The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 4th day of June in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:40 a.m. by Council President Marsha Abell.

President Abell: I’d like to call to order the June 4^th, 2008 meeting of the Vanderburgh County Council. Attendance roll call.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Leader	X
Councilmember Shetler	X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Winnecke	X
President Abell	X

President Abell: Good morning, and I’d like to offer my apologies early this morning, first, for starting a little bit late, and second, because I don’t have any glasses with me this morning, so if I say something wrong, it’s because I can’t read it. And the older I get, the harder it is to read it.

President Abell: Are those – will they work? Okay, so now I’m wearing cheater glasses. I hope my optometrist is not watching.

President Abell: I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the May 7^th meeting and the special meeting of May the 14^th.

President Abell: And I will turn the meeting over to the Finance Chairman, Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: Thank you, Madam President. First on the agenda today, under Public Defender is 1303-3948 Death Penalty in the amount of $32,441. I’ll move approval.

President Abell: Yes. And, Mr. Raben, I just wanted – I spoke with Tri-State Reporting Service, they have an outstanding bill of $12,000 at this time, that they will be submitting to us also.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. Thank you. Next under Superior Court, 1370-3054 in the amount of 3,500 and 1370-3050 Patient/Inmate in the amount of 750,000. I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Madam President, I did speak with the Judge on this and, if you recall, at budget time they did request 1.1 million dollars and we granted 500, so this is still about 150,000 less than what they actually requested for this year. And the numbers appear skewed from what you may see looking back because last year, if you recall, we had a fully funded Patient/Inmate line which their services weren’t available at the beginning of the year. So there was roughly a half million dollars that was transferred from that line into Patient/Inmate. So this will probably get them through the rest of the year, but there’s no guarantees.

Councilmember Raben: Next under Burdette Park, the first five line items, starting with 1450-1240-1450 down through 1450-1910 PERF, should all be set in at zero. And 1450-2210 Gas & Oil in the amount of 15,000, for a total of 15,000. I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Okay next Children’s Psychiatric, 2045-35700, in the amount of $195,000. I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: I do have a question on that. I don’t recall that line item number. Is that a typo or —

Councilmember Raben: Okay next Local Roads & Streets. We have a request under 2160-2210 Gas & Oil, 2160-2550 Sand & Gravel, 2160-2230 Garage & Motor, and 2160-2220 Tires & Tubes, for a total of 85,000, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Center Township Assessor, under Reassessment, Travel & Mileage in the amount of $1,000, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: And last under Transfers, under Center Township/Reassessment, we have three transfers in the amount of $1,000, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Madam President, I believe that concludes what we have today from me. I’ll turn it back over.

President Abell: Is there anything anyone has under old business? Under old business, we might note the nice little thank you card we got from Mr. Sutton’s son.

Councilmember Goebel: Madam President, I do have one question, last month you reported that our insurance return was going to be something like 485,000...

Councilmember Goebel: I think you reported 485 according to the minutes. Since this reverts to the General Fund, is there a way we could dedicate that amount of money toward next year because, is that about the same amount of money we might be – projected shortfall with the property tax lowering as far as our revenues?

Bill Fluty: Well, that money will go into the General Fund and then its looked at as a miscellaneous revenue as many of our revenues are, which total up to about half of our budget. I can’t see that you can actually dedicate it but you know its there, and I guess it is – it wasn’t a revenue we were using for projections. So I guess in a sense it’s a windfall. So I think you can always look at it – you know, when you do your budget for insurance, you will actually – it will be part of the process or something you can consider. But dedicating, since we don’t move it out into a separate line item, it’s co-mingled with all the miscellaneous revenues which, in turn, we’re projecting out for an 18 month period. So, my answer is probably not really a dedication, but it is good news for us, and it is a windfall.

Councilmember Goebel: Is your estimation going to be somewhere between two and 500,000 off, from property tax revenue next year?

Bill Fluty: I’ll know more when we settle in June. Right now our date for collection is the 6^th, which is this Friday. We are going to try to settle by June 30^th, so all the taxing units actually have their money. At that time, hopefully, we would be somewhere around 50% in collections. There’s a lot of things that change that: either appeals, but we also have further collections with penalties and so forth and so on, and new AA’s which we put on our new assessments that may have been missed. But at that time, I would know that. But historically, we collect around 98 to 99% of what we bill. And I would say we would probably be in that range.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, the only reason that I’m bringing this up is, we know that we’re going to have a shortfall next year. And if this money is not in the general fund, and we could put it someplace else, we won’t be touching it and we might answer some problems for next year, right now, and not have to worry about other ways of gaining revenues. Just a thought. Thank you.

President Abell: I think we’re ready for the preliminary resolution of Council on the Economic Revitalization area, tax phase-in on the redevelopment of real property located in Vanderburgh Industrial Park, Lot 12. Who is presenting?

Libby Au: Good morning. For the record, my name is Libby Au, I’m with the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville. I’m here today presenting the Preliminary Resolutions for both WBK as well as Graham Packaging. WBK is planning on building a 120,000 square foot addition to their existing building, with an investment of 6,000,000. And Graham Packaging is investing 12,000,000 in additional manufacturing equipment that will be installed during the first quarter of 2009. WBK scored a total of 125 points in addition to 30 bonus points and Graham Packaging scored a total of 120 points in addition to 17 bonus points, for a total of 137 points. Both projects scored a phase-in of ten years. I’m joined by Mr. Evan Beck and Mr. Jeff Lombard if any Councilmembers have any specific questions about the application or the projects.

Councilmember Goebel: I did. I don’t know on the score card that we have, and I think it’s a great format for us to determine this, but I don’t know if any of the Council had input on the scoring, especially where it might be subjective as far as some of the points go. I think it graded high. That’s all.

Libby Au: Well, and it’s certainly the Council’s discretion regarding the amount of years. I mean, if you have any specific questions about how the points were assessed, I would be happy to answer that.

Councilmember Goebel: I would like to make a comment. I think that we’re very happy to see the potential growth and expansion. There’s no doubt about that and there is no doubt also, that Jeff and this company have done, Graham Packaging have been a good corporate community partner, I just, looking back on a few of the decisions we’ve made, like decisions, we did grade a little bit lower as far as the number of years we granted.

Libby Au: And I did look at the previous Graham Packaging project. Unfortunately, in the original file, the score sheet was not there, but I do believe it did score similarly for a phase-in of ten years, but again, if you have any questions or concerns regarding how I assessed points, I’d be certainly happy to discuss that with you.

Councilmember Winnecke: I don’t have any questions, but I’d be prepared to make a motion if the chair is...understanding Mr. Goebel’s concerns and perhaps those of others, I would just comment before I make the motion. This is the first expansion phase-in that’s come before us in a while. We’ve had a couple relocation phase-ins: Brake Supply and Creative Press. But this is the first expansion that we’ve seen in a while. So I applaud Graham and Woodward for bringing this before us. And in the interest of keeping the project here and trying to address concerns of the other Councilmembers, I would move at this time that we set in an eight year phase-in for WBK and Graham Packaging.

Councilmember Sutton: Madam President, I have a question just real quick on this. Ms. Au, I have a question for you, not necessarily on this but its somewhat related. The applicants who apply for tax phase-in, they pay a $750 fee, where does that money go to?

Libby Au: That goes to the administration of the funds, copies, staff time. It goes to the Growth Alliance.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, is that what the fee has always been? Is that a change?

Libby Au: No, that’s not a change. That’s exactly what the Department of Metropolitan Development charged.

President Abell: Let’s pass the preliminary resolution. Mr. Ahlers thinks we should also do that.

Jeff Ahlers: I guess I understood, and we need to clarify it in the record or have a separate motion, because I understood your motion was to set them both in at eight years. I guess the question is now, is whether, to clarify the record, you want to make an additional motion to actually pass these preliminary resolutions with the eight years in to clarify for the record –

Councilmember Winnecke: That’s fine. At this time, I would move that we pass the preliminary resolutions for both WBK and Graham Packaging for eight years.

President Abell: The next thing on our agenda is the consideration of the salaries for the county employees for the proposed 2009 budget. We need to talk about it, think about it. Its getting close to that time. Does anyone have any feelings about a percentage they want to start out with for budgeting purposes for Ms. Deig?

Councilmember Sutton: When are we asking that they submit their budgets? How much time do we ask?

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, this is a tough one in that we’ve got some revenue issues with all the changes from the state, reductions in our property tax allotment on the county side, that this is not quite what we’ve seen before. And, of course, we haven’t been hit locally as far as our economy is concerned like some other areas, but I think, still, people are a little bit skittish. I think it’s a little tough to make a recommendation here without maybe getting some idea, gauging what the state is going to do. I know we’ve got the meeting here in a week or two up among County Councilmembers from all over the state, that will give us an idea of what our responsibilities are going to be, what revenue impact we may potentially have here locally. I think kind of absent that information, it’s a little tough for us to give a recommendation. I know you need to have that information now?

Sandie Deig: In the past, the Council has made a recommendation. You can always come down, but you can’t go up at the end of the budget session. So I think just because you make a recommendation doesn’t necessarily mean that the Council is going to vote on that particular amount of increase.

Councilmember Sutton: I guess my question would be to the Auditor. I mean, based upon what you know at this point about the changes in revenue and the expenses that the state is going to take on that we no longer have, have you been able to come up with any preliminary numbers that show what the expected impact will be upon us in ‘09?

Bill Fluty: I think you’re all aware that ‘09 probably isn’t the year that it’s going to hit us the hardest. It seems to be that ‘10 will be the year that it seems to be coming around. It was just passed the 14^th, and I think many people are just trying to see the impact of it now. Good news is the Council has always been very prudent and watched their dollars. We’re in good shape to weather some of this that’s coming up. But with that said, I think that next year we have to prepare and we’ll have to be very cautious in this year’s budget. I think that today we’re just looking for a recommendation. The budgets will go out Friday and asking for offices to submit them and they’ll have them back the 30^th of June. So we’re giving them a starting point. Then again, some of this information is going to keep filtering through as I know you all have meetings to go to. I think its in the month of June, and I think you’ll bring back information to see partly how its going to affect. But I think, as you said, Councilman, that Vanderburgh County has done well through some of these times and I think we’ll still be able to – may be able to consider that, but some of that is going to come out in the next month or two.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, the number, I guess, that was kind of rolling around, I guess, what I was thinking is around the three percent range which will give us at least some cushion one way or either side of it, to make some adjustments. But that’s just my thoughts on it.

Bill Fluty: I’ve done that several times. Councilmen have asked that in the past, and, of course, each year it moves forward. I’d hate to just spout that out right now. But I can give you a 1%, 2%, 3% or 2 1/2%. Any numbers that you think at any time, I can provide those within a couple days if you’d like to see – kind of give you some heads-up before this budget season really starts up.

Councilmember Shetler: I’d be interested in that and also what the CPI is and, you know, any other information that we might have that affected the economy, and stuff, and inflation.

Bill Fluty: And back to Councilman Sutton’s original question, I think the original LSA figure is, about how it would affect Vanderburgh County, was under a million dollars, around 600,000. So a loss of income because of circuit breaker for next year.

President Abell: Having been a previous officeholder maybe I could, if the officeholders understood, because they’re going to do their budgets and they’re going to do the three percent if we come up with three percent. We might ask the officeholders to see if they can’t keep the same bottom line they would have if that was zero percent, and see if they can’t make some cuts in the rest of their budget, and allow their employees to get an increase in pay. I’m sure there could be some – matter of fact, I’m positive there is some fat in every budget. Ms. Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Well, and one of the comments I made at a previous meeting was, in light of our anticipation of these dramatic loses of income in 2010, I guess it would be, I think we should ask every department to consider where they can save money because its going to result in less staff, ultimately, if we don’t do something else. And I agree with what Mrs. Abell says, I think it would be important for them to understand that this is the year that they can help themselves in the future, too, because obviously, the first thing that’s going to happen to us, the thing that costs the most are the salaries and wages, insurance and other benefits. So, in light of laying people off or whatever that might result in, in 2010 because of our loss of income, perhaps we can communicate with them in a way that makes them understand that it must be done now.

President Abell: I’ll draft a letter to go out – are you sending the budgets out Friday? I’ll draft a letter on the Council stationary to go out to every officeholder with your budgets. Does that sound okay with everyone? But now, where do you want to set the salaries in?

Councilmember Leader: I would like to hear from Mr. Raben, the Finance Chairman.

Councilmember Raben: I’ve been sitting here listening, and I share everybody’s concern. I mean, even though the biggest impact doesn’t affect us until 2010, you have to start preparing yourself in advance to that. And next year, you know, 600,000 is a lot of money to have to do without. You know, I’ve got mixed feelings on it. I know our standard has probably been three percent. It’s hard for me to say today that three percent is not doable. What we could do, I would offer a suggestion, possibly, maybe set it in at two. That kind of gives you some cushion and, you know, hopefully, we can find the extra one percent. Or, you know, leave it at three. I think we all have to understand that, and I think today, most officeholders and employees understand that just because its requested, doesn’t mean that they always get it. So for the sake of what we do, I don’t think it really matters. I mean, let them set it in at the three or two, if that makes people feel more comfortable. And we’ll have to see what the budget brings us. You know, we’re just so early into this game, I don’t have a crystal ball to look at. And I think in your letter, Madam President, you’ll probably state something that there’s no guarantees with whatever is proposed. So if everybody likes the number of three, let’s say today, three.

President Abell: If everybody is happy, its basically a uniformity thing so that all the offices have the same percentage and we don’t have some coming in all across the board and have to cut more out of one than another, and we can always – we’re going to deal with it in August anyway. I mean, this is not set in stone. This is just a starting point. So if everybody is comfortable with three, we can do that. We can always reduce it if we have to.

Councilmember Raben: Mike brought up a good point. Has anyone heard what the city’s plans are?

President Abell: No, but I do have a meeting with the mayor after this meeting and I’ll be happy to ask him.

Councilmember Raben: Because their situation is much worse, probably, this year than ours, and we’ll definitely be in, in 2010.

Councilmember Raben: Well, because of printing the budget information and sending it out to the offices, yeah, you need this information from us today, don’t you?

President Abell: We need a starting point. This isn’t the ending point, this is just the starting point.

Councilmember Shetler: My only thinking is that if we put it in at two and a half, suggest that now, that it may be giving a signal to the employees that there is a possibility that this year we may do a little less than what we’ve done traditionally, in the past with a three percent. I’m afraid that if we go at three, that if we end up having to go to two or two and a half, it’s going to be a cut in pay when its not really a cut in pay, it’s still an increase in pay, it’s still two percent. But the feeling would be that there is a cut in pay. Where, if we tell them two and a half, that it will signal that we are looking at this real closely. We may go to three if we have the money, but we may end up having to go to two. And we’re giving them something up front to let them know, kind of a hint that there is a possibility.

President Abell: How does everybody feel about that? Everybody okay with that? Is that you okay with you, Mr. Sutton? Okay. Mrs. Leader? Mr. Goebel, are you okay with that? Mr. Raben? Okay, let’s do that. This is not something we have to vote on? We’re going to go at 2.5.

President Abell: We might also note that the filing deadline for our July meeting is June 12^th.

President Abell: I received a phone call yesterday from Mr. Duckworth and he and Mr. Tornatta are here and I think they wish to address the Council.

Mike Duckworth: After that discussion, I’m not sure I want to, to tell you the truth.

Mike Duckworth: I understand. Its part of my responsibility, as I said the last time I was here, to bring information to you regarding expenditures and equipment and those kinds of situations. And as I had indicated to you at the last meeting, my fears have come true in looking at this piece of equipment that we depend on greatly. In talking to the company that we’re dealing with, I would just tell you that the prognosis on the life expectancy of this piece of equipment is not good. It’s a 2000 gradall. Gradall, themselves, have put about $10,000 worth of repairs in it within the last week. Its still in the shop, not operative. They could anticipate putting another 30 or $40,000 into it to get it to where its operative. And at that point, the value of it would probably still be 30 or $40,000.

Councilmember Raben: Can I interrupt? What is that $30,000 worth of repairs? What’s it consist of?

Mike Duckworth: Well, if I’d known you were going to ask me that, I could have asked some of those folks to come in. There is a pin that turns the apparatus that swivels. And from what I understand, that pin is the major component of the machine. And they have done everything electrical, they’ve done everything mechanical, and it still is not operating correctly. It goes back to, I believe, an engineering flaw. We’ve got a 1997 gradall that does not have those problems. We’ve got a 2004, of course, that’s a much newer model, that does not have those problems. But as they tell me, this was a flaw in that engineering process and they are allowing us, you know, its an eight year old piece of equipment. They are allowing that, understanding the problems that we’ve had and the money that we’ve put into it to this point, concessions toward a purchase or a trade or a lease or whatever is available to do. The life expectancy of these pieces of equipment, they’re telling me is ten to eleven years, this one is eight years old, its got 4,800 hours of operation on it. And some of the questions that were asked last time, it would cost us – there is a QPA INDOT price for rental that they adhere to and that is $7,500 a month. Folks, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t operate them, I don’t fix them, but I do know that I’ve been through this upside and down trying to figure out a way to keep this piece of equipment working and it’s just not good news. The cost of a new piece of equipment is right at $250,000. With a trade-in and discounts, they would allow right at $45,000, with a balance of 205,000. They would utilize our trade-in value and discount for the ‘08 payment and then the decision would be to either put it on a three year or a four year lease to purchase option. I guess the second option there is to rent. Like I said, $7,500 a month, we use these pieces of equipment year round. I came to you, if you’ll remember, a year ago in regards to purchasing a crane truck. The reason for that was that these gradalls had done a great deal of lifting and that’s really not what they’re intended to do. They’re a digging apparatus. So we got the crane truck so that we wouldn’t crack a boom. You crack a boom on these, its 30 or 40,000. So I think we’ve done due diligence in trying to protect these pieces of equipment the best we can. We have had them maintenanced, we’ve had them serviced, and I guess the last thing is to basically do nothing at all. We have two operative gradalls right now that I provided to you a stack of work orders that we are continually getting behind on. There is 110 work orders right there, and they grow every day. And county residents have silt and mud from our storms and our runoff in their ditches, and to be very honest with you, we’re getting to them as fast as we can. We’ve got the bottoms that we have to deal with, the flooding that happens there. South Weinbach, we have an extreme amount of flooding there. And, you know, I feel like part of my responsibility is to keep you informed of these situations. And I did meet with county attorney, Ted Ziemer. This could be constituted as a special purchase under the statute. He feels that it meets the requirements. I have discussed it with the Commissioners. Commissioner Tornatta is here today. They did give me permission to come to you today and seek your input and to see what we can do to remedy this situation. So I feel as though I’ve done as much of the legwork and investigation that I can and I would just ask you that if we’re going to enter into this kind of a purchase agreement, that the sooner the better, because I want to get something out there to help us knock down these work orders.

President Abell: Mr. Tornatta? Would you like to address the Council and then we’ll take questions?

Troy Tornatta: Well, obviously, this is not a very popular – Troy Tornatta, County Commissioner. This is not a very popular request and I know that we’ve had quite a bit of equipment that has come before this Council in the past. And the one thing that I can say, I don’t like Mike very much, but he’s done a good job of getting the equipment built up out there at the county highway garage. He has taken care of a lot of constituents that might not have been taken care of in the past. And in doing that, we have run through some equipment and obviously we have had a need for equipment. And I believe, right now, to have three of these gradalls out there working for us, we’re going to keep men out there on the road. There has been a question about the time and the amount of time that these guys are out there on the road in that gradall. I think that’s a very appropriate question and its something that we will continue to address. But at this time, it does seem that with the circumstances we have, we would need that gradall. And in talking to Counsel Ziemer, he believes that because this is a local company, and it’s a company we can get parts from and we have a relationship with, and they’re going to actually give us some money back for some of the monies that we’ve spent out on the fixing of this one piece of equipment, that this might be advantageous for us to do it sooner than later.

Councilmember Goebel: Mike, when we bought the last major piece of equipment, you had brought us three possibilities, photos and descriptions and life expectancy and that, is there any way we could have that information for this possibly?

Mike Duckworth: I guess I don’t understand your question. You’re wanting three –

Councilmember Goebel: No, just some information, photos and description of the piece of equipment, life expectancy, and things like that.

Councilmember Goebel: And maybe compare it to the old piece that you have so that we have something, you know, to compare it with.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, lets kind of recap the expense here or the costs. So you’re talking roughly 200,000 for the replacement piece of equipment?

Mike Duckworth: With the trade-in allowance and discount, it would be 205,000. I broke that down into a three year payment plan. Both payment plans are zero amounts in 2008. The three year would include payments of $74,815 per year. And the four year would be $57,347 per year.

Mike Duckworth: I believe its 4 percent and I do not have what the overall impact of that would be at this point. Mr. Ziemer and the company are looking at situations regarding tax exempt lease purchases as well as the interest as well.

Councilmember Raben: Looking at this, and I’m by no means an authority on heavy equipment, but, you know, right off the bat, 4,800 hours on a piece of equipment is nothing. I mean, that’s a long way from its life expectancy. You know, I guess my next question is, I know you say that we use these pieces of equipment all year long, but outside of the good months, you know, May, June, July, August, you know, how often in January is a gradall going out of the shop or how often in February?

Mike Duckworth: We try to do shoulder work and ditch work every day. We have crews designated to do that on all sides of our county. And its apparent with the backlog of work requests that we have, this latest onslaught of rains and drainage off of these fields has caused those problems. Now –

Mike Duckworth: Now we can go two months and not have any rain and not have any problems and catch up with it, but you get two or three inch, inch and a half, two inch rains and again,

Councilmember Raben: Well, let me ask this, when do we start doing ditch work and when do we stop?

Mike Duckworth: We do ditch work year round unless its three or four inches of snow or conditions that aren’t safe to have those out there.

Mike Duckworth: Well, the one piece of equipment, the newest piece of equipment is designated to the bridge crew. They set culverts and they do work around bridges with that piece of equipment. On occasion, if we have a situation where we have, like in the bottoms, silt or mud across the road –

Councilmember Raben: Actually, I thought that’s why we bought the boom truck was to set culverts. But –

Councilmember Raben: I understand, this is just a lot of money for a piece of equipment. And, you know, if we spend the 30,000 that you say we need to replace the pin, the king pin on the boom, I mean, should that fix – should that – we’re still saying there’s further problems with it after that?

Troy Tornatta: What we’ve been dealing with is somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 that we’ve spent since this truck has been in our hands.

Councilmember Raben: I know, but some of that 50 is PM services. I mean, that’s not all breakdowns. You’re probably looking at every work order for every oil change, every grease job, every everything, probably.

Mike Duckworth: It’s a combination of everything from electrical to mechanical problems that we’ve had with this piece of equipment over the years. I would say, since we’ve had it in 2000, I pulled the work orders and the invoices, and we’ve spent right at $50,000 in those eight years on keeping that piece of equipment operative. And most of it;s since the warranty has run out. Now if you invest 30,000 or 35,000, whatever it is to do major repair on this, the company will not warranty it again, they will not guarantee that two or four weeks or months down the road, it’s not going to have similar problems. And my feeling on that is, my recommendation to you is, not to put that kind of money into something that has the potential to cause us more problems, and more delays, and more time off the roadway.

Mike Duckworth: I have not and I’ll tell you my feeling about it: you can find them out there but its an exhaustive search. The crane truck we bought as a used piece of equipment. It was a local company that had dissolved and it was an individual that was selling it. We just happened upon that and they’re dealing with this company. We were able to obtain it at a very advantageous price. As far as others, you know, I’d have to look into the history of how they were used. We’ve got one eight years old and used 4,800 hours, that’s not worth a darn. Some of them that are taken care of very well may be okay, but I have not found any available in this area. And then you have to talk about service and parts and if its not a gradall model, we have to ship these pieces of equipment off to be worked on. Its just a real logistic concern of mine.

Councilmember Winnecke: Mike, when you say this vehicle has 4,800 hours on it, is that a lot in your mind?

Mike Duckworth: Well, its not. I think Mr. Raben was correct in that. I would just tell you that the history that I’ve had with this piece of equipment is that it seems that every time we start catching up or we start getting overloaded with calls or concerns, it’s in the shop and it’s draining our repair budget and –

Councilmember Winnecke: Well, for as little as we’ve used it, I mean, an average of 50 hours a month, which again, I mean, doesn’t seem like a lot to me, I mean, do we have any recourse, is this a lemon that we have recourse with the manufacturer?

Mike Duckworth: Well, that’s who I’ve met with and their offer was to give us a $30,000 trade-in plus a $15,000 allowance for discount for the problems that we’ve had, for a total of $45,000.

Councilmember Winnecke: I mean, if you consider an average work week and figure that we’ve only used this one piece of equipment 50 hours on average, a month, I mean, I don’t think it speaks very well.

Mike Duckworth: If you count the time that thing has been down, when we’ve had it, we’ve used it.

Councilmember Winnecke: I’m just telling you, I’m just doing the math that you’ve provided. I’m not trying to argue, but you’ve given this data. My point is, you know, maybe there is another way to approach this. Maybe there is another manufacturer, I don’t know.

Mike Duckworth: Well, there aren’t any local. And that’s the problem with heavy equipment and mowers and these things that are used in terrain, that is conducive to breakdowns is, that if you don’t have a local vendor that pay local in the local tax base, and you don’t have a local vendor that you can have them come out and assist your mechanics or take it in and have it fixed, you know, the down time is what hurts us. And here we’re in a season when we could really be knocking some of this work out, that we’re in the shop. And two weeks later, we’re in the shop.

Mike Duckworth: Well, the 2004 is – I just don’t know at this point. I’d have to research that. We’ve had no problem with the ‘97 model. Its on the road every day. The 2004 is with the bridge crew and digging culverts every day. No problem, whatsoever.

Councilmember Raben: You know, I guess one thing I’m sitting here thinking about, Mike, on the 7,500 per month, is that on a rent or a lease, do they take care of maintenance?

Mike Duckworth: They would take care of the general maintenance, but they would not take care of any major breakdowns. We would probably be responsible for that. And –

Councilmember Raben: Anything that would be considered neglect, you’re probably responsible. But if you blow a hydraulic line or something, that’s probably their baby. But would it not be something to consider just renting or leasing, during this time of year. You know, rent one for two or three months, get all your major ditch work completed, then you’ve got two to work with back and forth between the bridge crew and your regular highway crew for the balance of the year.

Mike Duckworth: Well, I equated that to what you allocate to our department for rental of equipment, which is about $12,000 a year. So occasionally, we have to rent an obscure piece of equipment to do something that we don’t have the equipment for. Now that we’ve built up our equipment, we don’t use that as much, but, you know, in one month, we’re going to wipe that out. And, I guess my feeling is, its just like renting a house or buying a house. You know, its an investment and if you don’t have it, you do what you have do to. If you do have it, its probably best to put that money toward something that’s going to last, hopefully, an extended amount of time. That’s a decision you all –

Councilmember Sutton: I know its not your decision to make, but what – and we don’t have a request before us today, I guess we anticipate it next month, what fund are you, I guess, Commissioner Tornatta, what fund are you anticipating you want to pull this from?

Mike Duckworth: Well, I would ask for – here is how I would envision it. I’ve talked to Mr. Fluty about this, what’s available because I don’t have any idea what the cash amounts are. I know that this appropriation we just got today, there is a lean side to one account.

Mike Duckworth: – may be in better shape in regards to Local Roads & Streets and Highway. We do have a Motor Vehicle account and we have a –

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I’m asking because you’ve got 945 in Local Roads & Streets. You’ve got two million in Cum Bridge. You’ve got 800,000 in CCD.

Mike Duckworth: Yeah, I don’t have any of that information because that’s not what is budgeted to me. That’s balances that Mr. Fluty keeps. I would tell you that in our Motor Vehicle account 4230, our balance right now is right at $5,600 and Miscellaneous Equipment, which is 2030-4250, we have $26,000. In Equipment Lease & Rental, we have $12,000, and in Road Equipment, we have 25,000, for a balance in those four accounts of $69,309. Those are our regular budgeted items, monies that we have available right now. What was attractive to me was that we could utilize this discount and all that, and not paying anything in ‘08.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, are you guys, are you thinking, Commissioner, about a General Fund request?

Troy Tornatta: You know, and this might be a place for Auditor Fluty would have an idea as well, but, you know, one of the things that we can look at is leasing this piece of equipment if we can make the numbers work. And, I mean, we’re open to that. But at that point we’d have to have some money put in the lease of rental equipment, have to upgrade that from $12,000.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I guess the other thing I’m looking at, too, is, if we’re looking at a request like this, I know we had a request from your department today, but are there any other areas, any line items, have you gone completely through your budget to see where there might be some cost saving measures, some areas where you may have had an appropriation where it doesn’t appear that you’re going to maybe need as much as what you were allocated that we could then revisit? I mean, I think that needs to be a part of this as well.

Mike Duckworth: I understand and I agree. I would tell you that in the three and a half years that I’ve been there, that we have updated quite a bit of equipment because the Council has been gracious enough to allocate that money to do so. I don’t know what they did in the past, but when I got there, we still had crews going out to work sites in Sheriff’s cars that had over 300,000 miles on them. We’ve upgraded all of those things for safety purposes as well as just general practice. I just told you that in those four accounts, we currently have $69,000. I don’t know what the rest of the year is going to bring to us. I mean, we’ve been through tornadoes, and snow storms and ice storms and, you know, locusts wouldn’t surprise me at this point. So my point is, that what I would envision is, you know, we’re going to squeeze this as much as we can. At the end of the year, you may want to encumber money into the lease/rental account that we don’t use to help pay for the lease of that next year.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, then as well, I think in light of the question, which I was going to ask the same question that Councilman Winnecke asked, and it was in relation to the other gradalls, the other two that you have. Looking at the number of hours that you have on those, because I was doing the same calculation he was doing and I came up with just over 11 ½ hours per week of use on this gradall that you’re wanting to replace. And if that was only being used 11 ½ hours a week, you know, some of it may have been maintenance issues, just trying to get an idea of just the degree and the amount of gradall work and maybe you need three, maybe two is fine, but if you could provide that information for us, that will at least help us to see the amount of hours that are being put in on this type of work.

Troy Tornatta: The one gradall, keep in mind, is supposed to be for bridge crew, we bought it out of Bridge Funds. So that’s their first, that’s going to be their first line of defense on the Bridge side. So we’re trying to keep that on that side. Can we move that over, potentially, when there is a necessity? And I think that we’ll look at that. Let me recommend this: we’re going to go back and get those numbers on hours for the other two gradalls. At that point, we’re going to find out what exactly a lease would entail. If it’s a triple net situation, or what exactly they take care of. At that point, we can get the exact number of what that lease is, and can get that to you in the next two or three days via email. And at that point, if we could get that email back and get a consensus on maybe a direction to go. This was more a fact finding mission. From the Commission, we did not say that we wanted the Council to purchase this, it was one option and we had some discounts put into the purchase price in order to make it a little sweeter, but we do want ideas and we wanted to just say hey, we think there is a need for this whether we rent it, lease it, buy it, whatever the case is. And so that’s what we presented to you. I have one other –

Councilmember Shetler: One other point on that, I’d like to see, maybe daily work logs. You keep work logs and what the crews do and where they’re going and all that kind of stuff, so that we could get a handle, and they’re assigned to what piece of equipment and all that kind of – that way we could kind of get a handle of how often those gradalls are used in what I’m going to call the off season, because my recommendation at the point, I’m just sitting off the side here, not sitting in the saddle like I ought to be, but would tell me that maybe renting it for four months when we have the driest, heaviest time, the best time and the most efficient time to use it is going to be pretty much half of May, June, July, August, September, four, four and a half months. And if we rented that for the four months, you’re talking about $30,000, which, for seven years, you could rent this thing for what you’re buying it for. So, I’m thinking that might be the most efficient use of the monies as we’re looking at it. Plus, there is no maintenance on that. There is usually some servicing you have to do, like oil maintenance and hydraulics and things like that, but as far as, if there is a major deal, my experience, a rental or leasing even, is that a major deal usually fits underneath some kind of a warranty. And its always a relatively new piece of equipment, so you don’t have the breakdowns. But anyway, that would be my recommendation and in order to get to that point, I think we need to see what kind of daily work logs you have in the past and how often that’s being used and the crews and how efficiently they’re being utilized.

Councilmember Leader: Mike, I have a question as well, please. And Mr. Tornatta, rent and lease, right? It would be three options: purchase, rent or lease?

Councilmember Leader: Mike, I noted in the work orders, thanks for supplying those, its good to see, but in about eight days, 22 of those are a year old. Do you communicate back to the citizens of Vanderburgh County when you’re not going to be there for a year?

Mike Duckworth: Yes, well, not for a year, but what we do is, we prioritize them. And what happens is, part of those work orders may just be a very minor situation. What happens is, that as we try to get back to those, other major things happen, and we have to redirect our workforce –

Councilmember Leader: I understand. I understand that we’ll never have enough staff to do all the things we want to do, or money. But my question is, I was at my neighborhood association meeting this past Monday, and four different people just went on and on about communication. That’s all it was. You know, and one was with the animal control officer. I mean, all this kind of stuff. Its communication. And my question is, I see that Abby and Jamie and Kimberly take all of these calls – when you can’t get to somebody, do you get back to them and say how come and all those things?

Mike Duckworth: Those work orders are assigned to the foremen. And the foremen prioritize those after they go out and inspect and assess the situation. When they go out and do that assessment, they normally meet directly with the –

Councilmember Leader: But do they say I’m not going to be back for a year? I mean, that’s what concerns me.

Mike Duckworth: Well, as you can see, there’s a 110 we’re behind on, with grass mowing and –

Councilmember Leader: I understand that. I’d be happy to call them, too, but I just think somebody needs to –

Mike Duckworth: I agree with you, that needs to happen, but again, we try to do what we can do with the equipment we’ve got and, you know, this is also a time period when –

Councilmember Leader: Well, I’m not questioning, believe me, staff or manpower, equipment. I’m just asking if we have a policy that dictates that we get back to our citizens if we can’t come to service –

Mike Duckworth: Well, I will definitely follow up on that, but I would tell you, I leave that in the hands of the foremen to do that. I’ll have a little tighter –

Councilmember Leader: But even the office staff could do so, if they communicate.

President Abell: Mr. Duckworth, you might think about having some kind of a postcard printed up that says we plan to be in your area on such and such day, or we plan to not be in your area. I think that’s what Ms. Leader is talking about. Mr. Tornatta, did you have something else you – oh, I’m sorry.

Councilmember Shetler: One further point and I’m just kind of taking away Councilman Sutton’s point that he usually brings up. But since you didn’t today, and that is, I would really like to see us go to a couple other manufacturers. I mean, sometimes it will sound like a pretty good, rosy deal when they’re giving you a trade-in on an eight year old piece of equipment, but that may not be such a hot deal. And I’d like to see us go to two or three other vendors out there to see what kind of price we really can get.

Mike Duckworth: We can do that but I would tell you, the reason I did not was, number one, the immediacy of our need, and number two, the fact that any repair, any part, there is not another dealer in this local area. So that piece of equipment would have to be transported to be worked on and that’s down time. And then brought back. I’ve got a mower right now I just traded in because every time it breaks down, it has to go to Brazil Indiana because the dealership moved their operation to that location.

Councilmember Shetler: I guess my point is, you’re not going to get anything through in the next 30 days anyway. So for the next 30 days, as part of the homework and due diligence here, I would say that we ought to check out a couple other vendors that might give us $205,000 without a trade-in, or whatever.

President Abell: Any other questions or comments on this subject? Okay, Mr. Tornatta?

Troy Tornatta: Okay, real quick, the city is proposing and they will have before the City Council, and it came before the County Commissioners, that for the Building Commission, they would like it to go back to a setup on a 50/50 basis, with revenues coming in on a 50/50 basis. I do not feel like, without hearing from the Council that I can vote affirmative for that, in light of where it has been in the past. In the past, we have seen the permitting at a higher level in the county than in the city. The revenues have been at a higher level in the county than the city. The city has had to actually put money into the Building Commission’s budget at the end of the year, where the county has had money in its coffers at the end of the year. And so I’d just ask the Council to kind of reflect on that and see a direction they would like the Commissioners to go. Get back with any of the Commissioners, just to give an idea, because if we want to go 50/50 and just split it down the middle, it goes in the county funds. At the end of the year, we divide it up on a 50/50 basis and give the city theirs and the county theirs, and then have a $50,000 cushion that’s held. And, Mr. Fluty, I don’t know, is that held in the county’s....on the city’s side. So, I mean, its your budget and it’s the county’s money to do with what they will, but I would like to have some type of input from the Council.

Troy Tornatta: The present split is where the revenue came from, that’s where it goes. So if the revenues come from the county, which is predominately where the revenues are coming from, then it would go directly to the county. But those that come from the city would be then sent over to the city. Now the shift used to be a lot more city and now it’s a lot more county. And the thought is, Roger Lehman said the thought is that it’s leaning a little bit more toward the city. And that’s speculation and I would rather seven people plus three people in the Commissioner’s office chime in on this, than to ramrod it through just because it’s brought up from the city.

Bill Fluty: This came up last night. I know it’s been in discussion for almost over a year, but I’m gathering some information for Commissioner Tornatta. I think you all need that same information. Basically, I’ll get what we’re doing now and what they’re proposing to do, just in a nutshell to give you just exactly, so you can go that way and see how you want to go forward. And I can get that out, probably be the first of next week.

Troy Tornatta: And then we’re doing about 21 miles worth of paving so far this year, with $158,000 left over, for those that we missed. If we grossly missed a spot, then we do have some money left over. About, I think, nine miles in district three, ten miles in district two, and a little over two miles in district one. So if anybody has something that they think we’ve missed, we’d be happy to entertain picking that up on the second round, but there’s about 158,000 left in that line item.

Mike Duckworth: If I can just add to that briefly, we are being inundated with complaints from subdivisions regarding, especially Evergreen Acres. There’s two or three others where streets are basically caving in and its because of the standards that were set back when these subdivisions were established. We dug up a road in Evergreen Acres and that road was laid right on top of mud. And there are caverns that I’ve been told by Bill Jeffers, that workers can walk under, underneath there. Its those kinds of problems that we’re going to be facing down the road in regards to replacing these streets completely and restructuring them. I’ve been meeting with John Stoll about it. I don’t know what else to tell you about that other than Band-aids can only last for so long. And I know we are establishing a lot of new roadways and new access to different areas in this community. But we need to look at allocating some money, in my opinion, to the repair and reconstruction of some of our subdivision roads. So just a thought on that.

President Abell: Any other comments? Mr. Tornatta, I think you were in a meeting I had with Mr. Stoll where we talked about making sure that the requirements for today’s roads were good enough so that the taxpayers wouldn’t be picking up these subdivisions in the future. I don’t know where you all are on that, but I hope you continue to look at that.

Troy Tornatta: And that’s what we want to push. I mean, we want to make sure that we have quality standards and I think that’s where our engineer is promoting all his people to address those issues at the time of the incident, rather than to wait until a later date.

President Abell: We appreciate that. Can’t do anything about the past, but we can about the future, and we appreciate that. Thank you.

President Abell: Does anyone else have anything they wanted to bring before the Council? I’d just like to point out, you do have an invitation on your desk from Bernardin Lochmueller and Associates. They’re putting on a seminar on Wednesday, June 18^th here at the Evansville Marriott, co-sponsoring it, about funding for local government projects. This, of course, won’t help our operating budget, but certainly for projects, it will be a seminar that’s going to show you how to explore available revenue sources. If any of you can’t make the meeting up next Saturday, you might want to try to make this one. There is an RSVP card and information in your packet, so take a look at that. Anything else? We stand adjourned.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 9:45 a.m.)

1303-3948	Death Penalty	32,441.00	32,441.00
Total		32,441.00	32,441.00

1370-3054	Juvenile Home Detention	3,500.00	3,500.00
1370-3050	Patient/Inmate Care	750,000.00	750,000.00
Total		753,500.00	753,500.00

1450-1240-1450	Sec/Receptionist	58.00	0.00
1450-1270-1450	Carpenter/Ironworker	68.00	0.00
1450-1280-1450	Office Assistant	36.00	0.00
1450-1900	FICA	13.00	0.00
1450-1910	PERF	17.00	0.00
1450-2210	Gas & Oil	15,000.00	15,000.00
Total		15,192.00	15,000.00

2160-2210	Gas & Oil	50,000.00	50,000.00
2160-2550	Sand & Gravel	20,000.00	20,000.00
2160-2230	Garage & Motor	10,000.00	10,000.00
2160-2220	Tires & Tubes	5,000.00	5,000.00
Total		85,000.00	85,000.00

2490-1110-3130	Travel/Mileage	1,000.00	1,000.00
Total		1,000.00	1,000.00

From: 2490-1110-2820	Red & Blue Books	300.00	300.00
2490-1110-3380	Photo/Blue Prints	500.00	500.00
2490-1110-3390	Plat Sheets	200.00	200.00
To: 2490-1110-3130	Travel/Mileage	1,000.00	1,000.00