where we were bringing in some people on an hourly or daily basis.

Gary Heck: Well, we’ve been looking for replacements on the ability to do that, but we don’t have an ability to pay them without permission from the County Council.

Gary Heck: Yes. Well, it’s closed as far as seeing patients. It’s not closed as far as continuing to try to get it ready for when the new dentist is hired.

President Shetler: Okay. I thought that we had a way of patching that to keep the service going for a period of time.

Gary Heck: We can’t do that without approval from this body. We wouldn’t assume to do anything without approval from this body, so the answer is no.

President Shetler: Alright, will you be interviewing this afternoon if you get approval?

President Shetler: Alright, any other questions? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Yes, we have travel requests now, Gary, we’ll just go ahead and deal with yours real quick.

Councilmember Raben: Gary, I’ll start this one. As you know, I’ve raised this issue with the Health Department, and I’ll make myself very clear, I know mounting and balancing tires isn’t as sophisticated as running a medical clinic, so I’ll throw that out there right away, but it does seem like, you know, again, this is the most traveled department imaginable in government. And when I look at some of these clinics or seminars where we’re sending three people at a time, that just seems like a waste, you know, and I would think that a person, a supervisor, should attend those meetings, you know, come back and train your staff.

Gary Heck: I don’t believe, if you’re referring to the one that’s an annual request, it’s not sending three people at a time, it’s that these would be the individuals who would be responsible for performing a disease investigation and this is a blanket –

– permission for them to leave them the county because they need to go to the Deaconess Gateway Hospital where Vanderburgh County residents receive services in order to follow up on an investigation. And if the county vehicle is available, they would use it, but if it’s not, then they would need to drive their vehicle and get mileage. So that’s what that particular one is for.

Councilmember Raben: So wait a minute. We’re actually – say that again. They’re actually driving to Deaconess –

Gary Heck: In order for a county employee to leave the county on business, we need permission from the County Council in order to get reimbursed for mileage, if it’s required. And the particular request where there were three individuals’ names is for permission for them to do one of two things: one of them would be to attend the public health meeting that’s called for nurses, or the other is to follow up on a disease investigation for Vanderburgh County residents who happen to be receiving services at the Deaconess Women’s Hospital in Warrick County.

Gary Heck: Well, if someone has a communicable disease and it requires an investigation, one of our disease intervention specialists or epidemiology nurse or the director of that communicable disease division needs to go over and follow up on the medical records to see what tests have been done and what other treatment is going to be required in order to make sure that whatever disease is there, isn’t spread. And this could be tuberculosis–

Councilmember Raben: I know when I have annual blood work done for my physical, I can call a number and you talk to somebody and they tell you exactly how your blood work turned out.

Gary Heck: Well, communicable disease investigations don’t operate that way, unfortunately.

Gary Heck: It could be both. It could be an interview with the patient or it could be looking and having access to the patient records to follow up on.

Gary Heck: But it has to be done in person, it’s not something that we can do any other way.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, the others, you know, not to kick a dead horse, I just, I’ve quoted a number of days, a number of hours sometime last year and it blew my mind how many people we have absent from that facility. You know, and if we’re as busy as we say we are, I can’t imagine that that’s allowable and as I look at some of these others, and I certainly, again, I apologize because I probably am out of line here, but some of these that we see come up routinely throughout the year, the one that is being held in Salem, Indiana, I can’t imagine that that method of childcare has changed that drastically year after year, that we continue to keep using that one as a place to send countless people back and forth to, or to those types of programs throughout the year.

Gary Heck: This particular one, and I don’t take offense, Councilman Raben, because I’m just trying answer your questions, that particular one is to fulfill a grant requirement and it has to do with – the individual is the supervisor of the WIC clinic, and this has to do with the breast feeding coordination training, that’s all part of that program and it’s paid for with grant funds. I can assure you that any time we can attend these meetings using the video conferencing system that we have in place, we do, and we have been able to use it a number of times. If it’s available for us to attend meetings that way, we certainly do to try to save money. All I can say is that these are legitimate requests and I don’t know how else to do it other than just to come ask for permission and to give you our best estimate of what the cost will be from the funding source. None of this comes out of the General fund, I can tell you that. It’s out of the Health fund or out of the grants that are managed through the Health department, if that’s of any consolation.

Gary Heck: I realize that, but I wouldn’t be asking for it, if it’s not required. And one of the things that we –

Councilmember Raben: I just encourage you to continue to do so, that’s the thing. Let’s try to eliminate as much of this as possible in 2012.

Gary Heck: We try to do that, but one of the charges of the public health department is also to be prepared to respond to a public health emergency. And the only way you can do that is if you are trained. And if you do have the skills, then, in order to be able to do that, so I can just assure you that if I send something over, I’m letting you know that it’s something that our staff needs and we have the funds in place to do it. But that’s all I can do for you.

President Shetler: Are there any other questions on the Health Department travel?

Councilmember Bassemier: I just don’t think you can get enough training, so I’m going to make a motion to approve this.

Councilmember Terry: I second it, and having worked in public health for about two years myself, I mean, these are legitimate requests I think that are being made because there’s a lot of travel and certification that you have to keep renewed and so I think these are things we definitely, Gary, look at more closely, but definitely these are things that are beneficial to our community as a whole.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second on the Health Department travel. Are there any further questions, comments? All in favor, – yes?

Councilmember Goebel: I wonder if we should consider throwing travel requests back to the Commissioners and take it away from this body again. They had it for years and years.

Councilmember Raben: You know, ultimately, what you’re saying is true because we’re dealing with a lot of departments that are under their control and not ours.

Gary Heck: It’s my understanding that part of the reason for the approval is not just for funding but also for advance knowledge of workers compensation, that someone officially knows that somebody is leaving the county on official business. That was my understanding of why it was required. But I’m happy to do whatever you all decide that you need us to do.

Councilmember Goebel: I’m not talking about you in particular, I’m just talking about, was it about a year ago that this was thrown at us?

President Shetler: Okay, motion is on the floor for approval of the Health Department travel. All in favor signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Okay, we have the Assessor’s office and the County Engineer’s office, does anybody have any questions about either one of those two?

Councilmember Raben: Yeah, on the Assessor, question, Bill. There was a question on what exactly this is.

Bill Fluty: Training for Level III, which all County Assessors are required to have and some of their staff. This is training in Bloomington. We do have two scheduled classes coming here that we’re hosting, which we’ll save money on, but not all classes can be here and the time line is to get it before 2014 for members of our staff and myself. This is, I think, a three day, which we’d rather travel on the shorter – some are all week long, from Monday until Friday. I believe this is a three day, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so we will travel on the shorter days to save hotel costs.

Bill Fluty: Yes, we’ll start with the top layer, management, but yes, they’re required to have Level III, and we’ll have to take five courses to achieve that. Some of them have taken some, but some haven’t, so it’s kind of a mix. And you also have to take 22 hours a year to keep your certification for a Level III and for a Level II.

Councilmember Goebel: After you receive your Level III, can you then train others to get their Level III here?

Councilmember Koehler Lindsey: How long does the certification last for? Is this something you have to do annually, or once you’re done, you’re done.

Bill Fluty: Once you’re done, you’re done. But you have to keep having continuous education hours, 22 hours every year, a total of 45 hours in a – 22 ½, I guess– hours in a two year period to keep your Level, so you’re going to continue to go to education classes. What we try to do is, you can get them in a conference, we try to get everything locally. We do some travel, but as you see, we do as little travel as we can and we just kind of pick and choose. And we should be able to train most our staff going to classes here in Evansville. But there will be some where I will be up here asking that this person has to go up to wherever that class will be held to get their Level III’s.

President Shetler: Any other questions? Anybody have a question on the Highway department or the County Engineer travel requests?

Bill Fluty: I can give you my comp time if you need that right now. We had 900 hours last year and we cut it by 200, so we’re only starting with 700 this year. So we’ve reduced that number and we’ll continue to reduce that number.

President Shetler: Okay, motion would be in order for the approval for the Assessor, Highway and the Engineer.

President Shetler: The next is amendments to the Salary Ordinance. Everyone has a copy that was passed out. Do you have any questions? Motion would be in order approval.

President Shetler: Motion has been made for approval of the amendments to the Salary Ordinance.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Mr. President. We have several, my motion is going to be that we make the Salary Amendments be made part of the minutes. There is one correction on the first page under Prosecutor IV-D, the fourth item, fourth paragraph, I’d like to omit, and the paragraph reads, amend salary ordinance to allow hiring four Enforcement Officers as follows: line numbers are 1081-1310, 1081-1320, 1081-1360, and 1081-1370. Those are the requests that we zeroed out earlier in the appropriations, so strike that paragraph and I’ll move that the rest of it be approved as submitted, and again, ask that it be made and entered into the minutes.

President Shetler: Any further comments? A motion would be in order for adjournment.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 9:51 a.m.)

1080-1390-1080	Deputy	16,014.00	16,014.00
1080-1900	FICA	1,226.00	1,226.00
1080-1910	PERF	1,522.00	1,522.00
Total		18,762.00	18,762.00

1081-1330-1081	Deputy Prosecutor	77,725.00	77,725.00
1081-1340-1081	Receptionist	32,264.00	32,264.00
1081-1350-1081	Subpoena Clerk	29,394.00	29,394.00
1081-1900	FICA	10,663.00	10,663.00
1081-1910	PERF	13,242.00	13,242.00
Total		163,288.00	163,288.00

1081-1310-1081	Enforcement Officer	24,418.00
1081-1320-1081	Enforcement Officer	24,418.00
1081-1360-1081	Enforcement Officer	24,418.00
1081-1370-1081	Enforcement Officer	24,418.00
1081-1900	FICA	7,472.00
1081-1910	PERF	9,279.00
Total		114,423.00

1370-3460	Consultant	7,800.00	7,800.00
Total		7,800.00	7,800.00

2600-1280-2600	Chief Probation Ofcr.	5,000.00	5,000.00
2600-1610-2600	Asst. Chief Stipend	5,000.00	5,000.00
2600-1600-2600	Special Stipend	1,395.00	1,395.00
2600-1900	FICA	872.00	872.00
2600-1910	PERF	940.00	940.00
Total		13,207.00	13,207.00

1080-1330-1080	Receptionist	32,264.00	32,264.00
1080-1340-1080	Subpoena Clerk	29,394.00	29,394.00
1080-1380-1080	Deputy Prosecutor	77,725.00	77,725.00
1080-1900	FICA	10,663.00	10,663.00
1080-1910	PERF	13,242.00	13,242.00
Total		163,288.00	163,288.00

From: 2130-3600	Rent	6,716.00	6,716.00
To: 2130-1400	Secretary	4,881.00	4,881.00
2130-1410	Secretary Communicable Disease	1,185.00	1,185.00
2130-1900	FICA	290.00	290.00
2130-1910	PERF	360.00	360.00