The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 20^th day of October, 2000 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was officially opened by President Curt Wortman at 8:34 a.m.

President Wortman: The Vanderburgh County Council is now in session this October 20^th, and everybody please take their seats so that we can keep this thing, got a long agenda today. We'll start off by having the roll call for the attendance please.
 

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Smith	X
Councilmember Sutton	X*
Councilmember Bassemier	X
Councilmember Hoy	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Winnecke	X
President Wortman	X

(Councilmember Sutton arrived shortly after roll called)

President Wortman: Now then if we would all stand, the Council and the audience to pledge allegiance.

(Pledge of Allegiance was given)

President Wortman: Everyone on the Council is aware of your agenda here for today and there is going to be, of course, explanations, and then of course we will have questions, intervals, and then it depends on how long this goes on, we might have a break halfway through or sooner, whatever it is. Now, I might also add that any member in the audience, especially a taxpayer, has got a right to be heard for or against this or comments. If you do, you have to raise your hand to be recognized and if I don't and my attention is directed somewhere else, why the Executive Assistant, Sandie Deig, would recognize them I am sure, back me up. Does that sound alright? So, we will start off and I would like for the Project Management Services, Incorporated group, if they would come forward and state their names, each individually, so we know, so that the secretary gets them down and we wouldn't have to repeat that continuously when you get up and speak and I am sure that you will be addressing different areas. So, would one of you at a time, get up and state your name?

Bill Shepler: Okay, I am Bill Shepler. I am president of Project Management Services and we will just go down the line.

President Wortman: That would be fine, I appreciate that.

Al Bennett: I'm Al Bennett.

President Wortman: Thank you, thank you.

Cid McNeilly: I'm Cid McNeilly.

President Wortman: Thank you.

Julie Von Arx: Julie Von Arx.

President Wortman: We have two women and two gentlemen here so, and we are represented pretty good. Okay, so we will start off and we will take the first on the agenda as they demonstrated here, the introduction with whoever wants to explain the introduction why, step forward, please. Thank you.

Bill Shepler: I will do that and part of it was just introducing who we are and what I had in mind and talked with you earlier. We will give you a very short introduction into each section as we go in and then we would just like to open it for questions that you may have that are related to the report and try to answer any gaps or questions you have. When we are done with that we will move onto the next section. So, rather than try to shotgun this, we thought that we would take it one section at a time and certainly get through it as quickly as you will allow us to do that. But, we don't want to skip something so, if that is okay, we will start, I think juvenile is on there first and we will let Al kind of start it off and when we are done there we will move to the next section.

President Wortman: That will be fine.

Bill Shepler: Thank you very much.

President Wortman: Thank you, Bill.

Al Bennett: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a part of this team, the County Commissioners requested that we take a look at the criminal justice system. I was asked to share the part that looked at the needs of this county regarding the juvenile justice system. I was very fortunate to have a number of people throughout the community to have input too, in regards to looking at the juvenile justice issues. I was very fortunate to have Mr. Wortman and, of course, Reverend Hoy from your Council that participated on the juvenile justice study committee. We had quite a number of people and I won't name them all but the committee actually was about 15 in number and we invited in quite a number of other people, including the outgoing Judge Lensing, who is a present juvenile court judge, input from the Sheriff's department, the Evansville Police Department, the School System, Judge candidates as well as the Indiana Department of Correction. We looked at the problems overall and what we were basically asking was, what do we need to plan for the next 10 to 20 years? Taking a look at the issues today, but what were the plans that we perhaps could be thinking about for the next 20 years so as to be able to provide better services locally that would be of concern to the Council as well as the County Commissioners. One of the issues that we looked at and of course none of us are attorneys and don't profess to be, but we sure like the idea of what the judiciary brought to us and more specifically I might add, Judge Tornatta gave a presentation at the request of the presiding Judge, Scott Bowers, in which the judiciary has been looking at for some time the potential of having a family court. It was brought to the committee's attention that the Supreme Court in the state of Indiana has had three pilot programs of family court and that the Supreme Court Justice Shepherd, who formerly was a judiciary here, on the bench here, of course is heading this up with the legislature support for looking at the potential of family court being something that is growing in the future for the state of Indiana. The committee recommended that we support this direction for the future so as to be able to give the proper attention to some families in which they may be in need of the courts services but might be in something like three or four different courts, where perhaps they might be under one court if they had a family court in Vanderburgh County. So we did make a recommendation to give support to that direction and that planning. Hopefully, in the next legislative session, if the Supreme Court gets their way, perhaps when they expand to more than three and perhaps going up to as many as 10 counties, Vanderburgh County, we would hope, would be able to be one of those. The other issues was to take a look at the need for detention services. In this county, girls, females are taken to the Village, actually the facility at Knox County and which is an hour north of here. There is also some boys being taken there if they are not qualified to go to the youth facility at the Evansville Rescue Mission. Because the Evansville Rescue Mission pretty much screens for certain types of boys, those that are not aggressive and are not inebriated, those kids have to go to the Village in Vincennes and some of the, of course the rest of the boys are sent here to the Mission. The Mission, when we got involved with this study, was having problems meeting the standards and with their state inspections, we did help them and gave assistance and they had a very good inspection last month. We have not received the copy of the report but we pretty much have been given a verbal report on some issues that they can take care of in the future, but it is much, much better. The committee on this issue suggested that there be some formal contract with both the Village for girls and for boys at the Youth Village or the youth facility here at the Mission, for it to be more formalized so that we can, they would know that there is, there will be a future in the use of the facility. The present juvenile court has cut back on their use of the Rescue Mission because of the, some change in personnel and change of some programs, we are recommending that as long as they are up to the standards that they should be by the state inspectors that there should be a formal contract with them so that the entire system of law enforcement and the court system probation people can see that there is good services and these services will be provided even if they are private providers. The other issue that we recommended, the committee recommended to the Commissioners, is to formally develop a 24 bed juvenile detention center for both boys and girls and for it to be developed locally. And for the girls not to have to go an hour north for detention services, and even for some boys to go there and for the county to develop a facility even though it would be quite small, it would be one of the smaller in the state and we are not talking about a lot of beds when we are saying 24 beds. That it would be available and not have to be concerned about private monies and things like that, which you have to do with the Evansville Mission. So, it was our collective thoughts, the committee, that is, that the Mission perhaps could be used for more non-secure programs. The last area of concern that really has a lot of people excited is the potential of developing a day treatment center. We believe that with a day treatment center it will bring the school system, the Court system, the county government that is concerned about this, that I am talking about, the law enforcement, both city and county as well as the concerns that were expressed by the County Commissioners, that there be more support for families and for kids that are in trouble in school, that we have a day care type program that would be running all day instead of half a day and for that perhaps could receive monies from the state through the Community Corrections Juvenile monies to go towards such a program. This would be a structured program that would be for the youth and would give support to families that need this support in this community. So, a day care type program could be developed and doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be a new building or even a secure building, it could be a non-secure. It would be a program that would bring the different entities of this community together to really address the concerns that children may have on a daily basis whether it be problems in their family or problems at school or problems anywhere else in the community. So, these were the recommendations that the juvenile committee brought forward. Of course, I would be glad to answer any questions that I could.

President Wortman: Okay, thank you, Mr. Bennett. Any questions, Mr. Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: I just have a couple regarding the day treatment center. I think it is one of the most enticing things of the entire recommendation personally but how much room are we talking about? You said that it didn't have to be its own building or a new building. How large and who would actually oversee this? Would it be Juvenile Court?

Al Bennett: That of course, hasn't been determined, but it would need to be addressed as the planning develops. It could be a separate person, under the court, it probably would not do well if it was run by the school. I don't think that the school people would want to run it but they certainly support the need for it. I would think that perhaps it could come under the Community Corrections Board and particularly if they receive monies from the state to help finance and to help operate this facility. We see the potential of the program that is school related and program related like substance abuse and programs that would take care of anger management and things like that before those kids are in trouble or nearly in trouble. So, it is a service to the court but it is also a service to the school if they are having problems in school. This same program could be for the kids that might be in the detention center because they are all the same kids and some maybe in just a little bit more trouble than others. So, we are not talking about a building that is extremely large, we are talking about one that has two to three classrooms and some space for some activities for volunteers to be able to come in and provide tutoring. The day treatment center would not be a residential center, it would not be where some people would sleep overnight. It is only day care. But, it could be next to the juvenile detention center which of course is residential. 

Councilmember Winnecke: How large a staff would your company envision, once you got beyond?

Al Bennett: I would envision that the staff might not be more than four or five but they perhaps could have some part time staff or even some volunteers that could key in on some of the programs. Again, it kind of depends on how obviously classrooms have to be manned with a teacher and perhaps even a teacher's aid but those type of, that type of planning has not been finalized. We really did not get into the detail except to, really kind of supported the concept. My suggestion would be that in the planning of the different people coming together, the courts and the county officials, the Sheriff and so forth, with the school system, take a couple of trips to see some facilities. Day treatment centers are throughout the state of Kentucky so there are a couple of fine facilities that's not really too far from here. So, I think that a field trip would educate some people and bring in even some people to provide some workshops and to have some, to kind of educate everybody as all part of the planning.

President Wortman: Mr. Hoy?

Councilmember Hoy: Excuse me and to connect with that because I was in on those discussions, I would think that, Mr. President, we would want somebody, you and I were connected with this, for somebody from this body to be on that trip because we are going to be looking at the financing. I have a question because as you know I very strongly support this idea. On the funding of it, you know we have been penalized as a county because our adult community corrections program preceded the state legislation and we hope to correct that. We hope that our legislators from this area will help us correct that because it is an unfair burden on Vanderburgh County as you know. Since we have not funded a juvenile facility of this kind in community corrections, do you know, would we be eligible then for state funding? Because that would certainly-

Al Bennett: For the day treatment center?

Councilmember Hoy: Yeah, for the day treatment center.

Al Bennett: I believe that you would.

Councilmember Hoy: Since we are not putting money there.

Al Bennett: You are not supplanting here. Now, we can not, Julie is a little bit closer to the community corrections funding than I am, but in my discussion with Julie, she feels like this concept would work well because it is not supplanting. So, I think that is a place to go, the first place to go.

Councilmember Hoy: Because as you know, we get asked funding questions all of the time. That would certainly be a help.

Al Bennett: Right.

Councilmember Hoy: Thank you.

Bill Shepler: We have included just for your information, in the community corrections program, we do have adult and juvenile being reported as space being allocated to that.

Councilmember Hoy: Yes. No, I was thinking more of financing this.

Bettye Lou Jerrel: I think maybe- 

President Wortman: Anybody that speaks, would they come to the microphone, please?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: You are going to have trouble getting construction money, Phil, you can get operational costs, but you are going to have trouble.

President Wortman: And what was your name?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: Bettye Lou Jerrel.

President Wortman: Thank you. I think that Mr. Hoy mentioned that finance thing and I think that before this thing gets down the road too far, the legislative process should be used and there is a surplus of money now in the state and I think that we might as well tap it. If we don't and it wasn't there, then we would have more problems. If you don't start and get some of these things done, we are going to have problems worse that what we have now, see?

Al Bennett: I think that you are right and it is very timely. The next session is the budget session and it is the long session, as everybody knows and they will be putting a budget together for the next two years and that budget goes into effect next July. And so, we are now, Community Corrections has 42 million dollars for the two year period and it has gone up every time. I think that Community Corrections started with two million dollars back in 1980 or `81 and it has gradually gone up. There isn't any reason why Vanderburgh County's plan shouldn't be there.

Councilmember Hoy: I think it's, I think at least three of our legislative candidates have no opposition. We know who to lobby right now.

Al Bennett: That's right.

President Wortman: Who would be good? Would you assist in lobbying along with our legislature and our local officials to get this done?

Al Bennett: I'd be very happy to do that. Obviously, to see the fruits of our labors become reality would be something that we would very much enjoy. The great thing about the day treatment center is that it does bring the people that are concerned about children and particularly adolescents at a troublesome time for most juveniles, during the teen and formable times of their life, bring this type of focus onto their concerns. Whether they have problems with in school or whether they have problems getting in at night, parents would have a resource in which to try and deal with some of the problems and for it not always be something that law enforcement has to deal with.

Councilmember Hoy: The more than side comment, one of the things that we also discussed, and this really is School Corporation business, but, none of these alternative schools that we now have run all day. I think a lot of the public thinks that they do and funding is needed for that and the state is also in a good position as we mentioned to fund some things.

Al Bennett: I am sorry to interrupt. The committee was very fortunate to have the Superintendent of Schools and the Chairman of the School Board as part of our committee and they had a great deal of input on what they felt the juvenile justice committee should recommend and so they very much supported this program and they support all day. They know that what they have now, which is half day, is very limited.

President Wortman: Mr. Winnecke.

Councilmember Winnecke: I have a question that actually the Sheriff may be involved with too. In the report it talks about how policemen on the street are confused about where to take a child. Would a juvenile detention center cure that problem for officers on the street?

Brad Ellsworth: That was going to be my question also.

President Wortman: Would you step forward, the local Sheriff?

Brad Ellsworth: Brad Ellsworth, Sheriff. That was going to be my question when I raised my hand also. I think there is confusion on the difference between juvenile detention and juvenile corrections and I was going to ask you to touch on that and what this 24 beds was actually going to be used for. The confusion comes because five or six years ago when the law changed and didn't allow us to house juveniles in the county jail for any more than six hours, we were making those long trips to Johnson County back and forth three and four times a night and then we've got the city police, obviously more than the Sheriff's office, got very creative at not housing juveniles and that has carried over even they can take them to Youth Care, it became, like I said they became creative and turning them over to the parents but it also causes a problem when the Youth Care Center can not house them for their standards and there is no place and the parents won't take them. It happens every once in a while. I would like Al to touch on that, what this 24 beds is going to be. I know what I think it means, but could you, because that is where I am getting the confusion from the public, is what detention-

President Wortman: That is a very good point. I am glad that you brought that up, Mr. Ellsworth.

Al Bennett: Well, and I apologize for that and this should be covered. The 24 bed juvenile detention center should be for boys and girls and many of those that they are not here at the mission have to go an hour away. That type of service is needed immediately and it needs to be a service that is in the community. Rather than the law enforcement folks, whether it is the Sheriff or the P.D. having to make that trip. As the Sheriff said and we heard these stories on the committee of them babysitting with kids for several hours because they perhaps couldn't be taken care of locally with the Mission, perhaps Vincennes was full and they didn't want to go and take a three hour trip to Johnson County or somewhere else. This is a service that needs to be locally and they are, it needs to be for children that need to be detained. More and more because of kids being high on drugs, or the fact that and they are not all this way and most of the children are not this way, but perhaps their attitudes need to be taken care of in regards to at least overnight in a detention center. For it to be a good place, safe, sound, clean, sanitary and good staff that is available 24 hours a day and for it to be for providing the services that you would have in a jail but in this case it would for juveniles. So, it is that type of service that is strictly for the 24 bed facility. I might address the fact that there are 22 detention centers in the state of Indiana. All of them are basically regionalized except for Indianapolis, they only take care of Marion County. But, the rest of them are handling several counties and we are suggesting 24 beds which is basically about the smallest you can build and for it to be cost effective. You have got to have programs there that the state and national standards call for, space for classes and exercise so that they can have things to do that are constructive during the day and for these programs to be available right there at the center. The 24 beds could probably be very adequate for a few years and it could handle children in adjacent counties if they would choose to bring them here. So, and we would suggest that in the future that 24 beds need to be added to the original facility be designed and built so that it could be added onto with very little trouble anytime in the future that the county would want to do that. 

President Wortman: Anybody else got any questions? Mr. Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Al, what is the difference in this facility versus the facility that was built probably five or six years ago in Warrick County?

Al Bennett: Warrick County?

Councilmember Raben: Was there not?

Al Bennett: I don't believe that Warrick County has a juvenile center.

Councilmember Raben: A correction facility?

Al Bennett: Warrick County has a new jail that was built four or five years ago.

Councilmember Raben: So, they didn't build it?

President Wortman: Mrs. Jerrel, would you step forward, please?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: They were going to build and they had a lot of controversy over it and because as Al pointed out, a juvenile detention center could be to hold young people from a few hours to a few days. They are sent to Boys School and Girls School as perhaps other placement by the judge. I think, after they discussed it a lot in Warrick County, they didn't want to build one, some did and some didn't and they didn't get the funding, so they built a new jail instead.

President Wortman: Mr. Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: I was going to ask you, in coming up with your recommendation on the number of beds, what factors do we use to come up with the 24 beds? I mean are you looking at population trends? Initially you were looking at a 10 to 20 year span of time that you are looking at as far as recommendations. So based upon maybe the window that you, or the horizon that you are looking at for the recommendation, how do we come up with the 24? Is it based upon where we were, can you talk us through that?

Al Bennett: Of course, this is not an exact science. But, the fact that the county does not have a center now was a factor. They have the Mission that is available for certain kids that qualify, only boys and only boys that are not aggressive and hostile and only boys that are sober. So, all girls and the boys that don't qualify have to go an hour away. So, the fact that you don't have a center was a factor. Then we recommended that because you need one, that you not build a large one. If you would take a look at counties, and the population size of Vanderburgh County, many of them like Johnson County, which is smaller, has 48 beds. If you take a look at Porter County, they have 36 beds. Indianapolis has 144 beds. Elkhart County which is about your same size in population has 32 beds. So, we were suggesting that simply a facility that you have never had built and operated, simply you go at the minimal so as not to have more than you really need but yet it would be enough that it would take care of you for several years. I suggest that, my prediction would be, and I don't know who is going to remind me of them when they prove me wrong or if they prove me right, that 24 beds will not be enough for 24 years. But, I think that it is certainly the way to start. I would not suggest that you go for 24 beds simply because it is the beginning and I think that you would need to, you would have a lot of good use for that. Now, another concern that we had and I didn't mention this morning but was talked about a lot by the committee, Judge Lensing has been 17 years as your Juvenile Judge, he is not running for re-election. His philosophy was not to lock kids up in detention and that is one reason that they have used the mission less and less but we were hearing stories of the law enforcement folks and school officials that there is a need and for us to have one and have that immediate service, it should be used right. So, we are trusting that the next juvenile judge will set the criteria that is reasonable and for law enforcement and for the community to live by. So, it is not an exact science on coming up with 24 beds. 

Councilmember Sutton: Also, I was going to ask you, with 24 beds, is that based upon the needs of Vanderburgh County or is that based on this kind of corner of the state, here in Southwestern Indiana, maybe a regionalized basis?

Al Bennett: That is a great question and I think it would be both. The nearest facility, which is a great one, is a 40 bed facility in Vincennes, privately run by Corrections Corporation of America, and we generally call them the Village but that is a 16 county facility. Vanderburgh County is not one of those 16 even though they do have a contract or an agreement to be able to send their girls there. So, we are suggesting because of your size and because of the lack of detention beds in the southern part of the state, 24 beds is certainly adequate at this time.

President Wortman: Excuse me, we're going to change tapes.

(Tape Change)

Councilmember Sutton: I take it...would you say that the Vincennes facility has a contractual agreement with those sixteen counties to house their youth or is that just some type of-

Al Bennett: That was their arrangement before they were built. These counties agreed that they would send all their kids there. Vanderburgh County...and that was probably seven or eight years ago.

Councilmember Sutton: So that contract has an end, I'm assuming, I guess-

Al Bennett: Those 16 counties get a three or four dollar break per day on their per diem. They of course, are given first preference. It's not been a problem for you, particularly for your girls because you've only got two or three at a time, on the average.

Councilmember Sutton: I guess, maybe where I'm going, I guess I see that our area here in terms of our transportation network and the other things that go on in this community and the services that we offer and that are available that may be in addition to maybe a detention facility that we would want to see a facility that would serve greater than just one county, Vanderburgh County.

Al Bennett: I think it would serve that way and I think that there is a good chance that Posey, perhaps Warrick, the adjacent counties...I think that what you have would be a facility that is not large but very adequate at this time. You could always jump it to 36. You could even go to 48. But I don't think that you need that at this time.

Councilmember Sutton: Thank you.

President Wortman: Okay, anybody else got any questions for Al? He's well versed on these things, you can tell. He does a real good job. Mrs. Jerrel, would you step forward please? No rest for the wicked.

Bettye Lou Jerrel: Would you want to give us a thumbnail, best guess per bed cost?

Al Bennett: How many square feet did we say Bill? You generally estimate the cost by square feet and we said it was, what was it, 10,000?

Unidentified: I'm getting there. Twenty thousand.

Al Bennett: We estimated the cost totally for the facility to be probably between three and a half to $5,000,000 depending on how much program space is planned and perhaps some other programs that could be planned at the same time like there's some phases like the program space could be available to the day treatment center. At this time we were simply dealing with issues or concepts and have not really gotten into the details of the cost. It's generally accepted that the square foot cost of a detention center or jail is about $150 a square foot. A building like this or an office building might be around $100 or a little less per square foot so, it's quite a lot more expensive because of the mortar and steel and the automatic lock systems and things that you have to have for good safety and sanitation.

President Wortman: Okay, Mr. Winnecke.

Councilmember Winnecke: Just to clarify, when you talk about cost you're excluding costs of land acquisition?

Al Bennett: I'm only talking about construction. I am not talking about fees or the land acquisition or anything that would be above and beyond the construction costs.

President Wortman: Operating is what you meant. Mr. Hoy?

Councilmember Hoy: Mr. Bennett, I was looking for the page where you listed the various costs of facilities around the state and I can't find it. 

Unidentified: It's page 88.

Councilmember Hoy: Is it 88? I think that's a-

Al Bennett: The counties around the state charge a daily per diem. Generally what they do, and I'll take Johnson County because I did some work for them earlier this year. They are charging basically $100 a day. I think in January they're going to go up to about $110 a day. That's about average. It ranges as low as...in Elkhart County it's about $70 a day but that does not count the cost of food and utilities. If they add the cost of utilities and food they would be closer to $100. There's some that are much higher. I think St. Joe County, with a brand new facility are charging $150 per day. So there's a range there. The mid...about $100 is about midrange.

Councilmember Hoy: The other page I was looking for too was where it cost, you know, the costs that existed like Wernle and Father Gibault and places like that cost...that's $185 a day, I was talking more about per diem than construction.

Al Bennett: We did throw in the report some of the costs because the courts...the Juvenile Courts in this county for long term treatment, I'm talking about after a child has been in detention and the court has found the child guilty or they've been processed through the Juvenile Court they are taken out of the home and placed in a...at the state in a boys school or girls school or a number of private facilities like Father Gibault School in Terre Haute. Those costs are extremely high because of long term treatment and the cost of expense of salaries for physiologists and psychiatrists, teachers and so forth. So, again, we're talking about here a short term treatment center as Commissioner Jerrel has said that is...most of the time it's going to be a few days and could be as long as two weeks to thirty days waiting for placement somewhere. It's really a short term facility that is needed here. The best way to look at a juvenile detention center..people seem to understand what a jail is for adults. A juvenile detention center would be the same thing except it's for juveniles, short term, waiting to go to court or waiting disposition on where to be placed whether it's back home or in a group home or on to another facility.

President Wortman: Mr. Hoy?

Councilmember Hoy: The other thing I would add, politically, is that in our meetings we had all four of the juvenile candidates in to our meeting and all four of them support a detention facility, in fact, they support all of these recommendations. They do support these recommendations. We're going to see a change in philosophy in juvenile court in terms of...in a number of ways and that's one of the ways we're going to see it.

President Wortman: Mrs. McNeilly?

Cid McNeilly: Those various per diem costs were like third to the last page in the appendix. 

President Wortman: Okay, have we got any...Mr. Ellsworth has got a few words to say.

Brad Ellsworth: One more thing. We're talking about more than just a few cells. There's a few (Inaudible) extras because I know that the school corporation by law and the jails have to provide space for juveniles that are in need of special services to provide GED classes and you have to by law to be able to continue their education while they're incarcerated. Hopefully they won't be in long enough, like I said, short term, but we do have to have some class rooms, small facilities, one on one rooms in there so we could provide for these juveniles. That can also be done as long as we have some kind of class room or some kind of one on one service. Just food for thought.

President Wortman: Mr. Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: What difference does it make in terms of location of a facility like the one we're talking about here? Does that enter in as a factor? Does it need to be close to the court system? What thoughts do you have there?

Al Bennet: Probably the ideal would be to have a center that's near the probation staff of the court. You could always place an office or a court in the facility for the Magistrate. In Johnson County the Juvenile Magistrate that...the actual judge is in the court house but the Magistrate is located in the center with all the probation staff that might provide counseling and so forth, that's ideal. It doesn't have to be that way. That would almost be ideal. 

President Wortman: Mr. Hoy?

Councilmember Hoy: One of the thoughts...I don't think this is unrelated to what we're discussing here today. As we look at this whole package and I ask that we look at what's happening in this complex here people moving...all kinds of departments moving out. I think it's high time that we had an overall study. I don't know whether we need to hire somebody to do this, or we do it ourselves, the study of building usage anyhow. I've been sitting here almost eight years and some of the moves look half haphazard rather than planned. I'm speaking beyond just the criminal justice system, but this might give us an opportunity to take a good look at that as well and just attaching to what you just said about having a probation department in this facility, well if that facility is somewhere else then you're going to vacate some space over here and we need to be looking at that in terms of the management of tax dollars.

President Wortman: Thank you, Mr. Hoy. Okay, anybody else got anything for Al?

Al Bennett: I might say at the end here that this has been a tremendous experience. Of course, my work is more than just juveniles, I also deal with adult and jail and work release so as a team member I've contributed to the whole study. The experience with the people concerned about the juvenile matters, the public school people, the courts, Judge Lensing, even though he's going out of office, was very cooperative, and I think the fact that you and the Commissioners are taking the lead on these issues tells...gives a message that everyone is really concerned about all the issues and the case of juveniles, my feeling has been that this community certainly cares about the kids whether they're in trouble or if they're not in trouble.

President Wortman: Yeah, I think we've got the Council, Commissioners, and office heads, a lot of people involved are real cooperative. I think they want to see some results here. Its got to the point where we don't have any choice, I thinks that's what it amounts to. So, you've done a very good job. You can tell by your documentation in this book here, you've spent a lot of time.

Al Bennett: Thank you very much.

President Wortman: Yeah, yes sir. Mr. Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Al, just one quick question. Reflecting on your...and again, I guess we were coached, a year ago in November don't put your foot forward and speak in terms of cost in any project until you get a little further along but, you stated five or six million dollars which could be on target or may be way off. I'm looking back at the amount of dollars that we as a county spend in outside housing and-

Al Bennett: And transportation.

Councilmember Raben: -and transportation. This year alone we'll spend, what, about one million three, Bettye Lou? 

Bettye Lou Jerrel: But remember, we will still have to spend that in placements for boys school and girls school, that won't change.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, that's what I'm trying to figure out-

Bettye Lou Jerrel: Yeah, this will be in addition.

Councilmember Raben: -is how much savings would this be to that?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: We spend about $40,000 a year for the Youth Care Center placement. Then we have transportation and the girls at Village.

Al Bennett: Our rough estimate is that you spend about $100,000 for detention service here and the Village and so forth.

Councilmember Raben: So, it's not really going to pick away at that big picture?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: No, the big picture is going to stay.

Councilmember Hoy: The other thing, and correct me, Mr. Bennett, if I'm incorrect. Presently, with the meager use of the Mission facility, it's questionable how much longer they can financially continue the Youth Care Center with the meager usage of it, they don't have enough income coming in, they may want to close that.

Al Bennett: I did not elaborate on that issue, but we did talk about it in the committee that the Evansville Rescue Mission of course was a mission for adults. A few years ago at the request of Judge Lensing, he said, why don't you get into the juvenile business. So, they built a fine facility, just not built totally up to standards as it should have been, but early this year, in April exactly, they wrote a letter to Judge Lensing saying they were having problems keeping up financially. As long as they're private and like that, I think that's a service that you've got to depend on. You've got to be able to take all children. So when you take a look at the whole picture and down the road a ways, it was just kind of determined that you need your own center. Now, if they want to have non-dependent and neglected kids and have services for them that would be a very fine service for what they could do in their present facility which is not a secure facility.

Bettye Lou Jerrel: Bill has some-

President Wortman: Bill and Bettye are going to comment now.

Bill Shepler: I was going to tell you in 1999 you spent $289,000 with the Youth Care Center and you spent about $42,000 with the Village. Some of that Village may not be directly relatable to savings if you had your own area but I'd say last year you spent $320,000 to $325,000 that you should be able to put into housing your own people.

Bettye Lou Jerrel: And you recall that we pay for the boys school and girls school on a deferred basis after each six month billing which runs about $600,000 a billing. This facility is about 30 or $40,000 a month. You know, we've got to think about that because they're wanting to expand and we're going to need them during the construction but we're going to have to decide whether we're going to encourage that expansion because they have to have guaranteed placements or they're not going to be able to pay for it. For instance, they have an arrangement I think five or six spaces are devoted to Posey County. Is that right?

Al Bennett: Yes, they do.

Bettye Lou Jerrel: In order for them to make it now. There's a lot of side issues that we need to take into consideration.

Councilmember Hoy: As a clergyman, I'd like to comment on that. I think in the public perception, I know in the public perception, they look at places like Father Gibault or however you say it, whether in French or English. The Fort Wayne's Children's Home, I'm very familiar with that facility because it's our denominations and all of these. People think that since those are there and built by the churches they're not costing the taxpayer and they're wrong. Those places financially can not exist without our payments. It's a mistake to think that it saves us construction costs maybe, but it doesn't save us operational costs or placement costs and that's what I'm trying to say. That's why I was looking for that page a while ago when you see what it costs per day in these facilities. I've toured those facilities years ago and so it...the cost is going to be there that's my point and where you place this and if we run it our per diem is not going to go up.

Al Bennett: Right.

Councilmember Hoy: It may be about the same, we would hope.

President Wortman: Okay, anybody else got any questions for Al Bennett? Okay, if not-

Al Bennett: Thank you.

President Wortman: -if we've pretty well discussed things why we'll move onto the next, B, the Court Process, that would be Julie Von Arx, please.

Julie Von Arx: Thank you.

President Wortman: Yes, Ma'am.

Julie Von Arx: If I could maybe correct my own agenda, I would probably change that to processes that impact the jail. I think it's sort of a misnomer and I don't want anyone to feel that we're pointing a finger at the courts when we looked at this process. In looking at this process too, it's not as black and white necessarily, it's not as glitzy and glamourous, and it's not as easy as just adding additional beds, and it's a little more complicated. But without looking at this piece there's never going to be a full understanding of what some of the causes are of jail overcrowding, and realizing what those causes are also gives you an understanding, but simply adding capacity is not going to solve your problem. Adding 500 beds to the jail is not going to solve Vanderburgh County's jail overcrowding problem unless we get a handle on those processes that impact the jail population. In its most fundamental sense, and this is very fundamental, the thing...the two things that most impact the jail are how many people come in and how long they stay. The final report, I think, covered that on pages 20 through 30. We gave you, I think, some pretty specific statistical information about what has occurred in Vanderburgh County over the last ten years about how your numbers have been affected about numbers coming in, inmates, and how long they've been staying in the jail. I think a significant fact, and I know the media has covered this, and we certainly weren't pointing a finger at anyone, but I think, it was significant and I didn't want to draw a conclusion in the final report about it, but I think it's very significant in terms of how your jail has been impacted in that in Vanderburgh County whose population is about 168,000, the filings for at least '97 and in '98 were higher than those in Allen County whose population is about 315,000. I'm not sure what that says, and again, I don't want to draw a conclusion about that but I would definitely say that the filings in Vanderburgh County are very large, and it also impacts how well the courts are able to manage the numbers that are coming into them. I would probably say that the people that are making those arrests and filing those cases are doing their jobs. But we need to figure out how to manage the volume of those cases when our bed capacity has not changed. We made several recommendations for the criminal justice system itself and for the courts specifically. I do want to commend the court, I think that you have a judiciary here that...I've been in many counties working on jail overcrowding and I think I would have to say that the judiciary here has been the most cooperative in terms of providing us information and willingness to look at themselves and to make changes once we pointed out a couple of things to them that needed to be done. You do have a wonderful software system here that the court is using and is going to provide them with very valuable information about how to better manage the case loads that they have. We were not able to track what had occurred with the courts over the last ten years because prior to the new software system it just wasn't providing good information. But you all, along with the Commissioners, I think, were very progressive in funding Courtview 2000 and it will help the courts manage themselves. But what we thought was very important is that they begin using the Court Administrator to help them manage that information. If you're going to have and pay for a wonderful software system, use the information it's giving you. The Court Administrator, I believe, I talked with Judge Bowers today, at least with the Superior Courts, the Court Administrator is going to begin functioning in that way and will keep the courts advised about their caseloads and how well they're managing. The final report also compared Vanderburgh County with several other counties in terms of fillings to dispositions, and again, that goes back to how many inmates enter the system and how long they're staying. So, it's very important that the courts continue to look at that information. Probably another significant recommendation, at least, that I felt in this section that didn't have to do with court processes was talking about merging the booking process with the detaining of prisoners. In touring the facility that the Evansville Police currently operate for booking in of inmates, I can't probably be more candid with you, and this may not be politically correct to say this, but I felt it was dangerous. I felt it was dangerous for the employees. I felt it was dangerous for the inmates in terms of security issues and just how the inmates are booked because of the facility design itself. I very much believe that whole process needs to be looked at and amended. I would probably at this point make a recommendation that the Sheriff take over the booking process. Most other jurisdictions in this state, there are only nine where that function is split between two different law enforcement agencies. Because the Sheriff has the responsibility from the state for detaining prisoners and there is a detention situation even if you're booking in a prisoner for four hours, you still have to detain them safely. I would feel that the Sheriff probably is in the best situation to handle that. Probably, the other most significant recommendation, there were probably about ten or fifteen, and I'm not going to go through all of those, but I think it's very important that the efforts of the Blue Ribbon Committee that stated, I believe, a couple of years ago, and then the committees that we were operating, they must continue because as I said, the 500 beds that were recommended whether you agree that that is a necessary thing, and I hope you do, it's going to be very important that the continued collaboration and communication of all of the criminal justice players have to continue or those 500 beds are not going to be enough. I also did the Community Corrections section, unless someone had a question and wanted me to take questions about that section.

President Wortman: Your comments earlier was the judicial system, I think you were referring to the judge's cooperation?

Julie Von Arx: Yes.

President Wortman: How's that work versus efficiency over there?

Julie Von Arx: I think because they're cooperative and they came to the table and are willing to look at having the Court Administrator function the way that a Court Administrator should function in my opinion. We also recommended that they set goals for themselves in terms of how long a time it should take for a court case to be disposed of. They're not the only ones though that affect that. The important thing about setting that time goal is that it's communicated to the Prosecutor and Defense Bar. I think that the judges are very willing to do that. As long as they're willing to do that and communicate what their goals are, I think the rest of the system players will abide by that. So in terms of cooperation, I've not seen a willingness in some of the other counties that I've been in, even to have their statistical data looked at, that's not been the case where that's been offered in other counties. They were very willing to have that data looked at.

President Wortman: Mr. Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: This might be a question better suited for Judge Bowers, I don't know, back when PMSI made the recommendations to the Commission, I believe that Judge Bowers or Judge Heldt talked about the state discussing a new computer court system for...around the state. Judge, do you know where that stands? Are you familiar with that?

President Wortman: Would you come forward, Judge Bowers, please? He likes to come forward, he's grinning, I can tell.

Scott Bowers: Always a pleasure to be here. In regard to where that stands, I know that they have just changed personnel and I have not spoken to the new person. Judge Knight is on the state Court Technology Committee so we'll be part of that process. I think their first two goals that were articulated was to set up a standardized system of communication throughout the state on all courts and I think the idea was to get statewide data as part of that process, standardize the reporting procedures and so on. That's going to be their big push in the coming year. Also, as part of that process they are going to be formulating standards and making recommendations so that there can be uniformity on software and on systems used in the courts. Primarily, they're looking at data issues, but they're also looking at things like digital recording which is becoming standard for the federal courts and has been used widely in the medical industry for oh, a decade. So, those are the things that are going on right now, and as I said, I hope we'll be more a part of that. I haven't heard from the new person personally, but I hope to shortly. Does that sufficiently respond to your question?

President Wortman: Bettye Lou Jerrel?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: Just to give you an update, Lloyd. The committee that is working on determining the budget for the Supreme Court or the judicial center met on the 5^th of October. I represent...I'm a chair of the Judicial County Committee, state wide. We made our recommendations; I appeared before the Budget Committee as did Judge Shepard and Judge Sullivan. Judge Bowers is correct, the technology component is very important, but this year, for the first time, the Supreme Court that oversees the judiciary system has asked for additional budget money to give back to the counties. This is a first and they realize how important it is for all the reasons Judge Bowers said, but most of the fees that are paid in our courts are divided, you know, among the judicial center...state center funds the salaries of the Judges and the Magistrates and certain other things, and then the other portion of it comes back through our County Clerk. We lose money, the counties lose money on this exchange, we spend a whole lot more. The state is funding theirs and they're running a little bit ahead on their money and I think now, the realization is not just Vanderburgh County, all over the state of Indiana counties are hurting. All of the costs of the criminal justice system are literally taking money from anything else the counties want to do. So I applaud the Supreme Court for asking that some of this money come back to you.

President Wortman: Thank you. Mr. Hoy?

Councilmember Hoy: Yes, I'm not going to reference a page because I've got so many markings in my book. I think it would be good to have it on record, if this is the case, and I think it is, again, we're dealing with perception that our county is somewhat behind everybody else. In your estimation, not to put us in the one to ten position, but from my information, every county is dealing with the same problem, are they not?

Julie Von Arx: Yes.

Councilmember Hoy: With overcrowding, with making the system work and all of that. I think it's important for the people who live here to understand that we're not behind anybody else. Is that correct?

Julie Von Arx: Oh, definitely not. I believe your leaders, and there was a sophistication level that all of us felt from the very beginning. I would put you clear at the top. 

Councilmember Hoy: Thank you. We get...often, we're treated strangely down here.

Julie Von Arx: I apologize really if I didn't emphasize that enough. We were able to make I think, quite a bit of progress and headway because of the sophistication level and because of the collaboration that had already been occurring. It wasn't something that we were having to form ourselves. 

Councilmember Hoy: By this question, I'm not trying to focus blame on anybody. I would prefer to use the word as my ethics prof used to say, responsibility, which is the ability to respond rather than blame. It seems to me that when we did appoint the Blue Ribbon Committee that made the system work better.

Julie Von Arx: Yes.

Councilmember Hoy: Then, when we brought you all in the system worked better and thirdly then, you're encouraging us to continue this sort of involvement, am I correct?

Julie Von Arx: Yes I am. I can only, I guess, speak for my own experience having been involved as a participant in a criminal justice system myself and being under a consent decree that when we had an Overcrowding Committee that was not communicating and wasn't collaborating, the numbers crept back up and reached capacity. I think that's...maybe it's human nature, where the spotlight is lit, people respond to that and I just think it's real important, especially as the litigation progresses, if it progresses, I should say if, it's going to be very important that this group stay together.

Councilmember Hoy: Well, this is comparing apples and oranges, but at the Tri State Food Bank, we're inspected by fifteen entities, and whenever an entity is coming in, the place gets a lot cleaner.

President Wortman: Excuse me, we're going to change tapes again.

(Tape Change)

President Wortman: Mr. Sutton has a question.

Councilmember Sutton: No, no, just a point of information.

President Wortman: Oh, I see. Okay.

Councilmember Hoy: We were doing the tape scorecard. 

President Wortman: Anybody else have any questions for Julie? She's been well versed, too, like Al. 

Brad Ellsworth: I've got one.

President Wortman: Yes, sir, Mr. Ellsworth.

Brad Ellsworth: I think this is what Commissioner Tuley just asked, but I wanted to go a little bit further. The county is under a gentlemen's agreement with the ICLU cap at 329 and our bunks are at 268. I'd like Julie, and I think Commissioner Tuley, to explain her experience because I know she's worked in jurisdictions with caps before and I know that the ICLU talked about that they were going to come back after this report was done. What can we expect from the ICLU, and what's this cap mean, and what did you do in your jurisdictions?

Julie Von Arx: Thank you, Sheriff. I was remiss in not addressing that myself. Really, a lot of that is going to depend upon what the penalty that the judge decides to affix. Whether it's telling the sheriff to open his doors and let people out on the street, if the cap is reached, or whether the county is going to be fined each inmate over that capacity per day. I've worked in counties where both of those scenarios have occurred. In either case, I think it's very important, and again, it's going to be very important that all of the players communicate because if one person over that cap causes the county to either be fined or let a prisoner out the door, it's going to be very important that the players decide and set an emergency placement protocol. By that, I think I did put that in the final report, that particular inmates are identified for either placement in another county. I would hope that would be the last resort. I don't think that should be used. I think that the system players here are sophisticated enough where other options and alternatives can be derived. A snapshot needs to be taken of the population of all of the inmates. Anyone that is ready to go to the Department of Corrections or any other jurisdiction that they are sentenced to, all of those prisoners need to go first. All of the inmates that need to be in another place, need to be there. Usually, that can be up to 25 to 30 people. That can give you a cushion. I guess, what I'm saying is not to get too detailed and too specific for you is, it's important to have a plan and to know what to do and have those players in place to respond immediately when that particular magic number is reached. I've also recommended that the judges and system players research pre-conditional release programs such as electronic monitoring or drug monitored release. Those have been successful in many other jurisdictions as well. I know in other jurisdictions that I've been in, an emergency group meets once a week just to talk about moving bodies around. I told the people as we met, you've not existed in this kind of a crisis situation. We've felt that it's coming but it's not here yet. When it gets here, the criminal justice players that can make decisions, and it's going to have to be office holders, will have to be prepared to make time on their calendars to meet weekly to address this issues. I don't know if that addressed your concerns?

Bill Shepler: We were going to do this a little later anyway, but I will give you kind of an update of what that situation is. I'm going to kind of work backwards. July 10^th, the county entered into a non-binding agreement with the ICLU capping the current jail at 329. I think Brad said that very nicely. The cap is at 329, we've got 268 beds, that means we have people that don't have beds except for mattresses and thing like that on the floor. That expires on November 15^th of this year. That whole thing dates back to a 1979 action which was...you entered into a county agreement to make some changes periodically. It happened a couple different times in the jail. This whole thing goes back to an initial case back to 1979. What happens from here on, and I've got a whole list of these court cases, if you're interested. I don't want to bore you with all that. Probably what will happen is at the end of this expiration of this, some action will come out. The county has asked for a dismissal of a couple pieces that are out there and that might come about. My guess, and it's strictly a guess, is after the end of November, the ICLU will get very active in this. Their action will probably be based on the recommendations that are in our report. I don't know what that's legally going to mean to you, but I would anticipate by the first of the year that they will get pretty interested in this county. You're not alone. They entered into a very similar agreement with Terre Haute. They didn't give Terre Haute as much cushion as they gave you in their original agreement. I can answer questions specifically, or I can pass this letter around from the County Attorney. If you want specific cases, I didn't want to take a lot of time on that but give you an update on that. 

Councilmember Hoy: I don't know about anyone else, but I'd like a copy of that.

President Wortman: Beings we're in the process here and getting the train moving, to use those terms, will they have consideration there?

Councilmember Hoy: The ICLU.

Bill Shepler: I'm not sure what your question is?

President Wortman: We're trying to make some progress here. I know that November 15^th is the deadline, as you mentioned. If we are making progress and showing a good, honest effort, do you think they will have consideration on that?

Bill Shepler: Yes, I do. Our experience throughout the state has been a little bit different in other places. I can tell you that all three of us were involved in a project in Cass County. We had finished the design. We had a contractor and the foundations were in the ground, and we got a mandate from a judge to reduce down to the rated capacity in a couple days. We had to find homes for 25 people. Julie came in and did very similar to what she's recommending you do, to put into place this implementation and we were able to pull many of those people back in and wasn't doing that. To say, well yeah, they're going to give you consideration and nothing will happen until you get something else done, may or may not be the case. In some cases, the court has entered into an agreement with the county to do certain things, and everything else was dismissed as long as the county did those things. It's kind of a mixed bag. 

President Wortman: I noticed, Julie, when you commented that certain places they did release some people, did that have an affect on things?

Julie Von Arx: Definitely, but we were able to come up with pre-conditional release programs. No one was ever just let out the door. In the particular county that Bill was referring to, they were spending over $60,000 a month in out-of-county placements so that they could meet their cap. Once I left, that was down to zero. I do think with the collaboration that's already going on here, I'm hoping that expense won't have to be incurred here. 

President Wortman: Yeah, thank you. Anybody else got any questions for Bill or Julie? 

Bill Shepler: I hope that kind of brings you up, we wanted to do that anyway.

President Wortman: Okay. Are you through for this?

Julie Von Arx: I'm going to do the Community Corrections section.

President Wortman: Yeah, that's what I'm saying because we are suppose to be out of here at 11:00, and it's getting around 10:00.

Julie Von Arx: Okay, I'll be brief. I think everyone is probably pretty well up to speed on the Community Corrections Program. There's been a lot of things written about it, and I know there's been a lot of discussion. We, of course, did recommend that the grant totally be rewritten and that Vanderburgh County start receiving what its due is. Unfortunately, they have been underfunded and they're blameless in that...and I do believe that legislatively something can be done. I also think that DOC realizes there is a new environment here, and I do believe that they are willing, if the grant is rewritten, I really believe they will come forward with additional funding. That would include juvenile funding as well. I do believe the sheriff and the commissioners have made a lot of strides in the last year, and I did want to publically commend them for taking control of the program because I don't believe that the program would exist today had that action not been taken. The other recommendations that I made specifically involved...the Community Corrections Program is only as good as the people chosen to participate in it. I do believe the eligibility criteria in Vanderburgh County probably needs to be looked at. It provides for or allows for participants spending a four year sentence to participate in community corrections. If you compare that around the state most other counties don't have anyone there longer than a year to a year and a half. I think that speaks to the level of individual that you're placing out in your community. I'm a little uncomfortable, really, with the people that are participating in community corrections today. I made some specific recommendations about the operation, and I won't go into all of those, but I do think that if those recommendations are followed that the Community Corrections Program is one that you will be proud of. The most significant one, and the one that I can't make happen, is that the Advisory Board must step up to the plate and start taking responsibility for that program. If they don't, there's not much that the commissioners or the sheriff can do. They have to provide that guidance and the direction and be willing, I think, to backup the sheriff in terms of what he does with the operation. Statutorily, it was provided for that all of the players in the criminal justice system provide that direction and it has to occur. 

Councilmember Hoy: Yes, and this body and the commissioners some years ago, we had to push very hard to get that point across. I think that...I'd just like that reemphasized that that Board is responsible. By statute they are responsible. That responsibility kept being pitched around here and there. I want to go on record as defending this body to some extent and also the commissioners because we pushed for that. We had to push hard just to get that out in the open, and I appreciate you reinforcing that.

Julie Von Arx: I would go so far as to say that the Department of Corrections, I don't think, will entertain additional funding unless the Advisory Board starts participating.

Councilmember Hoy: I have one more question. I'm looking in the back here at the...there's not a page number on it, but those types of crimes where a person should not be there. In the past, and I'm looking at the word rape here, in the past we had rapists there. In your observation of what's going on now, do we still have rapists there, child molesters there, people that don't belong there? Because I, personally, think those people should be moved to DOC. I don't think they belong in community corrections. The complaint I hear from the neighbors, and they ring my phone is, I don't like them living out there. At one time they had a rapist delivering pizzas. That was his job. Ain't that wonderful? Has that improved? I think that's a crucial question. I'm well known for laying it out there on the floor, but I would like your opinion on it.

Julie Von Arx: I was only able to obtain a snapshot because there isn't, I don't think, a regular observation of who is in the program, and that's something I think the board needs to be looking at on a regular basis. I would say that the program does contain people that I wouldn't be comfortable having in a community corrections program. 

Councilmember Hoy: Thank you. That's more nicely put than I say things. Thank you.

Councilmember Bassemier: Phil, I think we can go a little further with what you just said about who's there. At one time, we had inmates, not inmates but guards that had charges the same that were guarding these people. They did their time but they were...

Councilmember Hoy: You're quite right, Mr. Bassemier, and I've seen those records with my own eyes and I think you have, too.

Councilmember Bassemier: And the sheriff has corrected all this?

Councilmember Hoy: That's why I was so happy to hear her say that we made the right decision in administration. It puts a lot of burden on your shoulders, Sheriff Ellsworth, you've done well with it so far.

Brad Ellsworth: I'm not sure if you made the right decision or not, but I will defend to a point, I agree and when a person comes in and is, by our great system, adjudicated and sentenced that we shouldn't say they can never have a job again. I'm not sure that it's the right one that they are working in a correction center. I think we do still have two people at the complex that have criminal records. The others have moved on in one way or another. Going back to the criteria for coming in, I'm pretty comfortable. We have Major Woodall and a committee of two or three people that go over the minutes and the dockets of when a person comes in. When we first got involved at this extent, we did make motions and the board did lower the criteria for how long a person comes in. Like I said, we had one, and it was an unusual case, but a person was sentenced out to the Community Corrections Complex for twenty years. That won't happen again. It was a pretty tumultuous time, I guess. There were a lot of defense attorneys showing up and a lot of jockeying for that. They didn't want to see the system change. We did narrow that down from an open ended sentence were they could be sentenced on direct placement from six down to three years, so they can live there no longer than three years which is still high. I understand that but it's what we could get done at the time. Another stipulation was that on bring backs, a person that goes to DOC and is then brought back, would be no longer than one year of live time at the Community Correction Complex. Another thing is that on the non-direct or the direct placements, if the judge and this is what the board passed at this point, was if the judge could articulate in the minutes why he went against that, either be longer or brought somebody back against that, at least he'd be able to articulate that in the minutes as to why he felt that he could do that. That does give the judge some leeway there, but that's what we were able to get passed with the Advisory Board at that time. I'm pretty comfortable, Mr. Hoy, with the checks and balances we have in place. I'm not saying it will never happen, but I've caught two or three where we've called the judges and said judge, this isn't one where it goes with our Advisory Board's thing. They either then articulated in the minutes or agenda. As far as the crimes that say you cannot go to Community Corrections, I'm comfortable saying that they are not there. 

Councilmember Hoy: Good, you know me well and I carry a hammer and nails with me, and I like to get things nailed down real tight.

Brad Ellsworth: I'm with you 100 percent. Thank you.

President Wortman: Thank you. Now we go to the next one which will be "D", the jail. Whoever?

Bill Shepler: I said whoever because I didn't know what your questions will be. I'm going to kind of move these two together a little bit so that they'll...you're getting a little short on time. The reason we didn't spend a lot of time in the report necessarily on the jail is there's a couple facts you need to understand. Your jail currently does not meet any state standards. It was built prior to the standards being in place. They just weren't there when you did that. And the way the state interprets remodel and changes in a jail, if we start going through and making major structural changes, now we can fix things and repair things and make things a little better, but as soon as you start into repairs that would be involved in major structural changes, the state would say, bring that jail to current standards. In the process of doing that it will be costly and it will be difficult. It certainly can be done, but your capacity will go from about 268 beds to right around 100 beds. So in that process of dealing with the jail as it stands, it doesn't leave you a lot of leeway. It became apparent that probably whatever we do that jail needs to stay in its current location, in its current capacity until we get a long term solution done. With that being said, I'd be happy or anyone here would be happy to answer questions relating to the existing jail before we go into facilities.

President Wortman: I think everyone is kind of aware of the situation, pretty well. Have we got a hand raised out there, Mr. Ellsworth?

Brad Ellsworth: Bill, would you clarify is that state standards on the physical plant itself or operations in the jail an on-going because I've got reporters and that in here and would you please take that a step further?

Bill Shepler: That has to do with the physical plant. The sheriff is operating at a great handicap in the physical operation of that because of many things that are happening. Visitation isn't happening the way it ought to be happening. That's a breech of security. Julie said earlier about people coming in to the intake area. It's terrible. I mean, it's not safe. Those are conditions he can do certain things with but they cannot be solved in that facility. What I'm speaking to in bringing it to standards, I'm talking about physical standards. There are within the ACA guidelines there's about 50 standards that relate to a facility. You're in compliance with none of those standards. That's kind of where you stand. That's why dealing with the existing jail, in its current location, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Soon as we start trying to make things better, we lose capacity because of bringing it into compliance. We're better off leaving it alone until we come up with a really long term solution. Did that answer it?

Brad Ellsworth: Clearer.

President Wortman: Okay. Judge Bowers? That gentleman back there. Come on forward, please. I'd like to hear from you.

J. T. Kinkel: Thank you. If I could make a comment on that. I'll tell you who I am. 

President Wortman: Your name, please?

J. T. Kinkel: My name is J. T. Kinkel. I'm a consulting engineer and I'm also a taxpayer. What's been said by Mr. Shepler is very true. I think when you hear things like the present jail cannot be fixed. Nothing can be done to it. Well, your mind starts thinking that there is no solution on this site, and that's not the case. We have been working with the current jail inspector and the former jail inspector. We know that a satellite building that is attached and adjacent to the courts is completely feasible and will work for all your needs and the tax savings is just incredible. I don't understand how that can be overlooked. I heard earlier how important it is to be efficient. Well, I think it's more important that a judge be effective and everyone who supports the judge, that's where your efficiency comes in because that's the great number of people and the great tax burden. If the people running around the sheriffs, the policemen, etc., all those people, if they are running from a far away site transporting people to the jail, that's your big savings. A capital expenditure, you can ask any businessman in town, capital expenditures are nothing compared to employees. I thought it was important when I heard Mr. Shepler say that, to remind you that maybe the existing jail there's a problem bringing it up to standards. One thing is that you don't have to touch it. Secondly, if you build a building next to it and attach it on the same site giving you all the advantages, that is not the same as touching that jail and does not require you to bring that jail up to standards. I thought those were important points. Thank you.

Bill Shepler: That is a correct statement. At this point in time, I don't know how long that will stand, but at this point in time if you don't go into it, you do not have to do anything. The concern I have with that is fixing the problem that exists in many of these areas. By using that, you can't fix visitation. The other thing you have to consider when you say okay, we're going to keep this here and move over there is that your current staff is not going to change. You're going to operate that jail with the same amount of staff that you're operating there. Then you add a satellite and you add staff again. I agree that that's something you ought to consider in this next step but keep in mind the cost of the jail is cost of jail operations. We have to...if you look at the cost of a jail to a county over 20 years, roughly ten percent of that cost over 20 years is in bricks and mortar and those kinds of things. About ten percent of that is in maintenance and paying the lights and paying the other, and eighty percent of it is in operation. So long term as a county, whatever solution you want to look at, it has to include an analysis of the operation to really know what your effect is because we can raise money to build about anything you want to within your tolerance of what the tax base is. That's the easy part. The operation, every year that Sheriff Ellsworth comes back to you and says I need more people and more this and more that, that's the tougher one. So, I think the statement is correct but whatever solution you look at, yes it has a first cost but it has to ultimately be done looking at the operational costs and make sure that you're not building yourself into something that you can't afford to operate. 

President Wortman: Okay, Ed Bassemier?

Councilmember Bassemier: Bill, do these new facilities have to be new? Can't we take an existing building in a right location, the number of square footage and build and design it where it would pass all state and federal regulations and it's got the right square footage and at half the cost? What's your feelings on this?

Bill Shepler: Jail two at Marion County was put into an old warehouse. It does meet the current standards. That is possible to do. Yes, the answer is that it is possible. Generally, it becomes a little more difficult but...

Al Bennett: Let me add something to what Bill is saying. Jail two in Indianapolis is a jail annex so it's considered to be medium to minimum in security. It's very difficult to take a warehouse and convert it into a maximum security jail that you need. It would be...it's been proven that it's more costly to convert something for maximum security use than it is to build it from the ground up. But you can do something with the dormitory style housing and things like that, but that's a different type of jail.

Councilmember Bassemier: You know, I've been working with the architect over in Kentucky and the reason why I brought this up, in fact, the sheriff was with me and several other people at the judicial system a couple of years ago and we looked at the Green Convention Center, the old Green Convention Center and the Annex, and it's just a shell. But now the county, a few years back, we did a $15,000 study on this facility to see if it was structurally sound, and it came back passed in flying colors. So I didn't know if you all ever had a chance to look at this facility which is just a couple of blocks away.

Bill Shepler: We haven't done that at this point in time and what we're recommending, that is a part of the next step. What we have developed in each one of these cases is a non-site specific program, okay, and that template can be applied to a number of different options but the first thing is, we had to understand what the needs were, what all you needed to happen here and then you could take that template and say, okay, now, what if we looked at that. Does that space work, what else would have to be done. There are as many options probably as you want to begin to look at. 

Councilmember Bassemier: Right, and the reason why I brought this up was, you know, we're saying all three of the facilities are going to cost 28 to 35 million dollars and I was just kind of making that suggestion because my options are open just like everyone here and I just wondered if you ever had a chance to, when you get farther into this to check locations and...

Bill Shepler: And we're ready to begin that and we have the tools at hand to do it with.

Councilmember Bassemier: Okay.

Bill Shepler: And that's one of the reasons I didn't, in this report, put all the details of the programs and budgets in there because, you know, the hard part of this is - is not what I give you, it's what I don't give you. And, I mean, we would have had to come down, there's a lot of information that is summarized here in a lot of places. We're ready to do that, we're ready to look at a number of different options. I wouldn't rule anything out. In fact, one of our recommendations is to look at privatization. It works some places and it doesn't work other places. And we're here to help you work through those options, give you the cost, the cost of operation of each one of them and you can decide where your tolerances are in those particular areas.

Councilmember Smith: Are you saying that we can't add on to this jail that we've got? I mean, I have thought about this ever since this started to going back over the parking lot and adding to there, and you're telling us this can't be done?

Bill Shepler: No, that's not what I said. I said it would be difficult, it will be costly and if you come into the existing jail, you will lose capacity because as soon as we start remodeling the existing jail, you will lose capacity. The other thing is, is if you chose that solution, even if you don't change the floor plan of the jail, there are a number of things that has to happen in that jail. There is a number of functions that would have to be moved over into that area. Your kitchen is inadequate, you have no place to go with it, your booking is inadequate, you have no place to go with it. It is an option.

Councilmember Smith: Well, I think it's the best option because you wouldn't have to build, you could build out, build your new facility back there, your kitchen and whatever, and then after that was finished, you could go up and remodel the new part and I think it would still be less expensive for the taxpayers in Vanderburgh County than to build a complete, new facility.

Bill Shepler: I can't answer which is the best option at this point in time. We're open to look at any of those that make sense in this next step. And like I say, when you look at that, you not only have to look at those first costs but you've got to make sure you look at the operational costs. Which one of them, ultimately, is going to cost the county less, not...

Councilmember Bassemier: One more question. So in other words, in the near future here, we're going to, you're going to be studying some more on this, so we're going to get another bill, right?

Bill Shepler: That's strictly up to the Commissioners, but that's the idea.

Councilmember Bassemier: I haven't heard this yet, but you're going to go along with this --

Bill Shepler: In fact, part of what I want to show you is how we do that and what is next in that process.

Councilmember Bassemier: But I just wanted to say, I think you all did a fantastic job -

Bill Shepler: Thank you very much -

Councilmember Smith: Well, we know we can't go up so we have to go out.

Councilmember Bassemier: And I know it's all going to be dollars and cents and what's legal and all this, but, Betty, I think you have a good idea, too. So...

President Wortman: Mr. Hoy?

Councilmember Hoy: I want to go back to a statement I made earlier about looking at the total usage of this complex and what we're going to build because if we don't do that, we're going to end up with something that doesn't function well. Somehow, we have to get these prisoners to court, we have to get them there safely, we have to have space for the court and so on, and that's why this next step is so important and we can't resolve that in this forum here today. An idea that occurred to me and I don't even know whether it's feasible is this tower that Mr. Kinkel is recommending, putting the whole jail there and then making this jail into community corrections because I think there are some cost savings by keeping those things together. I am not sure that's feasible. I am personally, even though it will cost us more, hopeful that we keep the juveniles in a separate facility. There is just something that appeals to me about that and not having the juveniles in some kind of campus with everybody else. And that's, I can't give you rational reasons for that, it's a gut feeling, but I think that's where we are now because we're sitting in a building that's just not big enough any more and for that matter, the federal building across the street isn't either. Social Security is not in that building any longer. That wonderful idea of having all the government offices in one location where you can find them was shot to blazes - I cleaned that up - a long time ago when we started moving people out. And I think we need to be realistic about that.

Cid McNeilly: I think the difficult part that you're raising and that I am hearing in the discussion here is that there are a lot of ideas out there and there are an incredible number of options. But what we've observed here in Vanderburgh County and what we've really appreciated about working with you and is probably the struggle you're having now, is that when you move forward, you want to do it on purpose and you want to do it well. And, you know, you explore these options and I think there are times when some would criticize you for not coming to these decisions quicker and just getting this done and moving on when you know what the problem is. But identifying the problem is usually not as difficult as identifying the solution. And I think in fairness to you, you need to consider these options and there's, oh there's so many more than even the number of individuals in this room, and that is what we do and would love to help you do. But those decisions haven't been made yet. But that's the difficulty.

Councilmember Hoy: I lived in southwest Georgia for a year when I was a volunteer for Habitat. I do not want to see here what I saw there. That complex was way out in the country. I thought I was in Nazi Germany and they were packing every - you talk about packing people away into facilities, including juveniles. I knew a young man in our community who stole a candy bar and they packed him away for a sentence and I thought, give me a break. Adults filch newspapers out of the vending machines that cost more than the candy bar. 

Bill Shepler: Well, you see why I put on here, whoever. So, I mean, we've kind of been down here a long time so we all have a little bit to contribute to this. One other thing, -

Councilmember Hoy: We were going to tax you, you know.

Bill Shepler: One of the things that I will let you know is, in the jail program we did include several things that will facilitate that no matter where it's at that will help you. One of them is, we've included a small court in there so that you can do arraignments and those kind of things. The other thing is we've included video arraignment in that budget. Not knowing exactly where things will be and might make sense no matter where things are at. So we're trying to use technology where technology makes sense to reduce those costs, travel, but the decision of where to put it is really these bodies' decision.

President Wortman: Excuse me, we're going to change tapes.

(Tape change)

President Wortman: Okay, any other questions for Bill? If not, we're going to move on to the financing information which that really affects this body.

Bill Shepler: Chris, we're going to ask you to come on up. Chris is here with Municipal Consultants and kind of give you an overview of what that might be.

Chris Johnston: Good morning. My name is Chris Johnston from Municipal Consultants in Indianapolis. My role here this morning is a lot like yours and that is just to listen to the recommendations. I don't have a recommendation of the financing plan for you. It's really to listen to your feedback as you receive the recommendations and so we can formulate and really work with the county in terms of putting together a successful financing plan. And that really is the summary of a financial advisor. Working with you, knowing what your priorities are in terms of helping you achieve a successful financing at competitive rates. Now what that does is there's usually competing interests. If I ask somebody out there, and we're probably going to consider a tax-exempt financing, if I ask somebody out in the municipal marketplace, how would you like to buy some jail bonds? They'd say sure. You know what, I really like that billion and a half dollars of Vanderburgh County assessed value. And so let's just levy a tax and that's the cleanest deal there is out there. That's what the municipal marketplace likes. Is that the best deal for Vanderburgh County? I'm not saying that because what our role is, is to come in and look at the financial resources, look at the options, gauge your priorities, because you have competing interests. They want the cleanest and the easiest deal but you want something that you can live with: a financial plan that whether it's 15, 20, 25 years of financing that you're going to be able to be comfortable with, that you explored all the options. And so that involves looking at County Option Income Tax. You currently have a Cumulative Capital Development Fund that could be used for this financing, gaming revenues, in addition to a debt service levy to be used for financing the bonds. You've used County Option Income Tax in the past not in so much to actually draw upon those funds to make debt service payments, but as a credit enhancement for your TIF bonds. TIF is coming in to place, you paying your bonds, but the County Option Income Tax is used as a credit enhancement. That's a technique that could be used here, I am not saying that it is County Option Income Tax, but maybe use the property tax base as your enhancement by looking and exploring these other funds that you may have available to you. Again, we're just picking up what the costs are today and again, you have a lot of decisions ahead of you before we even get to the financing as to what sort of facilities that you need, but I'll give you a few things that we're going to be thinking about besides exploring the various financial resources. On the face of it right now, it's a very sizable bond issue. Vanderburgh County is capped at 2% as all governmental units are capped at 2% of their assessed value for general obligation bonds so a billion and a half or a billion four, so we're talking 28 to 30 million dollars. So it looks like we are going to, in terms of tax exempt financing, look at a building authority or a building corporation financing. What that does is that is the means at which, and I think it was done with the Convention Center, through the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Building Authority, that is the mechanism at which most school deals and other large capital projects are done in Indiana, is using a building corporation with a lease financing because it is not deemed to be against your two percent debt limitation. What that brings with it is capitalized interest which adds to the cost of your financing. Capitalized interest is because the bond market is not a patient place, they want to have their interest payments every six months but by law we cannot start the lease payments on a finished project, capital project, until that project is ready for use and occupancy. So if we have a construction period, and we haven't even gotten into this discussion, but of a construction period let's say of two years, that bond market wants payments in those two years but we don't have a means to make those payments, so you would actually end up bonding for that to make those payments. Again, that drives what we're talkings let's say a 35 million dollar project, now you've got to layer on capitalized interest for two years, that gets up to 37 million dollars, 38 million dollars, let's say. So that's an issue that we want to wrestle with. Is there a way to mitigate that? Other things, if property taxes would be pledged, we have a trip to the State Tax Board, they approve all the projects where taxes are pledged to pay debt service and really we would want to show this to the rating agencies, Standard & Poors and Moody's. A project of this size, a financing of this size in the municipal marketplace, we'd be looking at what is the credit rating of Vanderburgh County on this transaction. And so it's a long process just like getting to this point has been a long process for all of these folks but again, my job here today was to start getting us involved as to seeing what the priorities are for the county and so we can really come in and work through a lot of these issues with you as we move forward. 

President Wortman: Any questions on the financing, the options? 

Councilmember Hoy: I have a question. What is our credit rating with Standard & Poors? Does anybody know that? 

Suzanne Crouch: A.

Councilmember Hoy: That's what I thought.

Chris Johnston: I believe that most of the - several other bonds have been insured by municipal bond insurers and so those carry a triple A, but the `95 bonds were a standalone COIT deal and I believe it carries currently an A rating by Standard & Poors. 

Councilmember Hoy: Thank you.

President Wortman: Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: What has ever been done within our state in terms of changing your sales tax rate, local sales tax? Or you could change our local rate, 5% to say 5 1/4, 5 1/8 or....

Chris Johnston: Well, the folks in Lake County want to change it all the time because that's how they want to lower their property tax burden but it's been mandated by the General Assembly and they're the ones who set it and there is not fiscal home rule locally for the sales tax. So that's why you've gone to these other sources such as a Food & Beverage, maybe a Hotel/Motel, other excise taxes but the sales tax has been stuck by the General Assembly.

Councilmember Hoy: It's too bad we couldn't put two cents on Food & Beverage because one cent is financing 35 million dollars worth of bonds across the street. Not a bad tax.

President Wortman: You mentioned Riverboat, see, that's not a steady income, though, or gambling.

Chris Johnston: No, but the reason I brought that up is I would not necessarily say we pledge that to the bond issue, it's more of a management issue for the Council, Commissioners, Auditor Crouch to think about, in terms of if we go ahead and get a debt service levy but using gaming revenues or COIT or some of these other revenues to lessen the impact on the property tax base. So it's more of an internal management issue --

President Wortman: Like a down payment.

Chris Johnston: - to look at.

Councilmember Hoy: Well, currently we have a third in Welfare to Work of the Riverboat money and a third in Infrastructure and a third in Economic Development, so some of that is tied up right now, I believe. Aren't we still paying out of that for the Daylight Sewer?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: It's paid for.

Councilmember Hoy: Good, so that money would be available.

Bettye Lou Jerrel: Right.

President Wortman: Mrs. Jerrel, would you come up and elaborate on what's available and what's not available?

Bettye Lou Jerrel: I wanted to remind you how smart you where. You don't spend Riverboat money in the future, you only spend what you collected last year so you're spending `99 money now. And at any time you can change your priorities between the Commissioners and the Council, we can work out the availability of those funds. By the way, you want to give them the name of the company you're representing? And we hired this company for Monday night as our financial representative.

Chris Johnston: Some people may recognize either name, I guess, Municipal Consultants has been around for 35 - 40 years providing advisory services but we're actually owned by Crowe Chizek and Company, a CPA and consulting firm. They are headquartered in South Bend and the eighth largest CPA firm in the country. But I work in the group of state and local government, our entire client base are local units of government primarily here in Indiana. And Counselor Hoy, to go back to your question and to elaborate on Commissioner Jerrel's comments, yes, these are other sources but obviously, it's what are you taking from them, whether it's COIT which is a property tax relief mechanism itself because it's used to fund county operations, but even the same thing for Cumulative Capital Development, it becomes how are we going to handle and balance these scarce financial resources? 

Councilmember Hoy: Well, we have to be honest and say whatever we do, we're going to probably increase or shift some tax money and increase tax money as well. I don't see how we can avoid that. It's not something that any of us like to say but we're probably at that point. 

President Wortman: Mr. Bassemier?

Councilmember Bassemier: Sir, say on a 30 million dollar bond issue, we'll try to take that out probably with a 15 or 20 year loan, what would our payments be to, say at the present rates today, per year on a loan that size?

Chris Johnston: Well, I actually did it for a little bit larger than that just to see what the sort of the pain would be. Actually shooting at a project fund amount of about 40 million but because of that capitalized interest I was mentioning, we're closer to actually borrowing 45 million dollars. Average rate today, I think we ran it higher than today's market by about half a point, so I think it was based on an average rate of 6 ½, which is really probably at least a half a point higher than where the market is today. But you're talking three and a half to four million dollars. And I think that was over 25 years because what we did is we matched that first cut or this first run against the financing for the convention center which was a 25 year bond, which is not unreasonable because what a lot of the rating agencies in the marketplace looks at, are you matching your financing with the useful life of the asset that you are financing?

Councilmember Sutton: What was the term that you were using to calculate that payment?

Chris Johnston: Twenty-five years.

President Wortman: You have dealt with other counties in a similar situation?

Chris Johnston: We're working with a county which is much smaller but they're dealing with the same issue and they're probably facing putting on a debt service levy that is always tough to confront when you're dealing with a jail, but they're looking at pledging their Economic Development Income Tax and their Cumulative Capital Development levy which they've already got that, that rate's already in place, to help mitigate the impact of the property tax burden. But we're also working with another county that has overcrowding and they're waiting for their court action to begin and so we're in the middle of financing and also planning for financing in other communities.

Councilmember Hoy: I want to be clear then, and I think I am clear but I want to hear it for sure, okay, and that is that whatever creative means we use such as the Cumulative Capital Development Tax or Riverboat Tax, I have a question about the report on it too, it's unrelated to financing if we have time about the Riverboat, that's my own personal issue, I think you used the word mitigate, we're still only going to mitigate some of the hit on property tax.

Chris Johnston: Right -

Councilmember Hoy: We're still going to be using property tax to...

Chris Johnston: I would say so. I'm not prepared today because we have not gone into looking at COIT -

Councilmember Hoy: I'm just looking at when you say, and correct me if I am incorrect, I wrote down three and a half and four million a year in payments over 25 years.

Chris Johnston: Right.

Councilmember Hoy: I don't see those other taxes bringing in that much money.

Councilmember Sutton: It's 87.5 million to a hundred million dollars for the total cost on the -

Councilmember Hoy: Yeah, when you figure the financing, yeah. We have two bankers from the same bank, we might beg for mercy.

President Wortman: Okay, anybody else got any -

Councilmember Bassemier: I was just thinking, well, you know, we pay a little over six hundred thousand dollars now for the rent on the jail and the juvenile detention center is costing us about $378,000, and of course, we're paying Community Corrections I think it's $37,000 for rent out there. I know we can combine some of the costs and put them in one building, but we're still way off from four million dollars. We're about three million dollars short of making our payments at the present time.

Councilmember Raben: Part of your statement goes back to what Councilman Hoy was saying earlier in the meeting that we as a body, along with the Commissioners, have to look at the future of this building because even if you ever move out of where the jail currently operates today, the county still has an obligation for that space, so you're not really getting out of that rent. So again, that's part of what his prior statements were all about, I'm sure.

Councilmember Hoy: You're right.

President Wortman: Okay -

Councilmember Sutton: I mean, I think some - this is kind of also kind of related to what Councilman Hoy was talking about and what you just mentioned, Councilman Raben, in relation to our usage of this building and evaluating where we are and how we may effectively utilize this space since we are into a long term agreement and it would seem to me that administrative space is a lot cheaper than jail space. We're talking about $150 per square foot, that's pretty expensive and I think you can get administrative space down below, you can get it below the $100 per square foot range. So not proposing or saying one thing or another, but what I do believe, perhaps if we do evaluate this whole space issue, there might be some opportunities for us even within this facility, maybe the jail space expands over into this facility more so. It's always more difficult to renovate or rehab an existing space than it is to build new, but from an economy (inaudible) scale standpoint, how much longer do we have from the administrative side and a useful life span do we have in this facility in terms of how we are utilizing it right now. So that is another area that I think we need to explore and that is expanding the administrative space and then maybe moving over the jail space over into what is administrative space presently.

Chris Johnston: I'll work on the interest rates coming down. I'll let them work on the facilities.

Councilmember Sutton: You just raise that price tag!

Councilmember Hoy: If you're getting ready to close out this meeting, Sir, I have one comment and that is, going back to what you said about processes, I hope that we don't forget what she said about processes because those processes are every bit if not more important than construction because I made some notes a while ago and I packed them away, but your operation costs for what we're going to build I think you said are 80% -

Bill Shepler: The recommendations that we've made on sizes of facility are based on the fact that you fix the processes because if the processes aren't fixed, our recommendations aren't large enough. 

Councilmember Hoy: Yes. And we could build -

Bill Shepler: They go hand in hand --

Councilmember Hoy: - a thousand rooms and probably fill them up - beds and probably fill all of them and I don't want to see it. There's, I think there's no answer to this question and that is, and I asked you this in the Commissioner's meeting, you know, about the aging of the population, because we do know that as the population ages, generally young people get in more trouble than those of us -

Bill Shepler: I did.

Councilmember Hoy: So did I. This is public confession. I am not going to say what, though. With the aging of the population, that might have some affect on what we're seeing, I would hope. The other thing that I would hope we would see, and maybe I won't see it in my lifetime, but I am real concerned that society is virtually demanding, I mean, they want to lock up people who's dogs bark at night, you know. Put them in jail. And I think that attitude has got to change. I think this is probably too far reaching, but it might be good to look at what some of our European neighbors have done because per 100,000 population, we have twice as many people in jail as any developed nation. There is nobody close to us and it does, I think, should cause us to begin to ask the questions as to why. The other question I had just had to do on, with something that is one of my pet things, on page 54, and that is at the bottom of the page, due to projected increased economic development in Vanderburgh County and surrounding areas, particularly Riverboat gambling, crime is expected to increase. Now the reports we've had is that Riverboat gambling has not increased. Are we getting wrong information or what is that based on? 

Bill Shepler: It's based on -

Councilmember Hoy: I am a guy who was against Riverboat gambling and voted against it and everything else.

Bill Shepler: It's based on what has happened in other locations.

Councilmember Hoy: In other locations. Because the information we have here is that we have not seen - the only thing we've seen here is a lot of check cashing places and pawn shops. That's a growth industry.

Bill Shepler: Yeah, part of this that you're speaking to is, there's a second part to each one of those, it's, what if we're wrong. It's 500 beds with room for 200 more. It's 24 beds with room for 24 more. We don't think it's appropriate to try to build yourself out of this thing, but you do have to make a solution that if you're wrong, you don't end up back at this location in a few years trying to figure out what to do again. So you have to make an automatic next what, what is next? 

Councilmember Raben: And I think your last statement is important to what was said earlier about continuing this process or we will prove ourselves wrong.

Councilmember Sutton: What is the next step? I mean, if we're talking about, you know, obviously you guys have done a wonderful job in putting together this material and the study, and the Commissioners, the Sheriff, and so many others, the judicial part, who have been very much involved with this, and Councilman Wortman and Councilman Hoy who have taken an active role in this. What's, I guess we really need to talk about what's next and obviously what's next is not free. So, and they've intimated that with discussions they've had, they'd be happy to assist us with this process. I picked that up. But I guess I am kind of trying to get a feel and sense of what we need to do from here and we've got a big thick binder with a lot of good information but that's not going to resolve the jail overcrowding problem.

Bill Shepler: If you permit me, you moved right in to our next idea. I'd like to give you two really quick pieces and I want to be very careful of your time so that at 11:00 o'clock we're done. So, the first one, and this is going to be really hard to read from back there, so I put some big print on it. I've run a schedule of what this process looks like so you can come up and see it later. But the important part is, is today you're right here. Can you see that? It's tough. The important part is, you're right here today. You've done some of this other stuff. To get from where you're at today to have a facility that might be ready to start construction, I am not saying ready to move into; to start construction, at the very best you're at a year, more likely a year and a half. Depending on how many of these options you want to work through, how many locations you look at, how many financing options you want to consider, so you're probably looking a year and year and a half from today to get to a point that you're ready to start building something. From that point, and I broke this up because this thing gets really, really long, from that point to actually moving into a facility, something the size you're looking at, it's another year and a half, maybe two years. So if you said get going as fast as you can and let's get into that facility, you're looking at probably two and a half years before you move into it at the very quickest. And then following that, there's a whole other year of warranty, a period that has to be monitored. And I'll leave this with the Commissioners so you can kind of get down and look at it a little closer, but just to give you an idea of the kind of time frame you're looking at, that's why these recommendations are very, very important. You have to survive the next two and a half, three years, whatever you do. You've got to live with the facilities you've got. So we're not saying move people out of the jail and go do something else. So not only are these recommendations important for keeping the size we're looking at, but it is part of your survival plan. With any good plan to build has to be, what do I do until it's ready to go? So those are important. Just so it's not so scary, I've got a - I'm going to put this up here - I've actually got a handout you can use on this - and it gives you kind of a stepwise process that you guys need to be looking at, at how you get, answer your question over here. Right now we've been in the planning phase and we've still got a little bit more work to do in the planning phase but every project is broken down into a series of phases. It goes into a planning phase, a design phase, a construction phase and then an occupancy phase. And each one of those have phases in their own. This schedule that I showed you here gets very convoluted when you - on this here I've got a (inaudible - comments made away from microphone) financing. Well, the actual financing schedule is about three pages long to do that so each one of these may have much more detail, do have much more detail in themself. But the thing that's important about the process and the way this, we go about a project is each one of those, you come down to a point down here that says owner makes a decision. So you don't commit to the world necessarily, but each one of those phases, you decide, this is what we've decided, this is what we've decided we will commit to, this is what we've decided we'll expend and we move to the next phase. So it's not really as big a hole as it might seem like it is. It can be organized, it can be done in a way that you'll feel comfortable as you go along that way. But it does bring you down to a series of points. You say yes or no and if the answer is no, you've got to go back and fix it. You say no, I don't like that financing scheme. It doesn't do this that I want to do, so we have to go back and work on that a little bit more, bring you to a point that says okay, yes, we're ready to move to the next phase and we understand what we've committed to and we understand what we're about to commit to, to make the next phase. So there is a method behind this madness. I didn't want to walk away from here and you guys feel, go okay these guys are going off and leaving us in a hole. That's not the intent. So I have smaller of these if anybody wants them that they can kind of look at and I'll leave the bigger schedule with the Commissioners so that they can, you can see that. I know it's almost impossible to do that at this point. 

President Wortman: Okay, anybody else want to talk to this? Mr. Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: You guys' involvement, well said in terms of laying out the phases there, your involvement, if the county chooses to proceed forward with your involvement, -

Bill Shepler: Our involvement would be from...till you get past the warranty phase and beyond actually. Most of the time our involvement runs out four or five years on most projects. Typically, Vanderburgh is a little bit different - typically, what we've gone through is really just a part of the front end of our contract, we do in most counties. What is unique and this has to be said, what is unique is we generally come in and do a study for a jail or a facility or whatever and they go, okay, now we're going to build a new jail. And all the way through that, we're talking about operation, we're talking about changing the policies and procedures so that we don't end up, and Vanderburgh County to my knowledge is the first county in the state of Indiana who has really sat down and taken a comprehensive across the board look at all these things prior to making that first step. Generally, we bring them into looking at staffing and looking at those issues Julie talked about, kicking and screaming. You know, nobody wants to talk about them, well, you've got to talk about them. So, I commend you very, very much for being, the term was progressive. You've been very progressive in that respect because you've got a better understanding of what the mechanism is and that building any one facility is not the only answer. It's a piece of the answer.

Councilmember Sutton: I'm sorry, just one more thing, and I guess I am just trying to assess, not to try and say we are trying to direct one thing or another, but just trying to assess based upon, okay, we've looked at the cost of an actual, physical facility. For you to continue to guide us through this if that's the direction we decide to go, what is the consulting end going to cost us? We've spent roughly about 95 -

Bill Shepler: It will be - if the Commissioners so choose and we hope they do, we'll put together a proposal for doing that. And some of that depends on how much assistance they want with some of the other recommendation on the project management part that we talked about, the financing, the building, the design, all that. We've got a pretty good handle on what that is. And it's time for us, but how much help do you need in some of the other recommendations with maybe the grant or with putting together these contracts. So again, we need to figure out what we're being asked to do and then we'll come back and address those issues.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, if I can't pin you down to a number, then give me a range.

Bill Shepler: Typically, our fees run, we've never done a project that's been over 3% of the project cost. Typically on something like this, it will be one and a half to two percent over four or five years.

Councilmember Sutton: Thank you.

Bill Shepler: And typically what we try to do is set that up, and again, that's a deal with the Commissioners, but we try to set that up as an hourly until we decide what the final scope is set because yet, right now, we don't know whether we're talking about a juvenile center, which is a 4 million dollar number and a jail that has a 30 million dollar number, so those are the reasons that it's real difficult to get pinned down on that until that point in time. 

President Wortman: Okay, alright, let's see, have you got anything else to add, Bill? I tell you what, in summarizing and everything, Mr. Kinkel there, come forward. I think what it amounts to is all your statements and what you've processed here, you gave us a warning, I guess, in plain words. Does that make sense, what I am saying?

Bill Shepler: The problem isn't going to go away.

President Wortman: That's right. So we've been warned. Okay, go ahead, Mr. Kinkel. We've got a few minutes here.

J. T. Kinkel: It will just take a moment. All I want to do is remind you of, as we got into the financing and processing I sat out in the audience just like everyone else and I started thinking, well, what am I not hearing that I think I should hear. And the first one was, well, what is the monthly savings for the capital dollars that you put in? Per million dollars put in, what is that savings monthly? And I think that's something that has to be asked and has to be looked at. We've talked about how the cost goes on and on. Well, it will on a monthly payment and that's a large portion. Secondly, as far as processing, well, is any process helped by moving the physical structure away from the courts? Just - is it? I don't know. But I think that needs to be looked at. I can't imagine that it would help. It seems like it would only hinder. And then, part of that report, if you are looking at moving things away, why wasn't an estimated cost given for transporting an inmate? I'm saying one block or seven miles, that's about what we have to deal with. And look at those numbers and figure out what the in between is. And then if you do move away and I think this was brought up I think by Councilman Raben or maybe Councilman Winnecke, well, you're tied to the existing jail. How many dollars do you have to put into the existing jail to make it anything but an existing jail? You know, the Sheriff said, well, we need places for classes. We need to do this. We need facilities outside of normal jail facilities to help our jail function. Well, wouldn't that be the best way to spend the money to fix the jail? Change the way the booking operations worked to add a class and then still be connected to a new building? And thirdly, and this goes back to the financing as well as the processing, what are those land development costs? Has anybody looked at those? That's a lot of money and it's a big problem. There's not any real estate in my neighborhood but I don't think you'll find many neighborhoods that are willing to share their real estate with either a corrections center or a jail. Maybe a juvenile center, they might be more likely to. But you have the property here. And I've put together a lot of schedules. I've been in the construction business probably not as long as Mr. Shepler, but for a few years, and I just wanted to remark that our plan has been studied for a long time and know that it can be operational and occupied within two years given a start date.

Councilmember Hoy: Mr. Wortman? And you raised an important point and I can finish that out for you, it's the NIMBY effect, not in my backyard . They don't want the juveniles either. I've worked in that field and, in fact, they don't want anybody in group homes because we have a fairly restrictive ordinance in this city about how close group homes can be located to each other whether they're housing former mental patients or whatever. Villages, we ran into that, the Southwestern Indiana Mental Health Center ran into that, so that's a point well taken. As far as land costs are concerned, I've looked at those also and you're talking about six or eight bushels of cash for land in this county.

J. T. Kinkel: And sewers and paving and sidewalks, and you know, it goes on and on and on and that's what developers are for. Thank you.

President Wortman: Thank you. Now then, the next on here is available sites. I understand the County Commissioners have asked Joe Harrison, Jr. to be looking at possible sites.

Bill Shepler: Yeah, and Joe couldn't be here today so -

President Wortman: Just a minute, we've got a tape change here.

(Tape changed)

President Wortman: Okay. 

Bill Shepler: Joe couldn't be here, that's why you got stuck with me on the update on the court process. What I would say to the gentleman's comments: he's absolutely right and each one of those has to be a part of this next step as you evaluate your options. You can do that without making those steps. So -

President Wortman: I think the Commissioners understand.

Bill Shepler: So I don't disagree with what he said. 

President Wortman: Right, I think the Commissioners understand that and everybody else. Now then, the next thing on the finalization is additional meetings for the Council, Commissioners, committees, what have you and I think we've got to get together soon so I am going to arrange on my part with the County Councilmembers if that's agreeable so we get this thing going and you will be consulted for advice again, and then the Commissioners and anybody else involved so we get this ball rolling. Does that make sense? 

Bill Shepler: Yep. Thank you very much.

President Wortman: Well listen, I appreciate you coming down here. You're well versed, well knowledgeable about this subject. I think you're doing a pretty good job.

Bill Shepler: Thank you very much, but I had an awful good team.

President Wortman: I know it. Al there has been real good and Julie and Mrs. McNeilly there. You all read real good as advisors so anything else to come before this meeting? Motion, Mrs. Smith and then adjourn. Meeting is adjourned.

(Meeting adjourned at 10:54 a.m.)

Recorded by Teri Lukeman. Transcribed by B.J. Farrell, Gary Tucker, Jane Laib and Teri Lukeman.
 
 

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President Curt Wortman                             Vice PresidentEd Bassemier

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Councilmember James Raben                     Councilmember Phil Hoy

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Councilmember Lloyd Winnecke                Councilmember Royce Sutton

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Councilmember Betty Knight-Smith