The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 4^th day of November 2009 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:34 a.m. by County Council President Tom Shetler, Jr.

President Shetler: Okay, if we could call the meeting to order. Hopefully, Royce will be here shortly. It’s November 4^th at 8:34, and time for our County Council meeting. We’ll have the attendance roll call please.

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

President Shetler: There being six members present and one absent, we have a majority here, so if I could ask Councilman Lloyd to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

President Shetler: Thank you. Next is approval of the minutes for October 7^th and September 30^th. Do I have any questions about the minutes?

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you. Good morning. First on the agenda under Sheriff, 1050-3200 Utilities in the amount of $6,000. Then we have under Jail 1051-2240 Medical in the amount of $150,000. I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. Do I have any questions about the motion? All in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, we have three requests, Utilities, Travel/Mileage, and Equipment Repair, for a total of $1,850, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: Motion and a second. Do I have any questions about the motion? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, under The Centre we have several requests. In fact, Mr. President, well, we’ll keep them separate. These are salary adjustments based on the union contract for a total of $11,755. I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. Do I have any questions? Any comments? All in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Burdette Park, the same, for a total of $29,413, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: I have a motion and a second. Do I have any questions or comments? All in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: County Council, Accrued Payments, FICA & PERF for a total of $14,096, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just a comment. This was for, I believe it was a County Clerk employee that left – is leaving, and those are the accrued payments to pay out the remaining vacation and other time. It’s a standard thing that we run through County Council.

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

Councilmember Raben: Again, salary adjustments under County Highway for a total of $23,489, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: I have a motion and a second. Do I have any questions or comments? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Cum Bridge, for a total of $4,455, I’ll move approval.

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

Councilmember Raben: Under Reassessment/Area Plan, Miscellaneous Equipment in the amount of $6,500, I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second. This is for that blueprint printer that we’ve talked about coming out of a couple of different, rather than general fund. So any other questions? Motion and a second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Now I’ll ask, is everyone comfortable with all the transfer requests? No objections to any transfer requests? Okay, Mr. President, I’d like to make a motion to approve all transfers as listed.

President Shetler: Motion and a second. Any questions, comments? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: Mr. President, we need to first move into Old Business/New Business, before we approve the amendments to the Salary Ordinance today.

President Shetler: Okay. We have no Old Business but under New Business, resolution to transfer the Children’s Fund/Excess Levy to Rainy Day Fund. This has kind of been outlined by statute in order to recover what is it, approximately half a million dollars or something, Bill?

President Shetler: Alright, and what we need is a resolution to get that transferred into our general fund. Do I have any questions? Yes?

Councilmember Lloyd: Just a comment. This was something that came about from the property tax legislation from the state legislature where the county no longer has to collect for this. And the legislature allowed local government to recapture those funds. So that’s what this would be about. This would be the balance in the Children’s Fund for, I guess, welfare payments or whatever, and then what the county is looking to do is transfer that to the Rainy Day fund for emergencies or other expenditures in the future.

President Shetler: And seconded. Do I have any questions about the motion? All in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just a note that this is being paid out of, what was it, court miscellaneous fees, it’s not going to affect the general fund and it’s something I believe we’d approved in the past. So it seemed like a good use of the funds.

President Shetler: Do I have any other questions or comments? We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Next is Public Defender, employee change. I think this came out of Job Study last week. Is this taking the part-times and –

Councilmember Lloyd: Right. This would be where the – actually, there is a possibility of saving the county money, but you take two part-time public defenders that are actually treated as full-time employees for benefit purposes: health insurance, pension. And what Mr. Owens requested was one full-time employee to replace those two part-time. So we would actually save some money on FICA and health insurance, things like that. But in conversations with him, he mentioned that as a full-time public defender, he would not be allowed any outside law practice, whereas the part-timers are allowed to have. So that’s one difference. But anyway, this was something, all these requests here were approved by Job Study.

President Shetler: Okay, anybody have any questions or comments? Did we do a motion for approval on that yet?

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

President Shetler: Next is in the Prosecutor’s office, grant position approval. That, again, was approved by Job Study and in essence, we’re getting some federal money in and trying to utilize that for a Chief Deputy position in the Prosecutor’s office, I believe.

Councilmember Lloyd: This grant, I believe it was over $100,000. It was for a Deputy Prosecutor Executive II, and the Council stipulated in the past when the grant runs out, the position would run out unless the Prosecutor makes some other arrangements.

Councilmember Lloyd: But the position is fully funded by a grant in the Prosecutor’s incentive fund and the Job Study did approve it.

Councilmember Lloyd: It was full-time, it’s not part-time. It’s a full-time Prosecutor.

President Shetler: Oh, that’s the next one. I’m sorry. Okay, we have a motion for approval and I need a second then, on that motion.

President Shetler: Okay, Councilman Goebel seconded. Do I have any other questions about the motion?

Councilmember Kiefer: I had a question. What happens when the grant money runs out? This position is gone, too?

Councilmember Lloyd: The position will be eliminated unless they find some other grant or some other method of funding the position. But it would not go on to the general fund for the Council.

Councilmember Lloyd: We have Mr. Brown here if you had any other further questions.

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

President Shetler: Next is on the Sheriff, three Court Screeners – did I skip one? Yeah, Sheriff, three Court Screeners to start off at a Step III. Two of them would start off with a Step III placement. Again, this was discussed at Job Study. In essence, it has to do with the fact that we are having a couple Sheriff Deputies who have retired from the Sheriff’s department and are moving over to be Screeners and their additional pay because of their experience in law enforcement. The fact that they’re basically ready to go on the job, we felt at Job Study that those positions, those individuals needed, perhaps deserved a little bit of extra pay because of that, and that’s why the Step III placement on it. This is not uncommon, and it’s not breaking with new precedents, it’s been done in the Prosecutor’s office, it’s been done in the Public Defender’s office. In those cases, we hired retired Sheriff Deputies and there may be some cases of city police officers with the same thing. But what we’ve done is stepped them up because of their experience as investigators in those offices, so this is following the precedent of what we’ve done in the past. Again, this went to Job Study and it did pass, and I don’t know if, Councilman Lloyd, you want to elaborate on that any further, but...

Councilmember Lloyd: At the Job Study, the Sheriff did indicate that the 20 plus years, I guess, law enforcement experience that these employees have would be beneficial to the positions of Screeners in the mission of security for the Civic Center, so based on that, based on their experience, the Job Study was comfortable with bringing them in at a higher level than a starting salary Court Screener that you would just hire off the street. So that’s where the PAT III came from.

Councilmember Kiefer: I had a question for the Sheriff. I thought you were getting kind of lonely back there and you wanted to come up here.

Eric Williams: I’m going to try that new tactic of waiting till you’re done with me and then show up.

Councilmember Kiefer: Of course, I know it’s been up in the air whether or not all people get screened as they come through the Civic Center or not, but if for some reason there is less than 100% of the people entering, is the need for the employees, whether you have 100% of the employees come through the screening or just everybody but employees, does that affect the number of people that you need? I mean, say there is 600 fewer people coming through if they don’t screen employees, how does that affect the number of people that you would require?

Eric Williams: I can’t say definitely that yes it does affect it, but I think the answer would be yes, but it’s going to be the reverse. The numbers that we requested were based on the plan that was recommended last night, that employees go through the turnstile screening as opposed to complete screening. Should we be in a position where we start screening all employees all the time, that may put us in a position where we need some additional help. This plan, these numbers were put together with the recommendation in mind that was made last night.

Councilmember Kiefer: I mean, one minute or less, I guess, or a couple of minutes?

Eric Williams: We’re going to basically, the plan that was in place that was recommended by the ad hoc committee that was put together that consisted of myself, the Chief of Police, Circuit Court Judge Heldt, Superior Court Judge Pigman, Commissioner Tornatta, Superintendent of County Buildings Dave Rector, Security Manager Bruce Hargrave, members of Council had sat on the committee from time to time, the Mayor. Basically, the recommendation was that we duplicate what we’ve been doing in the courts into the Civic Center as quickly as we can. And that included a three tier level of screening. The first level being general public, basically the members of the general public would go through complete screening, magnetometer, X-raying their stuff. The second level would be the general employee screening which would be card carrying, swipe it, confirm the card is valid, go through the turnstile, still going through the three major checkpoints into the campus. And then the third tier is that alternate access and for those individuals because of the job position, security personnel, delivery contractors, officeholders, judges, that have to make entrance into the building from an alternate entrance other than those three. And they would do that electronically. All those entrances and exits are going to be recorded electronically, they’re all going to be on camera, everybody will be screened, it’s just your definition of screening and to what level they’ll be screened. That was the recommendation.

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. President, Sheriff, I thought you did a real good job last night explaining how this process would work. You did a real good job.

Councilmember Bassemier: You really did. I feel very comfortable with your recommendation and the board’s.

President Shetler: Anybody else have any other questions, particularly, about these positions? Councilman Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: I agree with all the positions and I think they need to be filled. I just have a little issue with the starting salary. So are we voting on them separately or –

President Shetler: Alright, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Let’s see, I think we did have a motion and a second.

Councilmember Goebel: There is no doubt that the individuals coming in have paid their dues. Sheriff Williams recommended them very highly and that carries so much weight, but the salary issue is one that bothers me.

Councilmember Lloyd: So I guess the staff is going to be seven – is it going to be seven Screeners?

Eric Williams: I think we’re confusing issues. We were hiring three new Screeners, which adds to my two, which would be a total of five civilian security Screeners assigned to both the courts and the Civic Center to complement the contingent of deputies that are assigned to secure the courts.

Councilmember Lloyd: And these two are going to be paid at a higher level based on their prior law enforcement experience?

Eric Williams: Yes, the three new positions that came in when I appeared before Job Study, one of them is basically off the street, they were a prior employee of the Sheriff’s office but their experience with the Sheriff’s office didn’t equate to better experience over in the courts. But the two that are retiring as Deputy Sheriffs, their 20 plus years of experience, I think, do very well equate to being a better qualified, and a quicker learner, more adept at being able to handle that job much more quickly. They’ve got all the security training that we would need, they know the routines, they know the personalities, and they’ve been out on the streets for years being able to defend themselves, so I think they’re a perfect fit for that position.

Eric Williams: He’s going to handle both. There was no value to us in being able to expand and create two different units, so we’re going to create – we’re just going to expand it into the Civic Center because there’s going to be some ability, that way the Civic Center can draw from extra resources that may make themselves available in courts on slow days and vice versa. You know, we can load balance a little bit between our employees, too, by making that one unit as opposed to separating the units.

President Shetler: Mr. Rector, a question came up and I know you were there last night, I don’t know if you stayed through the duration or not, but I guess a question came up by Councilman Lloyd or a point, several voiced a concern about staying out and it’s happened to me before in the court building. In inclement weather trying to get through the security, if perhaps we could contact, you know, I’ll promote a local vendor here that’s a pretty good manufacturer of canvas, Anchor Industries, for example, who we might be able to get some vendor to come in and install some kind of canopy or whatever in those two entrances, the one on the court building existing today and then the back door here that would extend that out a little bit so we could keep the public out of the inclement weather as best as possible. Is that feasible or could you check into that for us?

Dave Rector: That is certainly feasible. I think this is going to be new to all of us, we’re going to have to see how the flow goes, what the queuing is, how we stack up and in the inclement weather, I think, obviously we do need something for cover for the building. We want it to be attractive to the Civic Center, but I will explore some opportunities to do something for some covering at those locations if, indeed, it starts that we have people standing out in bad weather.

President Shetler: Well, like I said, I think it exists already at the other – in the court building per se, so it might be something we’d look into because it’s relatively inexpensive, I think, in the whole scheme of things here, so if we could – you know, for a few thousand dollars, a few small thousand dollars there, I think we could protect the public from inclement weather, I think that might go a long way.

Councilmember Raben: You know, would you, Dave, today, I mean, if you’re going to come and go through basically one door now, today, right? I mean, you don’t want people exiting the building that could allow somebody to come through where people are exiting, so we’ve got large foyer areas that you can probably put some of those, you know, where you wrap lines?

Dave Rector: Actually, we’ll have three entrances: the courts building existing and then the two entrances to this building. But if you’ve noticed in the front of the building, Martin Luther King side, it is immediate. As soon as you come in is where we have the metal detector and X-ray machine and I think there’s a good opportunity, we may have some people stacking up outside.

Councilmember Raben: But the doors as you – walking into that building, that’s set up on the far left side of that entrance area, the doors to the right and there’s multiple doors there, those will now be locked, right?

Dave Rector: There will be an exit only and we’ll have a tensile barrier across there to prevent the public and visitors and employees so that they can’t come in straight up the stairs, they’ll have to go through screening of some sort. So those doors really won’t be available to set up a queuing stand.

President Shetler: Okay, any other questions or comments? Yes, Councilman Lloyd?

Councilmember Lloyd: Mrs. Deig reminded me, the two Court Screeners are currently being paid at the entry level salary and it would be up to this Council to approve moving them to the Step III. So as of right now, they’re all being paid the same and that’s depending on our action.

President Shetler: And that’s what this motion is for, to move them to a Step III.

Sandie Deig: In the past, they’ve all started at the initiation (inaudible, microphone not turned on)

President Shetler: Right. Do we need to clarify the fact that this is going to be retroactive or is that assumed?

President Shetler: Okay, so the motion might – who made the motion, I’m sorry?

President Shetler: Yes, Ed, we might want to amend that motion to include some wording in there that makes it retroactive because these gentlemen started the second?

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, I’ll amend it to say it’s retroactive to the (inaudible)

President Shetler: Okay, alright. Does anybody have a question about that or comments?

President Shetler: Those are just for those two, that’s correct. Councilman Sutton, do I need to bring you up to, I mean, you’ve caught most of the discussion here?

Councilmember Sutton: We had discussion last week and the material that the Sheriff provided to us was pretty helpful, so I’m fine.

Councilmember Kiefer: I’ll vote yes but with some reservation on this, but I will still vote yes, thanks.

President Shetler: The next is on the seven Confinement Officers. Do I have a motion for approval?

President Shetler: Seconded. Do I have any questions about the motion? All in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Lloyd: On the Sheriff, there is also a part-time Clerk replacement, Sex Offender Registry Clerk, I don’t believe it’s on the agenda, $9.00 an hour for 20 hours.

Councilmember Goebel: That is one where you’ve actually reduced the time, is that correct?

Eric Williams: Yes. That’s the part-time position that we have that handles all the registry entries for the sex offender registry. That part-time person is one of the new Court Screener positions. That position used to carry, I believe, 32 hours a week at a rate of about 10 something an hour. In the meantime, while she was in that position, our being able to automate some things, we’ve gotten this down to a fairly fine science. It’s fairly well automated. The need for the hours is not the same nor is the value of the experience in there, so I felt very comfortable reducing that to 20 hours a week and reducing the salary back to the normal part-time range within the county. But we do need the help to keep that registry up to date.

Eric Williams: Yeah. When we asked for this position originally, it was shortly before we had asked for you to implement and the Commission to implement the sex offender registry fee that’s allowed by law. So basically, the fees we collect we return to the general fund to help fund this position. And I think last year we turned in about 16,000, which should cover the position.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, I think the program you’ve initiated here has brought a lot of very good reception from the general public because it’s something needed and I think you’re doing a great job in this regard.

Eric Williams: Well, I appreciate that. One of the things I am very proud of is the sex offender registry. The model that we started several years ago when this first became an issue for the Sheriff’s office is really the model now that’s used across the state. We have many, many agencies from around the state and the country that ask us for our system that we have in place, our forms that we use and how we hold our offenders accountable in our community. So I am proud of the work that Corporal Wedding and the staff have done on that.

President Shetler: Okay, any other questions? I think we need a motion for approval on that.

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded. Do I have any further questions on the motion?

Councilmember Sutton: You said we don’t have it on the agenda, where do we have that?

Councilmember Lloyd: The last page of the salary ordinance amendments, page 4, and it’s under the Sheriff, the third item, approving a replacement of a part-time clerk, Sex Offender Registry Clerk, at $9.00 an hour for 20 hours.

Councilmember Raben: We’ll actually pick that up with document itself or we can – the motion is out there, that’s fine.

President Shetler: Okay, so we’ve got a motion and a second. Any questions about it? Any further questions? All in favor signify by saying aye.

Councilmember Raben: We probably didn’t need to approve those individually, but the approval of the part-time, and I’ll move approval.

President Shetler: And this is a part-time position in the Prosecutor’s office?

Councilmember Raben: At 35 hours a week at $15 an hour. This will be funded by the grant in the Prosecutor’s Incentive Fund.

Councilmember Lloyd: Just a note that the Personnel Administration Committee did approve this.

President Shetler: Okay, what is this – it’s a request for buying a couple or purchasing a couple of vehicles, is that correct?

President Shetler: I don’t know if anybody, because I’m just now seeing – has anybody gotten a copy of this? Basically, it’s a request to purchase a Ford Expedition 2010?

Chris Walsh: Two vehicles, yeah. An Expedition and a four wheel drive. It’s part of the rotation of our fleet. Both vehicles are about ten years old and we’ve put in motors and transmissions and they’re just in pretty bad shape. And this was the year that those two came up.

President Shetler: So what you currently have is a Ford Expedition, it’s a year 2000?

President Shetler: Okay. I noticed both – and I’ll pass this around, I apologize. I’m just seeing this for the first time myself. But the Expedition, I noticed it’s an XLT and I noticed the –

Chris Walsh: And that was the cheapest that came in as far as you can’t get any cheaper packages, apparently to get a four wheel drive in that. Dollar wise, we wound up coming in under that part of the budget and that was the only vehicle that really worked for what we were looking at.

President Shetler: Do we have mechanics on duty out there at the county garage that work on and service them?

Chris Walsh: Yeah, we run 99 percent of all that through our department. We did get one mechanic’s slot, I guess, funded for 2010.

Councilmember Bassemier: And I understand he’s working very hard in order to keep up.

Chris Walsh: The odometer broke on the one I’m driving. Its got somewhere around 100,000. When it does come on, it comes on different mileage half the time. It’s been a good vehicle. Both vehicles have been good. We’ve stretched them out as long as we can. If we hold the rotation off, next year I need one more four wheel drive and then we were looking at the bigger trucks. It will knock me out of my rotation to keep the fleet up and running.

President Shetler: I think Weights & Measures would feel like they got new Cadillacs or something.

Councilmember Goebel: Aren’t we knocked out of rotation somewhat anyway in light of the economy?

Chris Walsh: Yeah, and we’ve adjusted in many other areas. This was funded in the 2009 budget so we have put in for those two vehicles at this time. Both these vehicles are running on their last legs. I’m just trying to keep the fleet up and going.

Councilmember Kiefer: Mr. President, you said, Chris, you said they’re running on their last legs so they are not running properly now? I mean, they’re having some problems?

Chris Walsh: Yeah, we just put a motor, transmission, and these vehicles go under a tremendous amount of – we’re on-road, off-road, in all kinds of weather, over trees, they have a rough life. I mean, --

Councilmember Kiefer: Is there a possibility for like, these are just trucks, pickup trucks, they’re not –

Chris Walsh: One is a four wheel drive pickup truck and one is a replacement for the Superintendent’s vehicle.

Councilmember Kiefer: But it’s not got, like, extra equipment on it that causes –

Chris Walsh: The packages, the way they do them anymore, the only way you can get an Expedition is to get that package. They have higher packages, that’s –

Councilmember Kiefer: No, no, no, what I meant was they don’t have extra things on it for your job. You know, --

Chris Walsh: No, not at this time. I’ll have to fit the trucks when they come in, but we’ll just refit them with the radio systems and that.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, I guess what I’m asking is, can, have you explored any opportunities for like maybe rebuilt engines or –

Chris Walsh: One truck has been through and the under carriage, it’s just on it’s last legs. I mean, it’s –

Councilmember Raben: I mean, I don’t necessarily question the need for replacement of a 100,000 plus mileage vehicle that’s used to haul and basically never gets out of the county, that’s probably the equivalent to 250 on a vehicle that gets some highway use, but I guess I do kind of question the need, whether we need Expeditions and stuff like that, and I don’t know how we ever got into those. But it seems like the more practical use for the County Highway would be pickups. You can put shovels and equipment and –

Chris Walsh: Well, the Superintendent’s vehicle is used for travel, for training, we go to road school, we go to different training seminars, and not only myself, but my personnel will use that vehicle. It’s really not always used just for myself. It’s the vehicle that if three or four people are going to Louisville to a snow rodeo or snow exposition, that’s the vehicle we use because it’s the only one in the fleet that can carry that many people.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I did see a third row seat on that proposal that was an extra 800 and something, which –

President Shetler: Did we go through normal procedures on this? I mean, go through Purchasing and put it out for public bid?

Chris Walsh: Correct. We followed the purchasing outline that’s always been followed under my understanding of how this department has always done.

President Shetler: This was advertised and we had several different dealers and –

Chris Walsh: In the purchasing outline, less than $50,000 expenditure is three informal, verbal or written quotes and that’s what we did. We actually had one or two more that didn’t respond, which you would think would respond in this economy, but...

Councilmember Raben: Another question real quick, as we look at replacing vehicles like this, this predates you so I’m just wanting a little update. I guess we’ve had discussion a few different times on a need or a want for replacing a gradall or gradalls. Has that situation cured itself or –

Chris Walsh: No, the situation was, when I came before you last, that mini excavator is supposed to help give us a little different look at how our construction needs are being met. The construction needs are changing as well with the addition of all the different subdivisions within the last twenty years. We have a greater need to get off the road and get into the right-of-ways between homes and that. That mini excavator is going to take the load off of some of these gradalls, is our hope. So I’m not necessarily not in need of a gradall, but this is, that mini excavator is a tool to help us relieve the load on the gradall.

Councilmember Raben: So equipment-wise, we’re not really looking at any big needs or requests now with the addition of the –

Chris Walsh: We’re going to get this mini excavator and try and utilize it in place of the gradall whenever possible, which will extend the life of the gradall, hopefully.

Councilmember Goebel: President Shetler, I don’t know if we’re ready to make a vote on this today with just getting the information. Can we postpone it until our next meeting when we’ve had time to maybe get a rationale for the need and things like that?

President Shetler: If that’s the pleasure of the Council, I have no problem. Will that cause a problem for you all as far as purchasing is concerned and pricing or –

Chris Walsh: It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t in that regard. I just want to – as long as – is it going to be like next week or I think the bids will still be good for another week or two. I don’t know when your next meeting is.

Councilmember Lloyd: I guess one point, for some reason, you guys didn’t go through the joint purchasing department and I just wondered why.

Chris Walsh: We just followed the guidelines that were given to me when I came in on how to purchase equipment and that’s what we’ve tried to go by. If there has been some changes that I’m not aware of, I certainly apologize.

Chris Walsh: And we looked that up on the computer and there was not, the vehicles that we were looking for weren’t on there.

Councilmember Lloyd: I also wondered about the joint purchasing, though, I mean, I think for vehicles or for large purchases, it may be different for a gradall, but I would think that they would be helpful.

Councilmember Kiefer: Just a question to clarify, you know, on the Expedition, you know, on the point that Councilman Raben brought up about the type of vehicle you need. Is the Expedition, is the reason you need that is because when you do travel, you need that extra space?

Chris Walsh: Yeah, we take, you know, it’s not just for myself, it’s for – and one thing, we’re trying to do more and more training, which is going to put us more and more, the training isn’t here locally, it’s Louisville, St. Louis –

Councilmember Kiefer: Just out of curiosity, how many trips a year would that be? Is it one or five or ten?

Chris Walsh: In the past there hasn’t been that many – three. I’d like to, depending on the expenditures, how much I can put towards training, I’m all about training and we want to get as many trips as we can. I’d like to see, you know, eight or nine trips.

Councilmember Kiefer: Just a thought or an idea, would you consider maybe downsizing your vehicle and then when you take your trip, just turn in mileage, drive a personal vehicle and turn in mileage because I think that might be cheaper than paying for the upsize in the vehicle. It’s just a consideration, you know, if we’re going to postpone this, might be worth the savings to turn in mileage to drive to Louisville or Indianapolis or wherever and just drive a personal vehicle.

President Shetler: I have a recommendation on the floor of postponing this to the next meeting. Do I have any objection to that?

Councilmember Bassemier: Are you sure these quotes will hold up because our next meeting is about three weeks away, end of this month.

Chris Walsh: I hope so. I’d have to check with Dave Hudson who takes cares of all the bids on our vehicles and our equipment and that to be sure that the quotes will still be good.

Councilmember Raben: I don’t know, I see Commissioner Tornatta is in the audience. They oversee the garage, just his thoughts.

Councilmember Lloyd: I guess another question would be, would we want to have them go through joint purchasing and see if they get a better price on these vehicles.

Councilmember Raben: Looking at the Expedition, that looked like there was 10 or 11,000 off of sticker, it might be difficult to find anything close to that. I mean, I don’t think the state’s QPA is a better deal than that.

Councilmember Sutton: Yeah, you’ve got one vehicle, you’ve got 10,000 off. The other, 8,000 off. So finding something more favorable would be pretty tough to find.

Councilmember Raben: I don’t question the competitiveness of those quotes whatsoever. You know, the only other question I had was on the need on the Expedition, but –

Troy Tornatta: Commissioner Tornatta. You know, one way I look is, let’s say we downgrade Chris to a, I don’t know a downgrade to what, but you put him in a pickup truck, take the difference in the two costs, and then we’re having a need on, obviously, in the county is when people do go and travel, do they take their own personal vehicles or do they end up renting a van? Or does the county buy a van? Those are some opportunities that we have outside if we put somebody in just a two cab situation. I think what I’d look at is the difference in the price between say an Expedition and another vehicle. And if we think that there is that big a difference, factoring in renting a van or renting some vehicles when they have to go to other places, which is what I would almost expect to do, then I think you have more of an answer.

President Shetler: Well, the difference is about 6 or $7,000 savings and if we’re amortizing it ten years, you’re talking 6 or $700 a year. So I don’t know that you’re going to necessarily recoup that per se.

Chris Walsh: That vehicle is used for other things as well, say in the event of a, not even a disaster, but a big wind event, Councilmembers, Commissioners, that vehicle is used to take officials, more than one. Our pickup trucks are really geared for just one other passenger, where this vehicle can take three or four people, get to the scene, show them what we have, let them make a determination.

Troy Tornatta: But the key is, it has to be four wheel drive and it has to have some type of clearance, and I think that’s where the Expedition has it that some of the other vehicles for–

President Shetler: The only, I guess, point in going along with Councilman Kiefer is that if we went with like an Explorer, it still seats seven or eight people, then you have accomplished both ends. You’ve lowered your cost 6 or $7,000, you’ve accommodated your out of town meetings, and you’re able to get people transferred around town and stuff on job sites when you need to. And I guess that would be the other alternative as opposed to a two or three seat type pickup truck.

Troy Tornatta: – $6,000, that’s my thing. I’m thinking at the max, it’s 3,000 and that just depends what their product is on the –

Councilmember Kiefer: You might want to consider fuel economy, too, because if you go with an Explorer and maybe it gets 10 percent better gas mileage over 100,000, you’re talking 25,000, you know.

Councilmember Kiefer: You know, so there’s some – at $2.50 a gallon, you know, there might be some consideration in that, too.

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. President? Explorer is a lot smaller car. That Expedition, we use one out at the Airport. I mean, you can fold those seats down, we can get a lot of tools in that Expedition. Not only that, but you know, you can drop the seats down and we had an Explorer before and it was small. It was real crowded if you’re wanting to transport anything and –

Chris Walsh: And in our estimation, and in ten years of looking at this vehicle, it is too small to –

Councilmember Bassemier: Yeah, in fact, I picked up some furniture yesterday in my Expedition, you can put a lot of stuff in when you drop the seats down. It’s almost equivalent to a small pickup truck and it’s enclosed, so.

Troy Tornatta: And I just want to say, is I totally understand the gas economy, what we’re looking at there. I mean, I get that. I think the difference is, for the practicality of what we have to do and the terrain that he has to go over, it most mimics the pickup truck where the Explorer most mimics more of a personal or smaller SUV. But what he’s doing, I believe it most mimics that pickup truck.

Chris Walsh: It’s been used for the last ten years. It hasn’t always served the needs, it’s been too small, it can’t carry as much people and you can’t put as much in it.

Councilmember Goebel: I still move that we postpone and, Chris, I know this is relatively new for you, but maybe you could come up with a rationale and give us the copies of the bids that I think we have one copy here today so we can look at it further. Maybe if we have questions, we can call you on that and move it to the next meeting so we can move on.

President Shetler: Yeah, we do have a recommendation, we can make that in the form of a motion, but if everyone pretty well agrees then we could just postpone it without a motion. Do I have anybody objecting to postponing this to the next meeting? It sounds like it is not going to handicap you all from performing your duties, so alright –

Councilmember Bassemier: Chris, why don’t you get a price of a four wheel drive pickup truck? I tell you, we got a heck of a deal on our Expedition.

Chris Walsh: Sure, there’s two vehicles in question and one is a four wheel drive.

President Shetler: And there’s no doubt, the prices are good, but we would like to – yeah, even the Explorer. I think the Explorer, because you’re using that today or something equivalent, and I really hate to keep pushing the Ford product per se, because, I mean, there’s other places to go like GM, Chrysler.

Chris Walsh: Municipal bidding has always made them a lot more aggressive, that’s why you’ll see such a big difference between them and some other ones.

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, the only thing I would add, I would still question whether you’d want to go through Purchasing and see if they could find a better price for you.

Chris Walsh: Oh, I just want to follow procedure and my estimation was, I was following procedure to the letter. So if I’m not, I will.

President Shetler: Alright, let’s go on to the next item which is Coop Extension. And we have an employment request.

Susan Plassmeier: This is to replace a person that’s on a grant, so the money is there for that position. We came before you a couple of months ago and you approved a new hire in a position that was for that grant also. We have two part-time people, it’s a grant through St. Mary’s.

President Shetler: And none of it comes from the general fund, it’s all totally funded within that grant?

Councilmember Sutton: How long have you had this particular grant or this position funded through a grant?

President Shetler: It’s been moved and seconded and do I have any other questions about the motion? Comments? All in favor signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Next is the Health department title change and, again, this went before Job Study. Councilman Lloyd?

Councilmember Lloyd: Okay, this is a request, the funding for 2010 is already in place. The position is Executive I, I believe, is what the recommendation was and that’s what Mr. Deisher, the consultant to the Personnel Committee and the County Council, came in, factored in, he said it was close to a one or a two, and we came in with the one. But we would ask, request that the position title change be made from Health Department Executive Director to Health Department Administrator. Make that in the form of a motion.

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

President Shetler: Let’s go back to the amendments to the salary ordinance, then, because I think we’ve covered everything.

Councilmember Raben: We’ve got, what is it, four pages of amendments to the salary ordinance. I’m not going to read these out individually, I’m going to move that we approve the four pages of salary amendments and ask that they be made part of the minutes.

President Shetler: We have a motion and a second for approval of the salary ordinance. Do I have any questions? Any comments? All in favor signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Next, then, is we have a recommendation on the resolution that we passed back in July on the hiring freeze, to amend that and with some new wording. Councilman Sutton, I think, originally had recommended that. I don’t know if Councilman Sutton wants to start off with this or how we want to proceed on it.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, hopefully, everyone has had a chance to read over the adjustments that we’ve made to the resolution and to reflect on a couple of different issues – clarify some issues, maybe I should put it that way. In this particular resolution, we are –

– in that this covers full and part-time positions that may be requested in addition to the number of employees that we have now, clarifying that, and then the paragraph below makes a distinction between the existing or the requested position and then the existing position. The existing positions reflecting the pleasure of this Council in having any requests that come before us, that it would be to the Council’s discretion to grant or not to grant position vacancies that may occur among the various offices. So just try to clean up the language a little bit. I don’t know if there’s any – I haven’t heard any other recommendations or suggestions on it. If so, this would be a good time for us to talk about those recommendations.

President Shetler: I guess the question I have, when we change the wording around from employee to position, when an employee leaves, that position is not really vacated so there would be no reason for anybody to come back here to fill that. And what we were trying to accomplish in July was that when we have employees existing, that we control the size of county government somewhat. So that would be back to the department heads to go ahead and fill that position because there is no vacancy in the position, only in an employee. So, I mean, is that the intent?

Councilmember Sutton: Well, the intent is to take the focus off a person and put the emphasis on the slot that they hold, the position in themselves. So rather than Jim Jones or Terry Martin, or whatever, it is the actual – so here, we’re making a distinction between the present positions that we have and then even positions that may be requested over and above what we may have already listed in our salary ordinance.

President Shetler: Okay, we have a nurse in the Health department, for example, that retires. That employee has vacated and is gone, and severed her role, but the position remains, so the health officer would be allowed underneath this scenario to go ahead and fill that position without coming to Council?

Councilmember Sutton: No. Under this scenario, that officeholder, if you’re using the Health department, they would still have to come before Council to fill that position.

Councilmember Kiefer: Comment: you know, under this language here where it says retain, I see where Tom gets confused because it says retain those positions. Maybe you just change that word retain to fill. You know, decisions to fill those positions or refill or however you want to say it.

President Shetler: See, there is a distinction between an employee who occupies a position and a position in and of itself, there is a distinction between that, because while an employee may leave, the position itself has not been vacated. We haven’t really vacated that and we’ve required people to come back.

Councilmember Kiefer: Well, I know, and that’s why I’m saying, you know, the fill, you could have a position, but it could be unfilled.

Councilmember Raben: Just a – if you read the fourth paragraph, I think it’s potato/potahto here, really, because it says: Whereas the County Council believes that when vacancies in existing county positions occur, decisions to retain those positions will be evaluated by the County Council on a case by case basis. So we’re still not opening up the door for anyone to rehire either, Royce’s term, that slot, or your term, that person. I mean, we still have that, we’re still saying that regardless of the situation, you know, you have to come before us first. So I don’t think we’re really giving or losing or getting anything here. I think, you know, it’s clear, that we still have the final say.

Jeff Ahlers: My only observation was, I guess as you pointed out, was the difference between the word positions or employees is whether it could be misinterpreted. I mean, I guess as long as you clarify it in there or you can do whatever you want to do is that would be the only thing, is that a position is really not eliminated unless it’s taken out of the ordinance and a salary line item. So the position still remains. So the questions is whether you’re saying there will be no new positions or whether it’s no new employees. So that would be the only thing is that I think that on a hiring freeze, it’s probably clear what the use of the word employees, but I mean, I guess, if you clarify, I mean, you can do whatever you want to do.

Councilmember Raben: The only other thing you could say is positions/employee or something. I mean, if you want to completely clear it up, that takes care of both sides.

President Shetler: I think it does. Does that, do you have a problem with that, Councilman?

Councilmember Sutton: No, I’m – I mean, as long as when we – whatever we vote on, I want to make sure that one: we’re clear what this resolution should say but then we can communicate that because there does appear to be a lot of misunder-standing and misinformation that’s out there among the department heads. So as long as we can also make that clear to them.

President Shetler: Yeah, and I applaud you and I appreciate the fact that you’ve tackled this pretty monstrous type of thing that we’ve created here, but I just want to be clear on it because I don’t want somebody to come back to us later and say, I didn’t eliminate a position, there is no need for me to come here. I eliminated an employee. And so, therefore, I filled it on my own. And as long as we have that clear language in there, that they must come back, then I have no problem. And do you think that resolves –

Jeff Ahlers: I mean, if you want to make it absolutely clear, what you could do is basically, like Councilman, because I looked at this as Councilman Kiefer suggested. In that third Whereas clause, when it says: decisions to retain those positions, you could say: to retain or fill those positions. And then the: Be it resolved paragraph, down there in that second line where it says: no new full-time or part-time positions, you could say: or employees shall be hired and retention of existing, and then that way it’s absolutely clear and I guess is the best of both worlds, if that’s what you want to do to make it absolutely clear. And then the other thing is, is that, I guess, in doing this at the last minute, what I would suggest is, at the top, under the title, take out full-time, because we’re really talking about all employees. So in the title, I would take out full time, and then I think it seems to accomplish what everybody is wanting to do.

Councilmember Sutton: Let me repeat back what you just said just so that we’re all clear. So starting with the title of the resolution, amended resolution to suspend the hiring of all county employees?

Jeff Ahlers: Yes, or you just say, of county employees or if you want to say all.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, alright. Then we skip down to the fourth paragraph or fourth Whereas, and the second line: decisions to retain or fill those positions, then down into the fifth paragraph, second line: no new full-time or part-time positions or employees shall be hired, correct, change there.

Jeff Ahlers: I think that sort of accomplishes what I hear everybody collectively saying. Does that make everything clear then?

President Shetler: Right. Thank you. Councilman Lloyd and then Councilman Goebel.

Councilmember Lloyd: One thing I had a problem with, under paragraph four, the second sentence: Priority consideration will be given to requests to retain existing positions which would impact financial controls, revenue and public safety. I agree with that, but I don’t think, I mean, what that says is some employees are more important than others. I think every county officeholder would say their employees are the most important. So I just think that whole sentence should be struck and it’s up to the Council to determine that rather – even though I would agree, obviously, financial controls are important. If you can bring in revenue, that would help the county’s general fund, but I think you’re making an issue there of certain employees when we’re still going to evaluate every position. But I would recommend that sentence be struck.

Councilmember Sutton: Point well taken. But essentially, that’s what we’re going to do when they come before us anyway is make some value or discretionary judgement call based upon what we believe is a higher or best need. To try to, I guess, put those in very generic type of terms, not necessarily saying one employee is graded or valued more than another, but just kind of in light of some of the discussion that we had, and some of the maybe misinformation that may be kind of floating around out there, I thought we may need to maybe at least clarify some of that. I mean, I’m fine if we strike that, but I think that at least something needs to be said in that regard.

President Shetler: Well, kind of going back to my employee position argument or point there, and I think what we really are saying is that, we are saying that one position does serve a little higher need than another position. Not that one employee is more important than another, but that one position may be more important than another. And I think that’s certainly true that you do have to weigh that. I mean, I think there is a certain amount of differences that we have that some employees or some positions are certainly more vital to the operation than others may be as far as positions, not employees. I think all employees are pretty well, you know, can be equal, but I think positions are different. Councilman Kiefer?

Councilmember Kiefer: I was just going to say, this chair is falling apart, by the way. I was just going to say that what I do like about that language in there is that it gives guidance to the Councilmembers as they’re voting. You know, if there is little or no confusion about what our priority is, it sure helps from the Councilperson’s viewpoint if we say public safety is something critical, but I also understand Councilman Lloyd’s viewpoint, you know, I mean, that’s something we’re going to have to weigh case by case as well. So I’m indifferent whether it stays in or goes, I guess.

Councilmember Goebel: This resolution is for 2009. Are we going to do this again early next year or is this indefinite?

President Shetler: You know, that’s a good point because I really think that, given the fact that it’s so late in the year, that I personally would like to see us go ahead and include this for 2010, myself. But –

President Shetler: Yeah, and it’s two months away. So, I mean, I just don’t think rather than deal with this thing again in another two months, that it’s...

Councilmember Raben: You know, to that point, we’ve been on this since the first of July and we’re talking about a simple resolution. You know, we’re not – this isn’t an equation for splitting the atom or something. I mean, it’s a resolution that’s non-binding, you know, I think we ought to make the simple modifications that we’ve discussed here today and plan on passing this thing at our very next meeting.

Councilmember Lloyd: So, like the City Council passed a resolution on Riverboat funds so they can’t be used for operations. That was passed in 1994, it’s still in effect, so I think when you pass a resolution, it stays in effect until such time as you declare that you want to repeal it or vote it down or –

Councilmember Kiefer: Then take out the: in 2009 and just say, period, after employees.

President Shetler: Let’s take out the 2009, and then it’s also in the last paragraph as it’s passed on the 4^th day of November – no, wait a minute. The part that said 2009, yeah. We need to just change that, too.

Councilmember Goebel: I know these are tough times and this is particularly tough for us to determine which employees are necessary and maybe which are not. I think we really need to take a much deeper look into county government and maybe not move piecemeal, but have a comprehensive plan across the board where department heads have influence. If we’re looking at cutting budgets and things like that, we’ve got to involve them and tell them they have to cut, and hopefully we can save employees and jobs in the meantime. But I don’t think we’ve addressed that very well. But we have to have their input.

Troy Tornatta: To that point, we’re not doing the officeholders and the department heads any justice by telling them or not telling them what employees will not be moved on to the next phase. And I think we have to go to that point to be able to tell them, when X employee leaves, you won’t replace that person because they expect to replace that person as they always have. We might say no new hires, so if you have eight in your office, you will not get nine, but if you have eight in your office and you schedule your team around eight, I think it’s an injustice to that office to tell them that, well, your leg is not as important as another and you’re going to have to drop down to seven with no goals in mind, with no monetary figure that we’re trying to achieve in mind. Now I understand it’s also going to be, there is going to be a cost factor in trying to get that study done, but I think when we do this, if we’re serious about it and want to look at the government and its growth, we need to be able to study what departments we think, if there’s an antiquated piece to our government, we need to identify that, tell that officeholder and make them realize once this person leaves, they’re never going to be replaced. And go about it that way. I think sometimes to piecemeal this only brings heartache on this body and then it comes to the Commissioner’s office, and we have to approve these pink slips when they come through. And to be honest with you, I’m on a hiring freeze. You tell me to have a hiring freeze, I’m on a hiring freeze. We’re not hiring anybody. I mean, that’s how we feel about it. We’re not hiring any new employees. That’s what you said, that’s what we’re going by. So, I mean, don’t tell me, as an administrator, that I’m on a hiring freeze and then ask me to start hiring people willy nilly, because that makes it tough then on me and then we have three decisions up there on that board and now we’re going to get crossways. And I’d rather do it in a manner that encompasses all facts and figures before we just do it on a piecemeal set up. Now, I mean, the wording is great, I do understand it, it’s much more clarified. I appreciate that. But at the end of the day, I think we’re are doing a little bit of injustice to our officeholders and department heads when it comes to not telling them who is going to be there and who’s not, and their plans that they’re making for an entire year could fall on that employee being there or not.

Councilmember Kiefer: Could we have these employees, say, somebody works somewhere and they retire and now they have to replace, can we have that go through Job Study? Right now, it’s just only new jobs that are going through Job Study. What about these replacement or refills, could we have them go through Job Study?

Councilmember Sutton: Councilman Kiefer, I think that addresses some of what my discussion was even last month and the month before was, the subjective nature of going through as they make requests to come before us and deciding whether to keep them or not keep them based on numbers. We’re just kind of all over the board. The logical next step is to figure out what the process should be to determine if a position can or cannot justify itself in the greater scheme of the county mix. And we really haven’t gotten to that point and I don’t know, maybe the job study might be a logical place for that to occur.

Councilmember Kiefer: I think it would be, but I’d like to get Councilman Lloyd’s input on that since he chairs that.

President Shetler: Well, honestly, first of all, I disagree, we do have an objective here, we do have a goal. And I think the objective and the goal is, to bring back the taxpayers’ money into their pockets. And I think the objective here is to try to save approximately 200 - $250,000 in the first year of it and it will only escalate in the years to come on that. I think people have given a pretty loud sound that county government is growing perhaps larger than what it should have over the last several years and I think we need to look at that real hard. Now there are some critical positions that may be in safety or certain areas of accounting or wherever where you’ve got to have it, but I think the decisions that we’ve made thus far haven’t been willy nilly by any means. I take strong exception to that. I think the decisions that we’ve made, at least in my mind, were based on, in one situation where the obvious workload in that office has gone down tremendously over the past five years. In another office, we were talking about a position that was a general clerical position that, after asking questions of the department head, that position ended up, you know, like answering the telephone during lunch hours, it filled in for filing and it just did basic entry level clerical type of work and there was another 50 people in the office that did a similar type of work. And if you can’t absorb roughly two percent more within an office these days, and we’re all asked to do it, you are privately, you are publically, I am, as well. All of us around here are and I think that the taxpayers are asking us to do that. So those are the decisions, that’s the criteria that I used, and then there were a couple of instances where we approved it because there was a unique position that had unique characteristics with it and it took a certain amount of expertise in that area that they had to have for that position. And in those cases I felt like it was necessary.

President Shetler: So there’s no other way of doing it, as I said, but sometimes we become judge and jury of it, and that’s unfortunate, but –

Troy Tornatta: But we’ve subsidized those offices that you cut positions in already. We’ve subsidized their office, they’re subbing out work. So, I mean, where is your cost cutting measures? And that’s what I’m getting to. If we cut that person, then they’re asking for some extra help, they’re going to sub that help out. It’s going to be contract work that we’re subbing out. Now is that accomplishing your monetary cutbacks? I don’t think so. So I want to be smart about how we do this and I don’t know that that’s being addressed and that’s why I wanted to address those problems. Keep in mind, critical positions have to be supported by other legs of government and that’s what I want to identify. If the Auditor’s office, which we know pays bills and does payroll and they do an enormous job for the county. But if they have to be supported by some other facet of that office or community of government, that’s as big as the job as they do. So that’s what I want to do is identify where these positions are.

President Shetler: Once again, though, that position that you’re talking about that is subbing that out, the money that we’re saving in the general fund is real money, the money that they’re taking that out of is service fees that comes through that department. And the only way of taking those service fees out was to put them in a position where they had to subcontract that work out. So bottom line is, it is saving the taxpayers money. And that’s a real fact and that’s real dollars. Yes, Councilman Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Interesting dialogue. I still think that if we have a goal of $250,000 cut, we should have a comprehensive plan, we should involve the department, elected heads and let them suggest to us how they’re going to lower the expenses within their office. And we, as a Council, these are very trying times and I think this Council is trying, however, I don’t know if we ever will have enough information on some of the employees, because every department head is going to come here and fight to retain positions for his office or her office. And we can go talk to them but really, being outside of that office or their everyday work force, I don’t know if we can make that decision correctly all the time. I like the idea of presenting to the department heads, look, you’ve got to cut and, Mr. Fluty, I don’t know what the projections are but I assume our revenues next year are going to be drastically lower?

Bill Fluty: Well, I wouldn’t go drastically lower, but as we’ve talked before in the past, the revenues continue to fall. We have our COIT predictions which I would say would be lower next year. We also have the change in the property tax caps that go from 1, 2 and 3 next year. So what you do, your revenues, your future revenues in ‘10, ‘11 and ‘12 won’t support a workforce of 800. And it’s a difficult decision of how you trim your workforce and trim your expenses. But I think you start it through attrition. Somebody retires, you make the decision whether you should rehire or not rehire. Will you have to go further? Will you get to your number? This is a beginning. Will you have to go back to offices and say well, it’s a little harder pill to swallow when you say, you need to decide which two have to leave. So right now you’re doing it through attrition. If the numbers continue to get worse over the next two to three years, you may have to do it a little bit differently. But it’s a beginning.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I don’t know if we’ve got any additional suggestions on the resolution, I know we’ve kind of taken it to maybe what the next step is beyond the resolution. But, you know, in government we’ve seen this process occur before. I mean, in your early 80's when revenue sharing was eliminated, cities and counties all over the country were looking and searching for ways to try to deal with what ultimately became cutbacks across the board, so now we’re at a different stage. Fortunately, the county has not – we haven’t gone through and eliminated any positions, but if and when we get to that point, I think what we all are saying to some extent in different ways is, we need to figure out how that would occur, if it does occur. How do you make that decision rather than having people coming up individually and as openings come about, maybe there needs to be some future planning that occurs to begin to take a look at that. But I don’t know, on the resolution here, if there is any other markups or changes that we have on this or if we are ready to move forward with it, I’d be more than happy to offer the motion to get it on the floor for consideration and so forth.

Councilmember Kiefer: The only thing is, I’d like to go back to what I’d said earlier about having these positions go through Job Study. I’d like to get Councilman Lloyd’s input on that as chairman of the Job Study.

Councilmember Lloyd: Job Study, Personnel Administration is a recommending body, it’s ultimately up to the Council. I don’t know – the Job Study, I don’t know that it’s a mechanism for county-wide evaluation of the offices. I don’t think it is. It’s more geared towards position descriptions, job descriptions, things of that nature, upgrades, downgrades, changes in salary, changes in duties. So I think that might be beyond the scope of Job Study. It would make the Job Study a lot more time consuming and intensive and I’m not sure that that would be the best thing.

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. President, are we going to redraft these changes here? We’re not going to vote on anything today are we?

President Shetler: We’re going to have another discussion that could be lengthy, too, so that could probably be done in between here.

Jeff Ahlers: Yeah, I can have her make these. I’ve got a markup, the only thing I do need to know or I guess you guys can decide that when you vote is, I’ve got all the changes in here. We’ve decided to take out the reference to the years, it’s just not going to reference that at all, I guess. So the only thing that I heard was Councilman Lloyd on that one sentence in the fourth Whereas clause, whether that last sentence stays in or out. Other than that, I think I’ve got all the changes here.

President Shetler: Well, we also have a question whether or not this was actually amending what we had done, so if it would be amending the resolution with the number or if this should be a new number. And if it is, then we need to just get the number that it should be, so if this is going to be a new resolution in place of the old.

Jeff Ahlers: My understanding is like any time there is an ordinance or amendment, it always gets a new resolution number. Now what you can do if you want to keep a reference to the old, I guess you could put in parenthesis an A or a B or something after it to signify it’s different. But this thing may continue to have a metamorphosis over the upcoming year it sounds like, because you guys continue to refine it. So I think, so that as a matter of clarify we know when something is passed and that it is the new one, I think it needs to have a new number of some sort whether it relates to the old number of not. But I don’t know if that’s something we have to resolve now. The Auditor’s office can put a number on it after the fact, I suppose.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I mean, other than that, I don’t know if there is any other items within this where we have any differences of opinion. I think we’ve made some alternations and some changes, but it appears to be across the board support for what we have presented along with the changes.

President Shetler: Councilman Sutton, you’ve made a motion and that changed the dates and a couple of those other changes in those paragraphs that you’ve outlined before. Do I have a second to that motion?

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

Councilmember Lloyd: I mean, I had made a recommendation that paragraph four, remove the second sentence.

Councilmember Lloyd: I guess if you vote on his motion, then you would want to keep that sentence in or keep the change.

Councilmember Raben: How were you wanting it written? Are you wanting it, where it begins, Priority consideration?

Councilmember Lloyd: Well, it would be, paragraph four, Whereas the County Council believes that when vacancies in existing county positions occur, decisions to retain or fill those positions will be evaluated by the County Council on a case-by-case basis upon receiving a written department head request. And that would be the end of that paragraph. You know, I was stating it’s difficult to determine who is more important: public health nurse, sheriff deputy, you know, if you have a storm, the county garage worker would be very important. So this mentions certain positions but I’m not sure that that’s helpful to the overall – what we’re trying to accomplish.

Councilmember Goebel: Have we not done that already, though? We’ve given those basic positions priority?

Councilmember Sutton: In a sense, too, it’s for us, but it’s also to the department heads, as you make your requests, keep these things in mind. These are the things that the Council are going to factor in as they weigh whether or not they’re going to approve. Does it mean that if you are a – if you’re none of those three, that your position will not be approved? It doesn’t say that, but what it does say is those will be the essential elements that will be given strong consideration as you make your request.

President Shetler: Do I have any other additional support for Councilman Lloyd’s recommendation?

Councilmember Raben: Well, let’s, I mean, if we want to get this thing done today, let’s go ahead, I mean, I’m fine striking that. Then everybody gets a little bit of what they want and we’ve got a document that should serve the need. I’m good with striking it.

President Shetler: But it’s up to Council if you want to amend your motion or not. If not, we’ll go ahead and hear that and roll call it and then go from there.

Councilmember Sutton: I’m trying to put together a document that will work for all of us. I mean, what’s – I mean, I can –

Councilmember Kiefer: He’s asking you if you’ll amend your motion to strike that last sentence that Councilman Lloyd suggested.

Councilmember Lloyd: Or we could vote on that and then we could vote on striking the one thing and if that fails, then I would be in favor of the motion as you’ve presented it.

Councilmember Sutton: Let’s, I mean, being that we’re going to evaluate them on a case by case basis, we’re essentially going to make, whether it’s an individual priority or a group priority, we’re going to make that in some type of way, some type of value judgement on the request anyway, I’ll amend my motion to go ahead and strike that last sentence.

President Shetler: Alright, anybody have anything else? Anybody else object to...any questions about the motion? Alright, all in favor signify by saying aye.

President Shetler: Now if you thought that issue was fun, let’s go into the next one which is discussion on the COMOT schedule.

Councilmember Lloyd: You should have in your materials a proposed COMOT pay schedule for 2010 which is a reduction from the prior COMOT schedule. A couple of points, and this, first of all, I’d like to make a point, the Job Study personnel approved this 6-1, so it was approved. There would be no impact on existing employees, so their pay rates and steps would stay the same. What we’re proposing is to lower the pay rates and steps effective January 1, 2010 for all new hires. And what we had our Job Study consultant, Mr. Deisher, do, he went to the Indiana Chamber and the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, polled occupations and starting wages. There is a report here and I’ve got a couple of them so I’ll pass those around if anybody wants to look at that. But what he determined was that on some of the COMOT positions, our starting pay has gotten above the market quite a bit, several thousand dollars. When you look at county government, there is very few COMOT II’s. COMOT III is probably the lowest starting position in most offices. There are some COMOT II’s in the Health department and that’s something the Health department needs to look at and maybe go to Job Study with if those positions have changed and additional duties, then they need to look at making a request to upgrade those. But anyway, the study that Mr. Deisher did showed that some of the COMOT III and COMOT IV positions, for example, a Step 1 in the Health department, $25,235 on an annual basis, in the marketplace, that type of position, you’re looking more at $18,782 up to $21,362. So the county is 3 to $4,000 high on just an entry level position. The revised schedule would put an entry level for that COMOT III at $20,188, for a COMOT IV, you’re looking at $21,120, and then with our steps, you’ll recall, the Step 1 comes into effect after six months. So when the employee completes their probation and is doing a satisfactory job for the officeholder, they go to their Step I, which is a raise of approximately four and a half to five percent. And then the other steps come into effect, Step 2 after three years, Step 3 after five years, Step 4 ten years, Step 5, I think, twenty years, Step 6 twenty-five years, etcetera, etcetera. And I may have a slight change there. Step 2 two years, Step 3 five years, Step 4 ten years. Also a reminder, the City of Evansville, they don’t have steps. So a step, even though in our county personnel handbook, a step is to be awarded based on merit and ability, we’ve, in the county, we’ve gotten more to a position that a step is if you’ve stayed in a position for that length of time, you’ve survived, if you’ve not caused any trouble, then you get your step. It’s pretty much automatic. So while the City of Evansville doesn’t have steps, the county does and we’ve had that for a number of years. The step differential in the new schedule is exactly the same as the old, so from one to two to three, it’s approximately 4.7%. So those raises come into effect regardless of the county’s normal raises, which have been two and a half, three percent in the prior years, although unfortunately, this year we had no raise. So anyway, the Personnel Administration Committee approved the new schedule and what we’re looking at in the marketplace, the county wages have gotten a little bit out of whack over all the prior year increases. And what this would do, it would bring them back only on new employees going forward. But we anticipate over time saving a substantial amount of money for the county on these. A possibility in one year, if you have fifteen new employees, which is what happened in 2008, there were fifteen new hires in the COMOT positions, you’re looking at approximately $45,000. And, obviously, you’re going to save on FICA, on PERF, as well as some of these other things. There’s other benefits that might be needed to look at, those are some of things the Commissioners would have jurisdiction over. But this is Council jurisdiction so I would recommend approval for the new COMOT schedule.

President Shetler: I might point out that this is not simple mathematics type of savings, this is geometric and it grows year after year. The first year it’s $50,000, that’s figuring on part of a year that some, that in a given year you’ll save $100,000 if everybody, all fifteen positions were vacated January the 1^st. And that isn’t going to happen, so trying to average that out, we came up with a figure of about 45 to $50,000 that during the course of the year, you’ll lose about fifteen employees. The second year you’ve lost that and they’ve started off at a lower scale so you’ll save $100,000 plus that $50,000 there, plus, the new ones that, the fifteen that also go on that. So it becomes with that geometric progression, it won’t take but four or five years there and you’ll be saving a million dollars a year from where we are today. So we’re not talking about really small potatoes, here, I mean, we really are talking about something that will, I think, particularly our employees that we have, it’s one way we’re going to be able to afford to pass on increases to the existing employees and reward them for the work that they have been doing instead of being stuck in the position we were this year in not being able to afford any increases for them for their service. So I think it’s a prudent thing to do in light of the caps that are going to be placed on us in the future. I think it’s prudent in the way that we want to make sure that we take care of our existing employees in the future as well.

President Shetler: Okay, we had a motion by Russ Lloyd and then a second by Councilman Bassemier. Do I have any questions? Councilman Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Do we have a – I mean, we’re kind of projecting out, you’re projecting out some figures out on what the potential savings would be. But for our entry level and positions that maybe just above entry level here, do we have a sense or feel of how many of those positions turn over, say how many turned over last year?

President Shetler: Basically about fifteen. We average about fifteen entry level replacements a year or turnovers that exist.

Councilmember Sutton: And when those positions are refilled, are we generally refilling basically the same positions or are we seeing it just kind of all over? I mean, I guess maybe what I’m trying to get a sense of, is the degree or the amount of turnover in positions? I know on the private side, we’ve got certain positions that tend to have a little bit more frequency in the turnover and others maybe not as much. So are we seeing the same type of positions that are turning over here?

President Shetler: I think probably much like you do in private, I would assume that lower paid positions might turn over a little bit more so than others, but quite honestly, I think if you would check with most HR agencies, you’ll find that the county government’s turnover rate is extremely low compared to the size of workforce that we have of 800, turning over fifteen to twenty employees a year, is extremely low so it’s almost, I guess the point I’m making is that the difference between middle management and entry level clerical or entry level laborer, whatever that you might have, whatever classification that you might have, the difference is pretty minute as far as figuring out those percentages where it’s hit hardest.

Councilmember Sutton: Okay, if that is the case, and I see where we’re trying to go with this, but by lowering the entry level wage scale, do we not further exacerbate that issue? If the positions that are frequently turned over are lower paying positions and I would venture to say that the reason why they’re turning over is because of the rate of pay, because we obviously have a pretty strong benefits package here compared to a lot of different other places in the community. Do you understand my point?

Councilmember Sutton: Do we not then further have more positions and more so opening up?

President Shetler: I heard, I understood your point and that, I guess what I was trying to answer on it, is that, to answer your question, is that I don’t think there is a real significant difference and we aren’t losing, we don’t have a big turnover in any segment of the employment rankings or classifications when you really get down to it. When you’re talking about fifteen to twenty out of a workforce of eight hundred, that is an extremely low turnover rate, even good times or bad times and I think one of the things that we talked about is not only are we 25,000 plus for that COMOT III position, but we are also and in the private sector is at 18, but we are also talking about a benefit package that includes fourteen holidays and two weeks vacation that first year and several other things that are not commonly offered in the private sector. So, and the health insurance is very attractive as well, particularly eight percent versus what they may have to pay in private.

Councilmember Sutton: I guess it just, that just concerns me, I guess, to a certain extent because the pay level is not necessarily that high on the entry level positions as it stands, and that seems to be the guy that we always seem to pick on, is the guy who is at the lower end of the wage scale. And I know we don’t really have a lot of turnover really on the whole throughout county government, but I just, I guess my concern is that I’m not sure if, in the long run we’re going to realize that savings if we have a much more constant turnover. Because you’re talking about additional training that’s going to be required if you have a lot more turnover. And I’m as much for trying to find savings as anyone, but I just think if we’re going to evaluate the wage scale, maybe we need to look at some other levels as well, rather than just the entry level.

President Shetler: We did take an evaluation of other sectors and found that, compared to private, we were under what private was doing in a few of the other sectors, so that’s why we started with the COMOTS and pretty well left it there. I don’t know if Councilman Lloyd could elaborate further on that with more –

Councilmember Lloyd: We looked at the PAT and the other positions and they were not, I mean, they were comparable or lower than similar positions in the private sector. But these were the ones that stood out as higher.

Councilmember Goebel: I think a new hire, let’s say 2010 will start out at 20 percent lower and throughout the entire longevity of that position are being at work for the county, they’ll remain at 20 percent lower pay, is that correct?

Councilmember Lloyd: If they stayed in that exact same position for their whole career, which I’m not sure that that, I mean, I’m sure that happens some, but there’s others that there’s movement. But that’s correct.

Councilmember Raben: Well, that will only stand true for a certain period of time, too, because eventually, you know, however many years that is from now, I don’t know if there was any projections made on that, but this will be the salary ordinance with enough time.

Councilmember Raben: The thing you’ve got to look at, too, with these rate schedules, you know, this doesn’t include the annual pay increases that Tom mentioned earlier. I mean, these are as it is with nothing and the years where we’ve had three and five percent, now that’s not reflective of any of that.

Councilmember Kiefer: I like the part where it protects existing employees, too.

President Shetler: Right, and not only does it really protect them, but I think it is the one way that we can give something to them because we’ll have, perhaps, and hopefully, the monies and revenues available to do that for both classifications, if we don’t do this, if we don’t take some positive step in that direction. Again, it’s still above what the private sector is paying, and that doesn’t include the benefit package which is much more lucrative than what the private sector has. I’ll point out one, and this has nothing to do directly with this, but I’ll point out some of the discrepancies we have in our current policies today like on longevity, and the Sheriff and I went through something not too long ago when we were dealing with the Screeners and talking about that. And the longevity pay, I think, for the Sheriff Deputies, correct me if I’m wrong, Sheriff, but for the same amount of, someone that’s been around about thirty years roughly, was about $5,500, in that neighborhood, for their longevity pay, whereas someone that’s actually working here in the building or in the office, civilian employee, their step increases and longevity equated to about $11,000 a year. So it was about twice of what it was and that’s within our county government, we have those kind of discrepancies. Then you look over on the city, people in the same building, and they don’t even have the steps, and they don’t even have the longevity and stuff. So, you know, we’ve got a whole different ball game going on there. All of that has created an unruly type of situation here that has grown out, a little bit out of control and we need to try to reign it in the best we can and this is just a start. In the long run I’m hoping that it will save a considerable amount of money.

Councilmember Goebel: I think it certainly will and I think the concept is well taken, but I’m not sure we have a comprehensive plan yet when you talked about the benefits and vacation and things like that, I’d feel more comfortable if we had it all together and pulled the reigns across the board. I guess this would be a period of time, I don’t know how many years it would take, but you might have an office with forty employees, half of them making the new scale, much lower, half making the old scale, much higher, or somewhat higher, and what will be the morale inside the office between the working groups? Or is that just a transition we have to go through?

President Shetler: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s hard to say. But I think that you’re experiencing that today. I mean, you have an employee who’s been around for twenty-five years that may be getting $40,000 a year and you have someone next to them that’s been there for five years and is getting paid $31,000 a year or whatever. And so, and doing the same work essentially. So you have that today, you have some discrepancies in pay levels as it exists, so this will just be a way of making sure that we’re able to enhance the people that we have and continue on.

Councilmember Goebel: I have no doubt the way things are right now that there will be people lining up at the new schedule because these are trying times and a job here with the benefit package would be very desirable. I don’t know if a single mother with children, if this even meets poverty level, though.

President Shetler: Well, it does, it exceeds the poverty level. In fact, I think, roughly speaking, a single person is what, 10.5'ish?

Councilmember Lloyd: I pulled that off of the HHS website because I anticipated this question, $10,830 for 2009, each person 3,740 and that’s annual, so two people, poverty level is $14,570. Three persons $18,310 annually, so, I mean, those are some of the wages for poverty level. And then minimum wage, $7.25, which was increased in July would be an annual pay $15,080. So, I mean, these are way above minimum. And you don’t want county government to be a minimum wage payer.

Councilmember Sutton: And this level would be how much, that’s being proposed here?

President Shetler: Eighteen-eight, rounding numbers off a little bit. It’s eighteen-seven, --

Councilmember Bassemier: That person would also be getting health insurance, too, and benefits.

Councilmember Bassemier: I really feel like I kind of agree with Mike a little bit as far as when a person hires in, he knows what he’s going to make or she knows what they’re going to make at the time, so if it’s not enough for them, you know, they don’t have to take the position. So the way I feel about it, they’ll know up front, you’re not hurting anybody because, like I said, they know up front.

Councilmember Kiefer: These COMOT pay schedules, what’s the percentage of our workforce population that is on these pay schedules? Is this fifty percent or twenty percent or...?

Sandie Deig: Probably fifty. I’m not quite sure, but most of them are COMOT (Inaudible, microphone not turned on).

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, but what I’m saying is, there are some employees not on a COMOT pay schedule, you know, and this wouldn’t affect –

President Shetler: Classifications, COMOT versus PAT, Laborer and stuff like that, how many, what’s the percentage of COMOTS of the total payroll?

Councilmember Kiefer: I’m just curious how this affects the whole workforce population because you have labor agreements that this doesn’t affect, correct?

Councilmember Kiefer: I mean, and there’s other salary levels that this doesn’t affect, but it sounds like this is about fifty percent of the workforce population and with the hiring freeze, I don’t know, maybe we might not ever get to this.

President Shetler: And Councilman Goebel, your point is well taken and it is something that actually the Commissioners have to do those parts because those have to be contractual agreements that we’d need to work with them on as far as vacation pay and holiday pays and all that kind of stuff. But I would envision that that would be part of this whole package that I’m envisioning that we need to do to pare down county government. So I will approach Commissioner Tornatta on that. Alright, anybody else? Okay, we have a motion on the floor. Roll call please.

Councilmember Sutton: You know, I commend the efforts of the group who worked on this, I mean, it takes a lot of time to look at all these different tables and try to come up with a formula, but my point still is, in light of what we’re trying to do, the lowest man on the scale is the one being asked to sacrifice and if there are sacrifices to be made, I think the right thing is to look up and down all levels and come up with an appropriate recommendation for all levels, and not just the entry level, lowest guy, and ask him to take the cut. Even though they are new people coming in, they’re sitting next to someone who is getting paid at a different scale and I think if there is going to be some sacrifice, look up and down the board, so I can’t support this. No.

Councilmember Goebel: I think the efforts, obviously, are very good and there’s been a lot of time put in, but I’d still like to see a more comprehensive plan before I support, so my vote is no.

Councilmember Kiefer: I think it’s going to be interesting. Time will tell if this is too low, then obviously, we’ll have trouble or struggle hiring people, so I think the market should take care of this thing. If we get a flood of people hiring in, and they’re satisfied with these pay rates, well, then, I guess it’s a great move. If we struggle and can’t hire people, then we’ll have to come back and re-evaluate and say hey look, this is too low. We can’t hire people and we’re struggling or at least the quality of people that we’re used to. So with that, because we’re not affecting any current positions, I’ll vote yes.

President Shetler: We’ve asked Mr. Rector to be here today to give us a presentation, an update on the building.

Dave Rector: Good morning, Dave Rector, Building Authority. A few weeks ago, we had a new request for use of the space in the old jail. Judge Heldt and Judge Niemeier met with Commissioner Tornatta and I, requesting space in the old jail to be used, and the drawing I gave you illustrates this but I’ll kind of walk us through it and then we can talk about it. But Judge Niemeier is needing additional space for his juvenile staff and to accomplish that, was requesting that we move Circuit Court adult probation up into the old jail space. Judge Heldt is wanting AAPS and DAPS to come in from the leased space on John Street they’re in along with his Circuit Court Adult Probation. And then he is also requesting Superior Court Adult Misdemeanor Probation to move over to create more space in the courts building for the County Clerk to expand into that space, and his micro Circuit Court to expand into that space. And then the second phase of this is the Election Office and Voter Registration moving up onto the third floor, creating more space for the Prosecutor to expand on the first floor of this building and getting more space then for the Election Office with their equipment and the voting machines. In doing this, this still leaves about 7,000 square feet of vacant space available for other –

– rents. If you recall, I think the last time we discussed it, Commissioner Tornatta had asked us to explore opportunities to lease to third party opportunities out there that perhaps would bring some income in. Because we have a tax exempt loan right now with a bank, we can’t do that by the lease agreement, so we’re back to looking at uses for governmental purposes in there. I asked Commissioner Tornatta to stay around to indicate if the Commissioners indeed want to move forward with this. But this is the current proposal before us. Again, one of many as we’ve all discussed over the last several years, but that’s where we are today.

Councilmember Raben: Could I, Dave, go back to juvenile first. You said that they’re needing room for expansion. The area that they’re in today is approximately 12,000, is that what that was?

Councilmember Raben: That they didn’t have three years ago, two years ago, I mean, that was part of the – that 12,000 square foot was in this other building.

Councilmember Raben: I can’t believe today that Circuit Court nor Juvenile Court or Superior Court, with moving, freeing up Juvenile and giving them 12,000 new feet a few years back, I can’t believe that any of them would need any space.

Dave Rector: I quite honestly did not question the Judges on their request on the need of the space. I accepted that they have expanded and are requesting the space.

Councilmember Raben: I mean, I’ve got to say early on here that I wouldn’t be supportive of any additional space for courts, not in lieu of the expense and the additional space they got a few years ago. And I know I’ve expressed my concerns about making this monster any bigger than it is now. You know, I’m not, I’ll never be supportive of opening up those walls to making county government bigger. I mean, if that space over there remains as a shell between now and – well, as long as I’m on here, is fine, because I think government is plenty large like it is. You get more space, you’ll be adding people, you’re adding expenses. You know, more computers, more everything, more desks, more – you know, I just, I want to set it straight how – what my views are and opinions are as we move forward on that other space. I’m just not going to be supportive of anything in that regard. I mean, if we need to bounce around an office or something, you know, I’ll consider that on a case by case basis, but I don’t want to hear discussion on expanding court space or moving a bunch of county offices into that space.

Dave Rector: And again, I guess to make my position clear, I’m here as a facilitator, not necessarily an advocate.

Councilmember Raben: Oh, I understand. I’m just telling you as a Councilmember.

Councilmember Sutton: Right, well, how much space is in the old, total square footage, how much –

Dave Rector: About 31,000 square feet and that includes about 2,300 square feet that the Sheriff is still continuing to use for holding prisoners going to courts. I think we discussed before, Senator Luger does have an earmark request in for a new sally port holding cell facility that would then free up that space the Sheriff is using so we would have all the space available. Right now we don’t know the status of the earmark request.

Councilmember Sutton: As you put together this proposal, and I don’t know which version this is, if this is the third, fourth, ninth, but it’s several versions of this. The city has expressed no interest in any space, is that correct?

Councilmember Sutton: Okay. And how much is the – how much are we paying each month on the space that we aren’t using? When I say we, I mean the county. How much are we paying on that space?

Dave Rector: We lowered our budget to you for 2010, so it’s reduced. I think we’re down somewhere now around 17, but once again, that’s occupied lease cost, not total square footage we use. I don’t know why the lease was established that way. It kind of skews that number. If we looked at total square footage of the Civic Center Complex, we get our lease down to somewhere around the $10 range.

Councilmember Sutton: And then, I guess, as well, as we look at the space that is currently being used and occupied, we have made some adjustments and we’ve also had some requests that have come forward to us the last year or two from different offices. I guess what kind of even springs up to light to me is all that consolidation of all the Assessor functions and it appears that there has been somewhat of a solution that has come about to try to address their issues with being able to function as one office with some of the walls being moved there.

Dave Rector: Earlier in the year Assessor Weaver did request a fairly major renovation in that space to try to accommodate that growth. He wasn’t able to do that. Recently, to try to assist in some functionality of that area, we did open up an opening, a door between two of his departments that I think has helped him some. I think he’s left now, but that did help to improve the functionality of those offices.

Councilmember Sutton: And I know we’ve even, we just take even the offices that are outside of this building that we pay rent on each month, how many offices are in this proposed version plan that are outside of this building that we are talking –

Dave Rector: The only one we see in the plan before us today is AAPS and DAPS for Judge Heldt coming back in. We have a number of other offices that are outside of the building that in other scenarios we have looked at moving into the space, too. Those aren’t on the current plan, but they certainly could be looked at in this still vacant 7,000 square feet if you wanted.

Councilmember Sutton: And therein lies a potential cost savings back to the county by bringing those in, and I know we’ve got several that are out there and for some reason, or in some cases it makes sense for them to be outside. And I guess what comes to mind is the Co-Op Extension –

Councilmember Sutton: Weights and Measures because of the equipment and all. Of course, the County Highway. But –

Councilmember Bassemier: A lot of them can’t come back in like Central Dispatch and the Sheriff’s, you know...

Councilmember Sutton: The other question, I guess, I know we, the County Council, even in our space here, we’ve been working in less than optimal conditions for an extended period of time and there really isn’t another space here presently available that would seem to be a logical use and I know I’ve been to a number of different public meetings as have many people here, this space isn’t necessarily the most ideal and really accommodates really what we try to do in a lot of the public meetings here. That’s not necessarily put into this particular plan here, but would seem to be something that would be a logical space, but again, I guess I go back to we’re paying a half million dollars a year for space that is, we’re getting zero use out of.

Dave Rector: And a comment to that, another plan in the past has been looking at creating another Council chamber. You know, I’ve tried to do what we can to bring this up to more technologically advanced opportunities with the T.V.’s, and the computer and all that, but still, it’s a far cry from modern meeting rooms. If consolidation ever happens, this chamber wouldn’t accommodate the new consolidated combined City/County Council, whatever it may be. As part of that plan, it was looked at expanding the Council offices that you said are inadequate and also Commissioner offices. So we’ve looked at a lot of these things, Councilman Sutton, it’s just we’ve never firmly decided where we’re moving with any of them.

Councilmember Raben: Let’s look at the square footage price real quick, since you hit on that, both of you. The 17.50 is what we’re paying in the entire building.

Councilmember Raben: I mean, why it’s 17.50, which is, you know, would be high anyway, is because there is no maintenance over there, there is little or no heat, air, there –

Councilmember Raben: – you’re not painting, you’re not cleaning, I mean, when you move into that space, your overall rent isn’t going to remain 17.50 –

Dave Rector: Yes, it stays the same. It’s occupied space is the way the lease was written. And by the lease, the county still retains ownership of that space.

Councilmember Raben: How could we grow a third in size and not need additional personnel unless we have, unless we’re way overstaffed now?

Dave Rector: The same way I’ve reduced since the time I’ve been here. I have five housekeepers where we used to have five more. I’ve reduced that staff. I try to look at efficiencies in –

Councilmember Raben: I mean, I understand. I appreciate that. I guess the point is, I just, long term, I don’t see that we can maintain that additional space with the same current staff we have now unless we contract more out or something like that. But there is expense with that space today that you don’t have that you will have when you move into that space.

Dave Rector: You’ll have increased utility costs, but I really don’t anticipate increasing manpower.

Councilmember Raben: You’re changing light bulbs, you’re polishing floors, you’re shampooing carpets, you’re paying – I mean, the list goes on. I mean, you’ll have internet fees, you’ll have, you name it, I mean, the list goes on. When you move departments in there, it’s a whole new bundle of fees that will come with it.

Councilmember Sutton: To a certain extent, we’re already having those costs anyway with those departments whether they are in cramped space or whether they are in a little bit more spacious situation, you’ve got computers, desks, carpet, what have you, in all the spaces to make an office, but yes, to say that there will be no additional expense, I think that would be unrealistic. Yes, I think there would be, but at the same time, too, when you look at, you know, we have made some, the courts, I think there is some merit to your earlier point on that. It doesn’t seem to be a new need that would be created there. But I think there are some other areas that would merit some consideration. Does that mean use the entire space? I don’t think there is a need for the entire space, but some of that space could have a practical use for the county rather than just sitting there vacant. We’ve even talked about the need and the emphasis upon trying to reduce our health costs on our health plans. Why couldn’t we have something here that allows the employees right on site to have some type of health facility here where they can, rather than paying the Y thing that we pay every year, we could do it right here in that space there. So those are some of the things, not necessarily my ideas, but I’ve heard from others. But clearly, I think it merits at least some consideration rather than languishing.

President Shetler: I have a question and then I’m going to go to Councilman Kiefer and then Councilman Bassemier and then Councilman Lloyd. The question that I have, is there some kind of a standard or rule out there set up by the Architects of America or whoever, some organization that says that in a given workplace you need so many square feet? There are so many employees and all that kind of stuff?

Dave Rector: There are architectural standards that set forth, same as you just talked earlier by position, by workforce, recommended square footage.

President Shetler: Is it possible to apply those to what we have in the court building today, the number of employees and their classifications and the whole business, apply that to see if there is a need for the space? I mean, that might tell us a little bit right there that, you know, based on that kind of a study, we do need another thousand square feet or ten thousand square feet or whatever it might be.

President Shetler: So we’ve got some kind of a benchmark here, I guess, if you will.

President Shetler: Alright, Councilman Kiefer, Councilman Bassemier and then Councilman Lloyd.

Dave Rector: Build out estimates for this entire space, I’ve always still bantered about the 3 to $4,000,000 fee. Without knowing finishes, individual offices, conference rooms, what we’re doing, but I think that would cover the build out fee.

Councilmember Kiefer: Well, a couple of points. I’d like to commend you guys because if your rent is 17 or 17.50 per square foot, that sounds high, but realistically it’s not when you throw in utilities, housekeeping, maintenance and all that. I know on the open market, for those same services at Integra or Old National Bank they’re in the 20, mid-20 dollar range. So these are good competitive prices unless they’re vacant. So I don’t know, what’s the opportunity that we could renegotiate that lease, I mean, to, I mean, obviously you guys probably don’t want to do that because you’ve got a lease agreement, but is there a possibility that the lease could be renegotiated?

Dave Rector: One of the leases was renewed for another twenty years under the same conditions as the original forty year lease. But it’s kind of a misnomer on this whole thing because our costs to you are nothing more than what it costs to operate. So it doesn’t matter whether we have 3,000 square feet or 300,000 square feet –

President Shetler: That’s the only thing that could happen, we could take from Peter.

Dave Rector: Our number to you is the same. It’s our budget number regardless of the square footage.

Councilmember Kiefer: Well, then, I guess the other thing is, you know, we could look at all of our other leases which we talked about in the past: the Health department, you know, I don’t know what we’re paying over there, but does it make sense to move the Health department? They use a lot of square footage, they may absorb all this vacancy and then you can give them a separate entrance through where the police department is now or the old –

President Shetler: I’m not sure, but I think that was a lease and I think they probably have a –

President Shetler: Yeah, at least, and it could have been fifteen. But I don’t know if they can go beyond that.

Troy Tornatta: And we, everyone got this, the assessment of who’s outside. We actually sent that last year and so we just sent it again so you’d have it, but the one thing about the Health department, it was in this building. I don’t know if you knew that. At one time, the Health department was here and they moved out. Two reasons: one is the ability to get people in there more efficiently and especially since we’re going through the situation we are here with the screening and everything, that probably puts a damper on that. The second thing is to be able to get people quarantined to that place and I think it allows them to do more of that in that space than it does here with general business being done along with health services. So just something to think about when you’re pulling in certain offices.

Councilmember Kiefer: Well, it sounds like we’ve got our hands tied. We don’t have county departments to move in there and we can’t rent to private sector –

Troy Tornatta: Well, we can. And if we decide that we want to pay off the loan, put our financial hats on, we can pay off that loan and I don’t know what it is, Bill, any idea?

Troy Tornatta: Okay, pay off a half a million dollar loan, to my knowledge, at that point, then we can entertain private business. The reason why we haven’t entertained private business so far is because we’d have to pay back a bond cost. Is that correct? Or –

Troy Tornatta: Tax exempt loan, so we’d have to pay off whatever that tax is. So we’d have to look at doing one or the other and that would come before this body. So that’s a little food for thought there. If we did that, then we could potentially put a privateer in here. If we wanted to put a private health club for people in here, it was more appetizing when we could do it outside of a – when anybody could just roam in here and use the facilities at any time. Now we will be put on a little bit different security detail, so that’s going to be just for people in this office. But there is attorneys that might want to relocate here and maybe accounting firms or whatever, that would like the space and like the security of that space.

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. Rector, now we are talking about Circuit Court AAPS and DAPS that wants to move into the space here, is that –

Councilmember Bassemier: Okay, and we’re paying rent over there right now or lease for them over there right now. Why would we not want them to come back here and we won’t have to pay that lease? We’re already paying, so Jim, you were pretty adamant about you don’t want them to come back here. I don’t understand if we’re paying rent over here, and we don’t have to pay it over here because we’re already paying it, why wouldn’t we want them to move back?

Councilmember Raben: Well, let me clarify one thing. I’m talking about the renovation of 30,000 feet. I don’t think government needs to expand a third its size or a third time again as big as it is now. I mean, if we need 1,000 feet or we need 1,500 feet, sure, we have to look at it. But a 3 to $4,000,000 build out simply because the space is available and all the other costs that go along with it, no, I’m not supportive of any part of that.

Councilmember Bassemier: Well, what space do they have over there now, Mr. Rector? Where they’re at now.

Dave Rector: We’ve got 2,400 square feet planned in the proposed expansion. They have slightly less than that now.

Councilmember Lloyd: And I’m sympathetic to Councilman Raben, the courts, the blob that ate county government, I mean, that’s a problem when we see how they’ve expanded radically. I’d like to commend Dave Rector on this. It’s one of the most helpful documents I’ve ever seen in government. I mean, this is good because you have all the layout and all the square footage. And I guess this is proposed, though, because you’ve already got AAPS and DAPS in here.

Councilmember Lloyd: So you’re moving them here but I guess that’s still being debated.

Councilmember Lloyd: But anyway, I think it is very helpful for our plans on the building. Thank you.

Councilmember Raben: Just one quick question, Dave. I know we’ve asked you this numerous times and I don’t remember the answer. All the old administrative offices for the Sheriff’s office, is that all occupied today?

Dave Rector: Actually, we started on proposed use of the old jail space when we started design of the new jail.

Councilmember Sutton: I think what I’d like to propose so we could at least try to begin to move forward and say yes, no, maybe, part, none, whatever, I think we need a committee comprised of, obviously, yourself, Commissioners, Council, and I guess, I don’t know, since you say the city is not really interested in any of the space, I’m not sure if they would –

Dave Rector: That or confirmation. My understanding, indeed, still, the city has no interest in this space.

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, at least we could extend an invitation to serve on a committee of such to come up with a recommendation. I think the suggestions with Councilman Kiefer and Councilman Shetler about the amount of space that could or should be used based upon the number of people here is obviously something that should be considered, but if we could have a committee that can begin to review exactly what we have out there as far as what we’re paying to outside vendors for renting space, that could potentially be back in here, what logical offices or spaces would be candidates for expansion. If they could put together some type of proposal, some type of recommendations that could then come back to the affected bodies, I think we’d begin to move this forward because I think what you’ve been dealing with is over the course of time, is there’s been changes in Council composition, Commissioners and so forth, and the plan has continued to change and change, and we’ve never come to any conclusion. I think we really do need to make some conclusive statement by this body, the Commissioners and so forth, on what we’re going to do. And the only way we’re going to do that is if we sit down and talk about this with some committee that we support that could then bring back a recommendation for us to act upon.

Dave Rector: I think that would be an excellent idea on the consideration that the committee is empowered with making the decision. Otherwise, I think it’s subject to second guessing and much like the security proposal before all of us right now, it’s just another suggestion, and it’s going to go back and another officeholder is going to say, but I want that space, but I want that space. And I think with this committee as you’ve said, composed of the executive, legislative bodies, of those representatives to make those decisions, I think that’s a smart recommendation.

President Shetler: Councilman Sutton, why don’t I recommend, and Joe, I don’t know if you’ve got the time to do that? With your real estate background, it might be helpful and stuff. But to be a representative maybe for the County Council and then get with Troy and stuff, and then as the executive branch, he could put something together, as the official committee and just telling you the two names, Troy, that we’d like to see. If anybody else would want to serve, I’m sure they’d be welcome to help out on that as well. I do have one question –

Dave Rector: I’d be glad to facilitate that and pull it together and start putting these numbers together. And I think one thing that we really haven’t done is captured all these outside leasing costs and the utilities and lease and everything associated with those and what impact that would be in this space. And I think that’s important that we look at that.

President Shetler: Right. Who pays for this building? This room, this room right here. How is this assessed?

President Shetler: No, I mean, between city and county, who is paying for this room?

Dave Rector: No, 70/30. We do not include the square footage of this room, of 307, 318, the hallways, the bathrooms, we don’t include that square footage –

President Shetler: And the percentages of 30/70 is developed because of the occupancy of the building...

Councilmember Bassemier: Mr. President, I’d like to serve on that committee since I’m the superintendent – I’m the liaison for his department. If it’s okay, I’d like to serve on that committee.

President Shetler: The follow-up question I would ask you, then, is that the vacated space isn’t considered common?

Dave Rector: Yeah, and when it’s vacated, it still remains to that entity until it’s occupied differently, much like when EPD moved out of the third floor personnel up here on this floor, it was vacant for a year, the city still carried that.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 10:50 a.m.)

1050-3200	Utilities	6,000.00	6,000.00
Total		6,000.00	6,000.00

1051-2240	Medical	150,000.00	150,000.00
Total		150,000.00	150,000.00

1230-3200	Utilities	450.00	450.00
1230-3130	Travel/Mileage	1,000.00	1,000.00
1230-3520	Equipment Repair	400.00	400.00
Total		1,850.00	1,850.00

1440-1130-1440	Lead Man	877.00	877.00
1440-1140-1440	Custodian	209.00	209.00
1440-1150-1440	Custodian	303.00	303.00
1440-1160-1440	Maintenance	1,028.00	1,028.00
1440-1170-1440	Custodian	1,342.00	1,342.00
1440-1190-1440	Custodian	189.00	189.00
1440-1850	Union Overtime	6,000.00	6,000.00
1440-1900	FICA	762.00	762.00
1440-1910	PERF	1,045.00	1,045.00
Total		11,755.00	11,755.00

1450-1210	Bookkeeper/Day Camp Admin.	1,280.00	1,280.00
1450-1220	Maint/Mechanic	1,241.00	1,241.00
1450-1240	Secretary/Recept.	61.00	61.00
1450-1250	Maintenance	215.00	215.00
1450-1260	Maintenance	1,127.00	1,127.00
1450-1270	Carpenter/Iron Worker	627.00	627.00
1450-1280	Office Assistant	3,415.00	3,415.00
1450-1900	FICA	610.00	610.00
1450-1910	PERF	837.00	837.00
1450-3200	Utilities	20,000.00	20,000.00
Total		29,413.00	29,413.00

1480-1971	Accrued Payments	12,240.00	12,240.00
1480-1900	FICA	937.00	937.00
1480-1910	PERF	919.00	919.00
Total		14,096.00	14,096.00

2010-1020	Truck Driver	627.00	627.00
2010-1021	Truck Driver	610.00	610.00
2010-1022	Truck Driver	251.00	251.00
2010-1023	Truck Driver	922.00	922.00
2010-1024	Truck Driver	720.00	720.00
2010-1025	Truck Driver	752.00	752.00
2010-1026	Truck Driver	1,128.00	1,128.00
2010-1027	Truck Driver	1,197.00	1,197.00
2010-1028	Truck Driver	1,280.00	1,280.00
2010-1029	Truck Driver	125.00	125.00
2010-1030	Equipment Operator	376.00	376.00

2010-1031	Equipment Operator	501.00	501.00
2010-1032	Equipment Operator	1,089.00	1,089.00
2010-1033	Equipment Operator	410.00	410.00
2010-1035	Equipment Operator	251.00	251.00
2010-1036	Equipment Operator	152.00	152.00
2010-1037	Equipment Operator	1,253.00	1,253.00
2010-1038	Equipment Operator	839.00	839.00
2010-1042	Laborer	125.00	125.00
2010-1044	Laborer	189.00	189.00
2010-1046	Laborer	251.00	251.00
2010-1047	Laborer	125.00	125.00
2010-1050	Trash Container Driver	693.00	693.00
2010-1051	Trash Laborer	1,002.00	1,002.00
2010-1060	Mechanic	1,282.00	1,282.00
2010-1062	Asst. Mechanic	458.00	458.00
2010-1063	Grease Man	958.00	958.00
2010-1064	Tool Crib Clerk	1,378.00	1,378.00
2010-1065	Lead Man	859.00	859.00
2010-1066	Maintenance & Utility	1,253.00	1,253.00
2010-1067	Tool Crib & Janitor	1,002.00	1,002.00
2010-1068	Gas Man	1,431.00	1,431.00
Total		23,489.00	23,489.00

2030-1200-2030	Laborer	501.00	501.00
2030-1170-2030	Truck Driver	818.00	818.00
2030-1190-2030	Laborer	756.00	756.00
2030-1180-2030	Truck Driver	752.00	752.00
2030-1140-2030	Operator	1,628.00	1,628.00
Total		4,455.00	4,455.00

2490-1240-4250	Misc. Equipment	6,500.00	6,500.00
Total		6,500.00	6,500.00

From: 1050-1130-0081	Deputy Sheriff	30,000.00	30,000.00
1050-1130-0015	Lieutenant	12,248.00	12,248.00
1050-1130-0024	Sergeant	11,569.00	11,569.00
To: 1050-1971	Accrued Payments	53,817.00	53,817.00