President Abell: I’d like to call to order the June 27, 2007 meeting of the Vanderburgh County Council. I’d like to make note that due publication has been made and this will be our County Council meeting, not just the Personnel & Finance as next week is July the 4th, and the building will be closed and people will be on vacation, so we will be doing all of our business today and having no meeting next week. Attendance roll call please.

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: I would entertain a motion for approval of the minutes of the June 6th, 2007 meeting.

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

Councilmember Raben: Okay, first is the County Clerk. Is there anyone here from the County Clerk’s Office? Sorry about that, Susie, I didn’t see you sitting back there.

Susan Kirk: Yes, I had originally requested more in the budget that I turned in at the beginning of the year or last year, rather. What’s happened is, needless to say, we have more and more and more paperwork all the time. We did this year, or last year, rather, we had two of my staff members actually went through and we got rid of, with the destruction of records by statute, enough records that would probably fill this many square feet to give us a little bit more room. Also, we’re not permitted to send my staff members out any longer to pull files. We’re not permitted to have work release people out there, the judges said no work release people with court files, so that’s costing us a little bit more, also. So that’s pretty well why we need more money. We need more storage space, and just to pull records, transport them back and forth.

President Abell: Who said we couldn’t send our staff out there to file things away?

Susan Kirk: Kinder Moving and Storage. They don’t have any insurance to cover us and one of the staff members was out there on a ladder and fell 25 feet, and she has a permanent injury now from that. So that is why we do not send our staff out there anymore, shouldn’t have ever been, according to, like I said, their insurance doesn’t cover us out there. And they prefer people not just roaming around in their building, basically. We can’t have work release people anymore, so that would be one staff member that we could possibly send out there which couldn’t begin to get the work done. So that’s why.

Susan Kirk: Well, they’re giving us a pretty good break on it because they’re also now doing our scanning that we have to do, so I think its like fifteen cents, something like that. It’s a little bit lower than what the normal cost would be because they’re doing so many things for us now that we’re kind of getting breaks on everything, basically.

President Abell: Do you have a handle on how many documents you think they’re filing?

Susan Kirk: Well, they may when we turn in a blue claim, but I can certainly get you copies of – well, we can go back many years, how ever many you want.

President Abell: Well, my big question is that I know there was a staff person that was paid an extra amount of money to be doing that, and if they’re not doing it anymore, I think we need to revisit that salary, and put that back into the general fund and use that to offset paying Kinder.

Susan Kirk: Well, that staff member is still the archivist in the fact that they are the ones that have to figure out where the file, you know, they have to look it all up, tell Kinder – we just don’t call out to Kinder and say hey, pull, you know, 82DO3 da-da-da-da-da, that would cost more money. So what this staff members does is, they are the ones that finds out what it is, gives the bar code to Kinder and then Kinder just pulls it. And the same thing with filing, this staff member is also the one who is going through and finding out, which was not done before, to its entirety, for the destruction of records. Because the more we can get out of there and get rid of, the less we have to pay in storage. So its up to this staff member who, like I said, ended up getting probably, it was huge the amount of boxes and paperwork that we got rid of, so the staff member is still the archivist, they just physically don’t go out there every day. They will go out once in a while if an attorney or a judge, you know, they’ve got to have a file right now, she’ll drive out there and they pick it up and she brings it back. So she does do that, so the position is still there, its just that they’re not standing out there one or two days a week filing, that’s the only difference.

President Abell: Well, I know when we first entered into an agreement with them, it was just that they were going to store, and not – I am just concerned that they are charging us to file documents away. I think that’s a big expense.

Susan Kirk: Well, beings that insurance isn’t going to cover us out there, I’m not going to send one of my staff members to be climbing up ladders. I don’t think that’s appropriate at all. One person cannot do the job. One person can’t. There is no way that one person is going to be able to pull files back and forth and back and forth, take them out, bring them back. That would be a full-time job in itself and I cannot spare anyone in the Clerk’s Office as a full-time position, as it was not a full-time position before when you were there.

Councilmember Leader: Can you tell me how you plan to spend this $50,000? What’s the plan?

Susan Kirk: Well, it will be for record storage and it will be for retrieving files, you know, taking the files, putting them back again. That’s what it is. Most of it is storage. We have a huge warehouse out there of which when I asked in my original budget, basically, should cover – its 95% of it is storage.

Councilmember Sutton: The contract that we have with Kinder, is that on a year to year basis, what is the length of that contract?

Susan Kirk: I don’t know that there is a contract that has like a yearly, you know, an annual thing. Marsha had them when I took office and we just have kept them. There isn’t anything that I sign yearly saying that we’re going to continue. I don’t think we really want to do that especially storage of records because whoever we find, we can’t obviously move those on a yearly basis, so to do bids on that would be – gosh, you know, if I did anything like that it would have to be for, I would think, at least ten years because, like I said, to move all that, you all really ought to go out there and see what I’m talking about. I was, when I went out there for the first time, I was awed at how big this warehouse is. And we have the whole thing.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I asked that because I know at times when we enter into agreements with different vendors out there and especially those that are long-term in nature, it just seems to happen that just as that relationship becomes more comfortable, we get this price creep situation, and, you know, a little bit here, and then next year we’ve got something else, and then two years down the road we’re talking about – and the next thing we know, we look back and we see okay, was this contract in line with what we originally intended. And maybe this is the time for us to really look at that and our expense. And I know we’ve got a ton of records and maybe we’re not necessarily talking about moving all those records, maybe we are. But clearly its time to revisit that contract and Kinder may not be the only show in town that might be interested in that particular type of service that they’re providing for the county. So I would encourage us to go back and revisit that.

Susan Kirk: Oh, I say you just – I agree with you 150% because you’re going to find that Kinder is still going to come in low. This company, I’ve been so impressed with them, I really have been. They are very astute in everything that they do. They come in low every time as far as moving the voting equipment back and forth. They’re scanning -- all that they do has to be okayed and approved by the state because there is many guidelines on when you’re scanning documents or putting them on microfilm, disk, and stuff. They always come in good and you’re more than welcome to check with any other company and let us know, because I have the utmost confidence in them. I really do. I am so happy that we have Kinder. I don’t know how Marsha decided on them but that was a tremendously good decision on her part because they do not raise our prices. Our prices have gone up, basically, because we have more records and they are now pulling and refiling files. That’s why its gone up. But I will get you the paperwork so that Council can review that and make your decision.

Councilmember Sutton: The other thing, too, I know at one point in time there was a move to begin to move some of those records, more electronic version. I know some we cannot, I mean, they have to stay in their original form. How assertively or aggressively are we going about moving some of those records so that the storage space doesn’t continue to grow for those records that we don’t necessarily have to have a hard copy for?

Susan Kirk: Well, actually, last year, when I took office in 2005, we had an employee out there and that was one of the duties that I told her, its very, very important that you go through this because I know that we can get rid of some records here. I know we can. And she agreed. And for two years she turned in her report and it was basically the same things that had been turned in, in previous years. So I kind of switched the positions around and gave it to another employee who really got in there and last year was the first year that we actually got rid of a lot of records. Now according to statute, there’s many things that we can’t, you know, we get computers and you think, okay, no paper. No, now you have it on the computer and now you have it on paper and now you have it on microfilm, now you have to have it on disk. You have it everywhere. So, and some of that, too, with the state, they have, like I said, they kind of increased some of their guidelines to where you just have to have it everywhere. You know, a disk is only going to last ten years, so you do it on a disk now because its convenient, but you also have to have it on a microfilm because that’s going to last longer. So even though we can get rid of and we actively pursue destroying as much as we can according to the statute, even so, you can ask the judges, you can ask the Prosecutor’s Office, we get more cases and I can give you the numbers on that, too, every year we get more cases. It goes up every year. Number one, you can’t have an accident anymore, you get sued. You know, if I accidently step on Sandie’s toe, you know, she’s going to sue me because I did it on purpose or whatever. Anyway, its just a more litigious society and we just have more records and that’s going to get worse and worse every year. I don’t see that changing. So our bill is just going to be very large and its going to grow every year just because of more paperwork. But I will get you everything that I think will help you make your decision. Yes?

Councilmember Goebel: You’re then, if I understand it correctly, you’re modifying your request today based upon information you’re going to give us for the next meeting? Is that –

Susan Kirk: No, I’m not changing my request. I’m still, I mean, if you decide not to give us what I’ve asked for then I’ll just have to come back again because we’re going to have to have it. What I’m going to do is, I will get you past bills and let you just see how the increase has taken place. I will get you the statute from the destruction of records, things that we can destroy, things that we can’t, things that we’ve destroyed in the past compared to what we destroyed last year, so that you kind of have more of an idea. The square footage, that’s kind of interesting to see how many square feet of records we do have and then if Council wants to review it and then for the upcoming budget, you know, if you want to check around and see if there is another vendor or whatever you want to do, we’ll do it.

Councilmember Raben: Madam President, I would, I guess first I would encourage everybody who has not been out there to see exactly what they do, I know back when you first contracted with them, we had a field trip per se, and I was quite impressed with what was going on out there and how well maintained the records really were. So we might defer this today and allow everybody the opportunity to get all their questions answered. But maybe sometime between now and our late July meeting – well, I guess now it would be the first of August, won’t it?

Susan Kirk: As long as we can pay Kinder. I really don’t want to not pay them when money will be due.

Susan Kirk: We may be able to make it another month and that’s going to be it.

Councilmember Raben: You know, one other thing you need to look at and I think Susie did make this point, that we’re taking more records out every day, so we are probably using more space today than we were eight years ago or nine years ago. And we did have an employee out there, and the value of that employee, while it may not be $50,000, I’ll bet it was at least half of that, if not more. So they’re taking on the responsibilities that a full-time employee would be out there doing.

Susan Kirk: And it would be more than one full-time employee, really, to do it right. You know, by the time you take drive time, back and forth, you’d have to pay them some kind of compensation for mileage – it is cheaper when you take an employee or having Kinder do it, its cheaper in the long run, but once I get you the paperwork

and you can review it and then you let me know. I don’t really know of other storage companies, particularly in the vicinity, but we can certainly check. But I think once you see when you go out there and see what it is, just the idea of moving that, you know, I don’t know how that would affect the bar coding that Kinder has whether you’d have to re-bar code, I don’t know. But I’ll try to get you some information so that you can make your decision.

President Abell: Mr. Raben, it looks like its costing about $9,100 a month, that’s just a guess of dividing up what you’ve already spent, and you’ve got $14,000, I think we ought to put in another $5,000 today to at least get her through two months. That will give us an opportunity to look at this whole thing, see what records she’s got available. I don’t mean your records, I mean Kinder’s bills, and get it back on our agenda because as we all know, it takes forever to get on this agenda. So if that would be okay and someone could put that in the form of a motion.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I’ll do that. I’ll move 1010-3603 Record Storage be approved in the amount of $5,000.

Susan Kirk: You know, we actually tease in the office, it would really save us a lot of trouble if somebody would accidentally just drop a match out there. And Donna, its very nice to see you on the Council. Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Scott Township Assessor, we have a request for Accrued Payments with FICA and PERF in the amount of $9,613. Is there any – John?

John Habermel: I’m John Habermel, Scott Township Assessor. Do you want me to explain this or –

John Habermel: We’re a two person staff out there, Norma Miller is retiring, has been there for in excess of 30 years and we have someone hired to replace her and to get her started and to pay Norma her entitlements, we need the extra funds in that line.

Councilmember Raben: Are there any questions? Alright, I’ll move that we approve this request from the Scott Township Assessor in the amount of $9,613.

John Habermel: Thank you. I’d also like to invite you all, the Councilmembers and the staff, if you have time Friday at 11:30 at the Kennel Club we’re having a little luncheon for Norma to send her on her way. So please come and be our guests, if possible. Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Alright, Co-Op Extension Services, we have a request in the amount of $6,500. Is there anyone here from Co-Op? It doesn’t look like it. Everyone is probably aware, this is a grant that’s provided by St. Mary’s that’s for two part-time employees to work 20 hours a week through this fall semester. Since it is a grant and doesn’t count against the general fund, I’m going to move approval in the amount of $6,500.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, County Commissioners 1300-3850 Building Commission in the amount of $13,625. Roger Lehman is here. Good morning, Roger.

Roger Lehman: Good morning. Roger Lehman, Building Commissioner. This request is to add a position in the Building Commission to finish out this year. This position will be carried over until next year. It will be a permanent position. I have spoken to most of you and I’m sure most of you are aware that one of the reasons we did this was because we were a little short handed and unfortunately, our electrical inspector passed away last week. So by the time we pay out his account, we’ll still need, we may be a couple of thousand over what we need totally by the end of the year. And, of course, if that happens, we just won’t spend it and it will revert back to, I mean, we won’t bill you for your half and so you’ll get to keep a couple thousand at the end. We’re not exactly sure yet what his payout is, but its going to be close. For the position that he was in, we will at budget time be discussing whether or not that’s an appropriate position to fill based on revenue and workload and that type of thing. So at budget hearing time we will be looking at the electrical inspector position to justify its remaining there. This position that we’re asking for the money for now is necessary to get us through the end of this year and that position will continue on next year regardless. So I’ll be glad to answer any questions.

Councilmember Goebel: Good morning, Roger. This position actually will pay for itself in revenues, is that correct?

Roger Lehman: The revenue generated last year – well, this position was part-time last year and the person in that position wrote $40,000 worth of citations and brought in between 18 and 25,000 in permit license revenue because he works nights and weekends and will continue to do that even though now he’s full-time. So I can’t guarantee you he will pay 100% of the cost of the position, but he will pay a good percentage of it, if not all. I think last year he paid more than what his position cost as part-time.

Councilmember Sutton: And Roger, since we have the interlocal agreement, this is our split on this?

Roger Lehman: Right, this is 50%. And that’s actually hasn’t gone to City Council yet, but will be going in two weeks, I think.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Madam President, I’m going to move approval for 1300-3850 in the amount of $13,625.

Councilmember Raben: Burdette Park, we have a request for Gas & Oil in the amount of $8,000 and Utilities for 20,000. Good morning.

Councilmember Raben: I think these requests are probably, everyone understands all too well possibly, but if you want to cover them, that would be great. And I would also be interested in hearing just how the park is running so far.

Steve Craig: Okay, I’ll go over, the Park, we’ve had an extremely good year. The aquatic center was having an exceptional year but the last four or five days has kind of put a damper on it. You always expect rain days. You want to keep them to a minimum. As of a week ago, we were at a minimum but now we’re right about average of what we have for rain days per month through June, July and August. Everything else is running really well. When it breaks, we fix it. That’s about all you can do in the summer. I haven’t had any major disasters yet and if we do, we’ll take care of them. On the Gas and the Utilities and that, we have been trying with the Utilities, we have, starting two and a half years ago, we started switching over to the energy efficient light bulbs in all of our buildings. I think they’re four to five times more efficient. We have a maintenance program where we change our air filters monthly. We have been trying to curb our utilities. Vectren sends out a troubleshooting sheet every year that tells you how to minimize your energy use and every year we do go through that with our buildings and my crew. Recently we were going to buy a new pickup truck and we opted to buy an RTV that gets 70 miles per gallon. Fuel is estimated, and we’ve been using that every day, the same as we would have used a pickup truck. So instead of 13 or 14 miles to a gallon of fuel, we’re getting 70. And we’ve also, some of the younger people that we hire during the summer, when they go to jobs, we have been taking several of them in a vehicle at a time, taking them to the job and picking them up instead of everybody driving a truck. We’ve tried several things and you don’t predict $3.20 gas, you know. You don’t predict a dollar. I don’t think we’re going to see the dollar anymore, but we have been trying in every way that we can to save money on the energy and the utilities.

Councilmember Raben: Any further questions? Hearing none? Okay, I move approval of Burdette Park in the amount of $28,000.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, County Assessor, Computers, 2490-1090-3370 in the amount of 64,496. I know we’ve had some discussion on this last month and some information is, I guess, coming to us today or is here, is that correct?

Jonathan Weaver: Well, we’re just – good morning, Jonathan Weaver, Vanderburgh County Assessor. We’re just here to put in our request again for computers. We are – we need computers. You’ve heard in the past how old they are and that they’re dying and whatever, and I would actually like to have you hear from each individual township assessor, their problems. So I’m going to call Glen Koob first and she’ll tell you what’s going on.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, real quick, before Glen steps to the podium, I think the question was asked, where is the breaking point on the discount? Was it 20 computers, 30, 40 or 50?

President Abell: Mr. Raben, I asked Mr. Arvay to come here. He’s got some things to tell us, too, so I don’t know where you want to put him in here, but he can add to this conversation.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. Well, if we could have Matt first, that would be great.

Matt Arvay: Good morning. Matt Arvay, Chief Information Officer. The information was put together by Scott Davis, that was requested by Council and just to start there to go over some of this information: they’ve listed by age, its sorted by age, the computers. They went around and did an actual walk-through. And if you look at the first two pages, its worked out to where 60 of the top 75 computers, the oldest computers in the county happen to be assessor machines. The majority of them were purchased in December 2001. At that time, they were purchased as a bulk purchase together. At that point, Scott went with his crew and went around the other county offices and they looked at approximately 239 computers in various departments that you’ll see listed on the cover page. This did not include the county courts because they were approved for their replacement computers, I believe it was a four-year lease. It was approximately 291 computers last year and those computers were four to four and a half years old when they were replaced. So if you look at the numbers, the current situation that, out of the 239 reviewed, 117 at the end of next year will be five years or older, which is about 48% of the machines, just to kind of give you a snapshot. And back to this particular request, again, 60 of the top 75 oldest machines in the county, out of the 239 reviewed are County Assessor and Township Assessor machines. As far as the pricing goes, they’re asking for the – basically, what we were able to achieve was a bulk volume and promotional discounts. Normally, companies like Dell, HP have a fiscal year that ends in July, so we were able to take advantage, and that’s why we were able to get below state QPA pricing on these particular bulk purchase requests. The difference between the monitors – I know that was kind of brought up at the last meeting, you’re looking at about $36 dollars difference between a 17 inch and 19 inch monitor. These machines are spec’d out to last five years – we’ll have a five year warranty on them, so if things break down, the parts will be replaced by Dell, working with our staff. And that’s pretty much where we stand at this point. You’re looking at, and then in comparison, Jim, with the state QPA pricing, if we had the standard pricing, on what they’re requesting on the 58 machines at 19 inch monitors, you’re saving about $6,404.94 off the total purchase. That’s the difference between buying it off state QPA and this volume discount pricing. So you’re saving $6,400 approximately.

President Abell: Mr. Arvay, would you explain to the Council what you explained to me about the support that’s no longer there as these machines get older.

Matt Arvay: One of the things that most of you are aware, we have an ITAC committee, its an Information Technology Advisory Council, its made up of business leaders, elected officials in the county, department heads of the city and county, and we meet once a month. And one of the things that I envision this group doing is creating subcommittees to look at issues just like this. And Monday or Tuesday I’m getting feedback, I want to start a subcommittee to look at a refresh plan for our computers. And historically, this has been the responsibility of the department. They, at budget time, submit a budget request that says we need X amount of computers. We, as computer services, help them get the lowest price available, try to spec out a computer that meets their individual needs. What I hope that comes out of this subcommittee is that with the review and the start of information like what was gathered by Scott’s group, that we can continue as new machines are purchased to add to this data base, so we can yearly plan on the amount of machines that are so old that you want to replace and it will be budget constraints, things of that nature, also operating system life. You have operating systems that come to end of life where Microsoft does not provide security patches, things of that nature. Also labor and support of those machines go up and its staff time and then we said, well, our staff is here anyway, that’s what we’re paying them to do. But when you’re supporting well over 1,500 machines, hundreds of servers, hundreds of networking devices as well as new project requests, time is important and we can’t get to everybody when we’re continuing to go back to the same machines basically because of age and degradation of performance. So those are the things that we want to look at in the subcommittee and come back with a plan. But as far as the Assessors’ request here, I can’t give you a good reason why not to do it other than they’re still running, but they are complaining as far as the degradation in performance and they are starting to break down. So with all those factors, I would recommend and with past approvals of bulk replacement of computers, that we move forward with this one.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, one last question, I guess, of the 54 or whatever the number is, how many of them are over five years old?

Matt Arvay: If you look at the first two pages, 60 of the top 75 machines in total are County Assessors, of the oldest machines, so if I counted, you know, that should cover all their machines. They requested like 54-58.

Councilmember Raben: So we have not replaced any machines in the last couple of years.

Matt Arvay: Well, there’s a few. That doesn’t give the total number of machines within that department.

Councilmember Raben: I would just hope that we’re not replacing equipment that we replaced last year.

Matt Arvay: Yeah. No, they only requested 58 and Scott has just refreshed my memory, because they’re five years or older. All the machines they’re requesting are five years or older and they’re actually five and a half years because they were purchased in December of ‘01.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. And can I ask one more question? While you’re up here, also, can you give us a little update on where we’re at with Weights & Measures on –

Matt Arvay: The contract was approved yesterday, so they will have connectivity to the Civic Center scheduled through AT & T.

Councilmember Goebel: On the computers, Matt, are they identical computers across the board at every –

Councilmember Goebel: In every township. So you’re looking for 19 inch monitors for each?

Councilmember Goebel: Are the computers we’re replacing all identical or are they just –

Matt Arvay: When they were purchased in ‘01, yes. Everything that needed to be replaced was replaced and everything in this request will be identical.

Scott Davis: Scott Davis, computer services. The base computer was all identical. But as you can see from the list, the rightmost column showed the size of the current monitors. There were differing sizes on the monitors that were purchased for those 58 machines: 17's, 19's and 21's.

Matt Arvay: So the components of the computer were the same, the monitors varied, I guess.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, now how many 21's are we talking about and what’s the difference in cost between that and a 17 inch?

Matt Arvay: I don’t have that, and unless Scott knows off the top of his head, the difference between a 19 inch and 17 was $36. That’s the difference there. We didn’t really spec out 21. We didn’t think that was looked upon very positively.

Scott Davis: Yeah, no, this request, they’re asking for 19 inch monitors across the board.

Councilmember Goebel: I know its $36 a pop, but 58 times 36 – I don’t have my calculator. How much –

Matt Arvay: -- but if you buy it on this bulk discount, you’re saving $6,400, you’re still saving money in the long run if you look at it in that perspective.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, don’t you get the bulk discount whether you do 17 or 19?

Councilmember Sutton: The ones that have the larger – did you say how many actually have the 21 inch?

Matt Arvay: No, I don’t. I’d have to count this up here. We could get that. You know, one thing that may be a recommendation is you approve a machine with a particular size monitor and, you know, we looked at their existing monitors, and the money is there to replace a monitor if it goes down, but its not purchased with the outright system, that’s another aspect.

Matt Arvay: And they may have had mapping, they do a lot of GIS mapping, so they probably have the mapping.

Councilmember Sutton: The other question I had, at this request, basically $65,000, does that include the software updates, the actual installation or is this strictly all the hardware, --

Councilmember Sutton: So are we anticipating an additional request to actually get these units online?

Matt Arvay: No, we would work with existing staff and we’ll have a roll out plan.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, do you anticipate any compatibility issues with the existing software that we’re using in all these units with the new hardware that you’re requesting here?

Scott Davis: No. The office, Microsoft Office, they currently are using Office 2000 Professional. On these machines, it will run on the new machines. They wanted to look at holding the costs on these replacements down by reusing the software licenses that they currently have –

Scott Davis: They’re looking, as I said, they’re looking at reusing the licenses for the Microsoft Office that they currently have to try and hold the cost down. Now at some point in the future, as other parts of the enterprise deploy newer versions of Microsoft Office, at some point they may have to look at upgrading. But at this particular time, they should not.

Councilmember Sutton: I meant to ask, does this include any other peripheral equipment, printers, or is this just strictly –

Scott Davis: This is just strictly the computer. It does not address printers at all.

Councilmember Goebel: On the monitors that we have, I would think that there is a sense among the Assessors that they would like to keep the larger screens. Are any of those working that we don’t need to replace?

Matt Arvay: That’s why I kind of made mention just a minute ago that maybe that’s something we could look at, is you approve the full purchasing of it so the money is encumbered or there, and then if these larger monitors starting dying, one by one, we could purchase one by one replacement monitors. I mean, that’s another aspect you may want to look at.

Matt Arvay: I’d have to do some quick math here, you’re looking at $210 if you bought a monitor, a 19 inch monitor alone. Without monitors, the computers would cost $897 versus $1,112 with a 19, $1,076 with a 17.

Matt Arvay: With the 17 inch monitors, its $62,408; with 19 inch monitors, $64,496.

Councilmember Raben: Would everybody be comfortable with giving them some money to replace some monitors if we set it at – in fact, I’ll make this in a motion. I’ll move that we approve under 2490-1090-3370 in the amount of $58,000.

Councilmember Raben: That would allow $6,000 to replace about half of the monitors.

Councilmember Goebel: I do have one question on the monitor issue. We will not be purchasing 21 inch monitors, period, is that correct?

Councilmember Raben: And, Madam President, I guess since we’ve been on this topic for two months, I’d like to make a motion that we serve notice today to Matt and his folks and everybody in Purchasing that the Council does not allow for 21 inch monitors. Do we need to vote on that? That’s a motion.

Councilmember Sutton: One other comment along this line. When we first received this request I guess last month or the month before, it would be extremely helpful for us, anytime we have any hardware or software requests, that there is some type of involvement with both of you guys’ areas along with the department that’s involved with it so that we can see the larger picture, not just a small incremental request. But we want to be able to see how it affects the whole and that’s why we’ve gotten the questions and we probably would have been able to move a little bit faster on this if we could have maybe gotten a better sense of your involvement with this and what it would take, so just food for thought if you can be involved with those future decisions. And we’re going to obviously get some requests come budget time, you need to be very much involved –

Matt Arvay: Hopefully, in the long run, we have a plan that could all be predetermined.

President Abell: I just have one comment: Mr. Arvay, do you think that your committee will be able to have this inventory plan ready for us by budget time?

President Abell: That would be a good start. I mean, I think we’ve got a good start on the county side because of this inventory they just did, so we will do our best.

President Abell: I think it would help all of the Council to be able to have that before we go into budget hearings.

Councilmember Raben: Okay next, Pigeon Township Assessor, and we have Travel/Mileage, Printing and Office Supplies in the amount of $5,500. Good morning.

Judy Stricker: Good morning, Judy Stricker, Chief Deputy Pigeon Township Assessor’s Office. I could start off right now. Our office has no 21 inch monitors. I’d be happy with 17. I hit my shift key and the F key comes up. I don’t know what’s wrong, but they say they have a spare keyboard, so I’m hoping. And thank you, Council, for buying us a new computer because one of those was in dire need and I appreciate that, thank you very much. Now on to what we’re requesting now, the Travel/Mileage and the Printing is kind of to replace what I transferred out of there for Office Supplies. And I think I maybe added a little bit more for Printing. And we still need more money for Office Supplies. Also, why I asked for more in Printing, Mr. Hatfield is retiring. November 1st will be somebody else coming in and we’re going to have to have envelopes with somebody else’s name on it, more office supplies for our stamps to be corrected with somebody else’s name, so I was kind of looking to the future because hopefully, I won’t come back.

President Abell: I will say that I asked Judy and she provided for me an itemization of the money they’ve been spending and they’ve spent their budget and it has been for things that they –

Judy Stricker: Almost 2,000 of it came out for Data Mail for our Form 11's, and evidently, we’re going to have this every year now because I’m hoping there is some way, because the state says we have to send out Form 11's every year whenever there’s a change. And if we do trending every year like the state wants us to do, then we have to send out a Form 11, but maybe there is some way that we can include it with the tax bill.

Judy Stricker: I heard some counties wasn’t sending out Form 11's but according to the law, we have to. So I’m hoping there’s some way we can redo this because that’s a big expense every year.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I’m going to move approval in the amount of $5,500.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next under Family & Children Services, 2042-30090 Child Welfare Services in the amount of $100,000, I move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, that’s it for appropriations, we’ll move into transfers.

Councilmember Raben: Under County Auditor, we have a transfer in the amount of $750 and we have a transfer in the amount of $22. I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: County Treasurer, a request in the amount of $2,000, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: County Coroner, we have a request in the amount of $2,479, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Public Defender in the amount of 1,478, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Drug & Alcohol Deferral in the amount of $2,000, I’ll move approval..

Councilmember Raben: Oh, that’s correct, it has been withdrawn. I move that that be set in at zero.

Councilmember Raben: Center Township Assessor/Reassessment in the amount of $800, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: And last, Local Roads & Streets in the amount of $5,000, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: The Amendments to the Salary Ordinance, first we have Scott Township Assessor, I move that we amend salary line 1160-1971 Accrued Payments as previously adopted. This is for the buy-out for an existing employee. Co-Op Extension Service, amend salary line 1230-1990 Extra Help as previously adopted. The funds are from a grant from St. Mary’s Hospital for Women and Children, permission to pay two employees 20 hours each per work at the rate of 9.50 per hour. The grant is not to exceed $13,000. County Auditor, salary line 1020-1390 TIF/Tax Sale Clerk as the transfer previously adopted. The current employee is a COMOT VI/Step 3 with an annual salary of $32,882. County Treasurer, amend salary line 1030-1990 Extra Help as previously approved. Public Defender, salary line 1303-1750 Secretary as previously approved. The current employee is a COMOT V/Step 1 with an annual salary of $28,482. Funds were previously transferred into Temporary Replacement due to FMLA. Under Sheriff, request to make a title position change in salary line 1050-0017, the existing position is a Sergeant. The new position would be Deputy, the annual salary is $40,938. And that’s it and I make that in the form of a motion.

President Abell: Under Old Business we have the ordinance before us and, Cheryl, already looked through it and read it, regarding the real estate purchase that the County Commissioners had approached us regarding several months ago. We need to act on this today and I would first like to entertain a motion to allow that we vote only once on this ordinance today rather and waive the second reading of this ordinance.

President Abell: Is there any discussion? I noticed that the President of the Commissioners is here if anyone has any questions. Mr. Sutton?

Cheryl Musgrave: Thank you. Cheryl Musgrave, President of the Vanderburgh County Commission.

Councilmember Sutton: On this particular tract of land, its just south of I-164, Veterans Parkway area, off of 41, that quadrant there, now it sits a little bit below, now I guess the last time we were here and you presented it, one of the questions that I had was the usage and how – can you kind of give some details on that because I guess in relation to my question I was wanting to know, in terms of what our role would be in relation to that usage, that land. So if you can talk about that?

Cheryl Musgrave: I have been working – first of all, I have been working closely with County Surveyor, Bill Jeffers to approach the issue of use of this property. As you know, it lies adjacent to an important drain for the county and he has interest in making sure that the drainage is improved as well as, perhaps, maintained. He and I have been approached by a gentleman who has just recently been with the Corps of Engineers and this gentleman has opened our eyes to a possibility for an economic development use for this land. And we’re having our county attorney check into it which we could not do until we actually acquire the property, that – to do a lot of deed research here. But it appears we will be able to set this area up as a wetland mitigation bank. There are no wetland mitigation banks any closer than Louisville, from what I understand. And the way this works is, for a company that would want to be developing some piece of land somewhere in the area that this bank would serve, if they had wetlands on their property, they would be able to buy credits from this bank. We would develop the wetlands on our property so that they could develop the wetlands in the land that they’re going to use for their development into their development. So in other words, it’s a swap. We create more wetlands, and they are allowed to reduce the wetland in the area where they’re developing. So the wetland mitigation bank, I think, is an important economic development tool and it also preserves it as a wetland. We are further looking into the possibility that even though it would be a wetland mitigation bank, that we would be able to establish just trails, very, very unimproved trails, think dirt path, if you would, through this area so that people could walk through there, look at birds, and then I’ve also been approached by some folks in the county who do trail riding with their horses. And so that’s a concept that’s also out there. We would use this one part for walking, another part for horses, since you don’t want them on the same trail, that would be inconvenient. So those are the gentle recreational uses that we have in mind. But the economic development function, I think, is the most important. Now as to your role, I don’t know whether we would have to come back and ask for any permissions with regard to the wetland mitigation bank and the attorneys will research that and let me know. And, if so, I’ll be back before you. As to developing of the trails, since we’re not going to be laying asphalt or doing a lot, I would hope that we could do that with our existing county highway personnel. But, of course, you know, we’re pretty far away from me being able to say what costs would be involved in that. But I also know that there are significant grants available, state/federal types of grants, and even private grants, and I would look to that avenue first before I asked you all to participate in funding anything. I hope that answers your question, Mr. Sutton.

Councilmember Sutton: I guess there are a couple of things that are rather new to me, I guess I hadn’t heard this wetland mitigation bank concept previously. In listening to that concept, so a developer purchases land, its got wetland on it, they want to develop it for what have you, and in order for them to be able to take those types of steps, then they pay the county, and then we take those dollars and develop this land? Is that, am I grasping that correctly?

Councilmember Sutton: So how often do we run into situations like that? I guess I’m not really familiar with the frequency of times when we might have wetlands out there where developers are somehow or another running into that as an issue here.

Cheryl Musgrave: I can’t answer your question and I would refer you to the folks who do know. I think that Greg Wathen at the Economic Development Coalition would be our best resource for that. Joe Wallace at GAGE. I have run it past Joe Wallace and he thinks it would be a terrific incentive to offer generally and put on all of our documentation. It shows forward thinking. But the Corps of Engineers folk approached us and they’re citing this as a need. So we didn’t dream this up in a vacuum, and we are being told that yes, this would be valuable. The Corps of Engineers fellow has told us that Chicago has several of these. Many of them are private developments, not governmental and I think this would be good for the government to offer here. We do have a lot of flood plain in Vanderburgh County. Perhaps this is a valuable resource that we can develop for the future.

Councilmember Sutton: How much liability do we have with this? If we had this in county hands, you know, it’s a flood plain area, if someone has an accident or someone drowns or something in that area, what responsibility are we taking on?

Cheryl Musgrave: I am not a lawyer and that’s fundamentally a legal question, so I’m going to have to tell you that I can’t answer that and perhaps your attorney would be better positioned or perhaps we could come back at a later date with the county attorney and he could –

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, is that something maybe you’ve thought about or factored in with this or –

Cheryl Musgrave: You know, we have Burdette Park that also invites the public on to that land and I would want to look at how we address those issues for Burdette Park itself. So I don’t imagine that would be very different from that.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I guess I see this land as a little bit different than say, like a Burdette Park, being that we’ve got staff on a regular – of course, not 24 hours a day, people aren’t watching every square inch of the park, but we do have a relatively good coverage and we can secure off that area, where this is an open area, a little bit different. The intent is not necessarily to have county employees actively doing things there as I’m maybe –

Cheryl Musgrave: We can’t even build on this land. There would be no place to put a structure, so all of those issues would certainly have to be explored. May I invite you to join Surveyor Jeffers and myself as we work through these?

Councilmember Sutton: Uh-huh. Mr. Ahlers, in relation to publicly or county owned parcels of land like this, what liability or additional liability would we potentially, I know you haven’t had a chance to go in and dig through the statutes and look at this issue, but just from a general standpoint, what are we probably talking about here?

Jeff Ahlers: Well, my thought would be that most likely I assumed that the county would have this property placed within their insurance coverage and so we would have the same insurance coverage on this property that we would with any other property that the county has. As long as it remains unimproved property, typically, there would be a lesser standard in terms of having any type of liability versus as you improve it, you know, like parks and that. I suppose you can get liability from someone claiming the playground equipment or something was defective. But typically, unimproved land, you know, you would have a lesser risk of liability unless there is some hidden defect that we’re unaware of in the land that would pose a risk to someone. But I guess my overall assumption would be that, I assume that the County Commissioners insure all real estate that the county owns and that this would be put within that umbrella and coverage and so, therefore, we would have insurance coverage.

Councilmember Sutton: And how do you access this land because I’ve driven by there –

Councilmember Sutton: Okay. I don’t know, it just concerns me about this piece of property. I mean, that’s...

Councilmember Goebel: Yes, first of all, thank for the information. And the layout that you gave earlier when you first proposed, I have a concern about point number ten as far as the recommendation for cleaning up the site, unauthorized debris, dumping along the way. Have you, I’m just curious, is this a pretty large problem or –

Cheryl Musgrave: My understanding is that its not a large problem but that there just is some dumping that has been done there and I’ve been assured that our county guys could haul it off in pretty short order.

Councilmember Goebel: Is that not, at this time, the state’s responsibility to keep it clean?

Cheryl Musgrave: Yes, I would suppose so. If you would like to, I could have us enter into negotiations with them again.

Cheryl Musgrave: They have reduced the price of this property from their appraised value and if I remember that correctly, it was perhaps in the 50's, at least 50,000 and they have reduced that down to 10. I asked them several times in writing and verbally to give it to us for free and they declined to take us up on that.

Councilmember Sutton: Any time we’re able to purchase some good parcels of land, I mean, I think that’s always a good idea, but this particular parcel, just the condition of it, and thank goodness it did pass a phase one, but being in the flood plain and all, I just don’t know if this is something that would be workable for us. I vote no.

Jeff Ahlers: You’ve got three votes. It would require four votes in order to pass, so I believe that it fails. I can double check the statute, but the statute is worded that it takes a majority of Council, not a majority of the quorum. So without having achieved four votes, I believe that it does not pass at this time. Now I realize we have two members missing and that if you want to re-advertise it and vote on it next month, I mean, there is nothing that says that you can’t.

Jeff Ahlers: I’m not suggesting anything. I am just advising you as to the situation that we only have five of the seven Councilmembers present and that I think that it fails by not garnering four votes.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I’m just saying that by mentioning that, it appears that’s what you’re – you didn’t say it, but you’re implying. I mean, the vote is what it is. I mean, we didn’t say that for any of the other votes that were taken here whether they were up or down, whether we would come back and revisit those because of the missing Councilmembers here.

Jeff Ahlers: That’s your call, that’s not mine. I’m just advising the Council of the situation, what your options are.

President Abell: Under New Business, the August County Council meeting filing date is July the 12th, 2007. I assume Mrs. Deig will make sure everyone understands that.

President Abell: I did advise Mr. Coker that we would give him a few minutes to speak this morning. He wants to discuss tax relief. Mr. Coker.

David Coker: My name is David Coker, I’m the president of the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers Association. And the first thing I’d like to ask is for you to write the word draft at the top of this letter because I don’t think this says what I will inevitably write to the governor for reasons which may appear obvious in a minute. As you know, our organization has been closely monitoring the activities of local government in Vanderburgh County for the past several years. And many of my members are gravely concerned at the increases in property taxes that have resulted from the trending and the changes in the law and that over the past couple of years. And I’d just like to read this letter to you, read it in to the record and then perhaps you can decide. I’m not here to play the blame game and I have publicly commended the County Council on many occasions for your collective ability to hold the line on raising taxes. You’ve done a much better job than other local governmental entities in our community and I think everybody needs to know that. So let me read this letter and then you’ll understand the nature of my request.

“For the past several years members of the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers – “

“For the past several years members of the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers Association have closely monitored the spending priorities, tax rates, and bonded indebtedness of local units of government within our county. In the past four years, we have witnessed a cumulative increase in local property tax levies of all local governmental units in excess of $100 million.

“joined members of the state legislature in what was called a Property Tax Replacement Study Committee to examine the issue of property tax relief throughout the state. At the time, I traveled to Indianapolis several times to monitor these discussions and once made personal remarks urging legislators to “first, do no harm” with respect to taxpayers at the local level. Unfortunately, after many months of serious conversations, little in the way of substantive tax reform proposals came out of the committee.

This past year, the General Assembly apparently agonized over the property tax situation seeing an across-the-board increase of some 24 percent for all taxpayers in the state. But the solution of placing over 2000 slot machines at two horse racing tracks in Central Indiana hardly passes for serious tax policy in the minds of an overwhelming majority of Hoosier residents.

“a Comparison of Levied Tax Statement from the Vanderburgh County Treasurers office for the home in which I reside. The report showed that under the new trending formula used for figuring property tax liability, our house had been reassessed at $110,200 from $84,300 the previous year. With the requisite change in the tax rate, our total tax liability has grown from $595.44 in 2005 to $933.88 this year, a 63.75 percent increase in two years.

According to the Vanderburgh County Assessors office, we are not alone in our concerns. To date, over 8,700 Vanderburgh County residents are appealing their new assessments under the new formula. I understand people in all parts of the state are equally concerned and outraged over these tax increases. Likewise, many people I talked with have repeatedly stated that they believe the entire tax structure in this state is way too complicated for the average person to comprehend. Many of my members are senior citizens on fixed incomes and these enormous tax increases impose an unfair burden upon them when their home represents the largest tangible financial investment they own. Since we do not use means testing or an ability to pay standard in the imposition of property taxes, the current tax policy seems exceedingly unfair to seniors and retirees.

Conversely, local elected officials are very concerned about the constraints imposed upon them by state law, and they worry daily about future financial obligations with the inadequate revenue sources to finance local government.

With this as a backdrop, we are asking if you would consider appointing a bi-partisan “Blue Ribbon” commission of business leaders, academics, representatives of organized labor and elected officials to revisit the topic of property tax reform for Indiana residents. The goal of such a panel would be to come up with a menu of specific legislative options which could be considered in future sessions of the General Assembly.

This is not a Republican or Democratic issue – it is an issue that raises the question: “What is the right thing to do for the property taxpayers of the state of Indiana.” I have some additional ideas regarding the composition of the panel I envision which I would be glad to share with you.”

Now what I am basically wanting to ask of the County Council would be the possible approval at a future meeting of a resolution that would call upon the governor to appoint this idea of a Blue Ribbon panel of people aside from legislators and aside from local government officials to look at this. You guys deal with this all the time. Every department head that came before you today asked for money that I assume is over and above budgeted totals on an annual basis, is that correct? Most of this money was not budgeted and, you know, several hundred thousand dollars that you approved just at this one meeting, and I think that there’s nothing in the law right now that says that my tax bill can’t go up by an equal or even greater amount within the two percent circuit breaker, meaning that my taxes could double again under the current law. And, you know, you have to wonder sometimes how attractive is a state that places this kind of burden on the idea of home ownership. Home ownership is the American dream and the way we’ve got it set up right now, it looks like we’re penalizing homeowners. And I don’t want to get into a conversation about tax abatement or phase-ins or TIF’s or any of that, I just think the time has come for the Governor to get involved in this. The legislator has struggled with it for years and they can’t seem to get the job done. If this passes the Council, I will take it to the City, I will take to the County Commissioners. I may even take it to other counties. I read this morning that Warrick County is soon to be mailing its tax bills and I suggest that their increases are going to be similar to what we’ve experienced here in Vanderburgh County. I’ll take it to Gibson County, I’ll take it to Posey County, wherever, to get the kind of support from local elected officials to try to persuade the Governor to do something about this. And I’d be welcome to answer any questions and listen to any discussion you might have.

Councilmember Sutton: David, is your idea, your concept that you are proposing right now, is it for Vanderburgh County only –

Councilmember Sutton: I’ll repeat my question. The proposal that you have presented to us, this idea, is this just for Vanderburgh County?

David Coker: No, this would be for the entire state of Indiana. From my understanding, one of the reasons that we have experienced such dramatic increases in such a short period of time, and correct me if I’m wrong, is because we decided to go through the general reassessment that was ordered by the court in 2002, and so consequently, when the trending kicked in, it was like a double whammy. And so we’re kind of at the leading edge of experiencing these dramatic increases from other counties in the state. It also is a function of timing. We mailed our tax bills out on time, I believe, is that not correct? And some counties haven’t and they won’t, and some are even delaying and are not expecting to send their tax bills out as late as October, I have heard, because they’re wanting to avoid having to send the tax bills out twice because of the refund that’s supposed to be coming from this money that the state legislature is apparently trying to come up with. So I really believe that this is the time for this. It will hopefully, from a political standpoint, diffuse the issue of property tax increases for people that will be running for re-election next year. That’s part of my motivation behind this. I really think that we need to work, we need to broaden the discussion and we need to bring in people from labor, people from academia and people from the business community to sit down and have a serious conversation about the total revenue structure of this state from sales taxes to user fees to whatever, to finance state government. I had a long conversation with Dennis Avery yesterday and he says that over the next two years, although the increases were budgeted early this year at zero for Medicaid alone, the increases are going to be over 12.5% in the next two years. And that money has to come from somewhere. And I’m just saying that the property tax system is not the appropriate place for this money to come from and they’re going to continue to have to revisit this issue and I think its time that the Governor came to the table and start dealing with it.

President Abell: Did Mr. Avery give you any indication that the state is going to embrace this idea?

David Coker: He said he would welcome a conversation of this nature. And as I said, in 2004 the legislature tried to deal with it themselves and they could not come up with any meaningful changes. And part of the problem is the sheer complexity of the revenue structure in this state. Its terribly complicated with all the exemptions and homestead credits and local option income taxes and other option income taxes that – or other option taxes that some local units of government can impose. It’s a mess. And there are bright minds in this state. I attended several of those meetings in 2004 and I have a person in mind that I’d like to chair this panel. And it would be none other than Pat Kiely, the President of the Indiana Manufacturer’s Association, who is a former member of the General Assembly. He participated in these hearings, in these meetings of the legislative panel two years ago, three years ago. He’s incredibly brilliant. He knows more about tax and budget and debt structure of both the state and local units of government than probably anybody else in the state and he would be an ideal person to head a panel of this nature and probably could identify other people who are equally fair minded and intelligent to work on it. I’m not asking for you to do this today. I’d just like for you to take it under advisement and if you see fit, have the attorney come up with a resolution and possibly pass it at a future meeting.

Councilmember Goebel: I know time has become an issue now, but I do want to thank you for recognizing the efforts of this Council in trying to maintain our budgets and keep costs low and certainly the property tax issue is a great one that’s in the back of everyone’s minds. And I think as long as people continue to voice their unhappiness and outright dismay because there are those who are losing homes, can’t afford to pay, we have to do something. I think a letter like this, perhaps not just to the Governor but to all the members of the General Assembly, etcetera, all the way through, that all entities work together to try to lower the costs of government, but that’s not going to happen, but try to maybe find another way to fund or help ease the burden of the property taxpayers. Its an issue that’s kind of died right now in Vanderburgh but it will come right back when the next assessment or next payment comes out.

David Coker: We do have 8,700 people that are challenging their assessments, that ought to be a signal.

President Abell: Anyone else have a question? Mr. Coker, possibly when you get this into a form that you are going to send to the Governor, you could get all of us a copy and then we can discuss it further when all of our members of the Council are here.

David Coker: Okay. When is the next meeting when everybody will be here that you know of? August?

President Abell: August 1st. I never know when everybody will be here, but let’s just assume that everyone will be here.

President Abell: The joint city/county budget hearings are set for July 31st at 3:00 p.m. in this room. Everyone should put that on their calendar. Is there anymore business to come before this Council? Everyone have a nice holiday and celebrate our freedom and I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m.)

1010-3603	Record Storage	50,000.00	5,000.00
Total		50,000.00	5,000.00

1160-1971	Accrued Payments	8,384.00	8,384.00
1160-1900	FICA	642.00	642.00
1160-1910	PERF	587.00	587.00
Total		9,613.00	9,613.00

1230-1990	Extra Help	6,038.00	6,038.00
1230-1900	FICA	462.00	462.00
Total		6,500.00	6,500.00

1300-3850	Building Commission	13,625.00	13,625.00
Total		13,625.00	13,625.00

1450-2210	Gas & Oil	8,000.00	8,000.00
1450-3200	Utilities	20,000.00	20,000.00
Total		28,000.00	28,000.00

2490-1090-3370	Computer (Data Mgmt)	64,496.00	58,000.00
Total		64,496.00	58,000.00

2490-1150-3130	Travel/Mileage	1,500.00	1,500.00
2490-1150-3410	Printing	2,000.00	2,000.00
2490-1150-2600	Office Supplies	2,000.00	2,000.00
Total		5,500.00	5,500.00

2042-30090	Child Welfare Services	100,000.00	100,000.00
Total		100,000.00	100,000.00