Tuesday, September 23, 2014

23 September 2014 Dearborn County Council Meeting Notes

23 September 2014 Dearborn County Council Meeting Notes

Present: Dennis Kraus. Sr., President, Dan Lansing, Liz Morris, Randy Lyness, Charlie Keyes, Ryan Brandt, and Bill Ullrich.
Also present: Gayle Pennington, Auditor and Teresa Randall, County Administrator

Circuit Court- Judge Humphrey- copier purchase- as discussed at budget hearings the 8 year old copier needs replacing. The amount $8,500 and it has been reduced to $6,500 including a year’s maintenance due to one of his secretary’s negotiations. Approved.

Superior Court II- Judge Blankenship- public defender fees- as discussed at budget time each year. This year we had more $$s spent than last year. She needs $60,000 more. Public defenders are required by law, Council noted. Approved.

Community Corrections- Steve Kelly- budget modification- they have made a lot of changed in Community Corrections last year. This is paid for out of grant $$s ($493,000) and Community Corrections fees- not county general. $450,000/year in community corrections fees. Previously they mixed payroll etc out of both grants and user fees. Now salaries and pay are out grants. Operations are out of user fees. This necessitated changing some budget items. They are on a fiscal year and the county is on a calendar year. So there are a few items they needed to fix to get these two budgets in line. $160,000 is the least they have ever spent on monitoring equipment for home detention. The new equipment has 24/7 coverage now. The board agreed that this was necessary. In the future they will be spending close to $200,000 on this monitoring. The bracelets are leased- the county does not own them. Because we are in a pilot program we are getting a discount on the bracelets. He projects 250 offenders on home detention in the future due to the new bill that keeps more felony defenders in the county jail rather than state. Everyone on home detention has to call in every morning and see if their random number comes up they come in for a drug screen. They are now doing more drug screens. They are going to collect $100 fee for each home incarceration to pay for their drug screens. Their rate of fee collection is now about 65%. He hopes to get it to 75%. They have about $700,000 in past due fees that were never collected. Even if they get 10% would be $70,000.He asked for additional line items to be created such as vehicle maintenance and fuel so they can see what was spent on each item. They have looked at doing more community service work and they want more liability insurance on their workers as suggested by the DOC ( Dept of Corrections) $150,000 additional grant plus match of $150,000 for IN Criminal Justice Institute for their pilot program this year. This grant has to have an separate account set up for this grant for the pilot program’s $300,000 total. Lansing asked- you can monitor someone for $15 a day. $55.68 /day is cost to house them in DOC.  All accounts approved.

Health Dept- Mary Calhoun- $74,914.05 possible grant from IN dept of Health and the old Tobacco Settlement Fund given and will be used  for promoting vaccinations, evening food inspections, septic pool vector inspections, etc. Council approved the account.

Prosecutor- Aaron Negangard- depositions-not to handle till November meeting as Negangard was not present.

Prosecutor- Aaron Negangard- Children’s Advocacy Center- Liz Morris spoke for Negangard who was not present. $25,000 requested. Approved.  Ryan Brandt ABSTAINED as his company holds the contract for the CAC.

Commissioners- Terri- Randall- Final Draw down for jail addition and renovation- this is just moving funds from one account to another. She reviewed the bills with Auditor’s office. We advertised for $20,000 more than we needed due to an error on the spreadsheet. $3,106,449 is the last amount requested. She answered Ryan Brandt’s questions: The project is within budget. The project will go into January – February 2015. Before the payments get paid they do a punchlist. There is a contractor’s reserve. It is looking good. Unless something crazy happens, this should be good. Maxwell has done a good amount of cost savings items to make this work. Approved with Lansing voting Nay. The total cost of the jail building is $11,795,449.

Communications/911- Charlie Ashley- Overtime funding – typically they spend about $5000 a year on this. This year they have spent $2458 so far and he asked for $3000 to finish out the year and reimburse the holiday pay fund that they were borrowing for overtime. With their new person- they should be needing less overtime. Approved.

Planning and Zoning- Mark McCormack- Attorney and legal fees- some burned through as a change in attorneys when McGill- the long time attorney retired. There is $285 left in the account. $6000. Attorney fees have been low in recent years. There are some litigation issues this year. The enforcement is primarily complaint based. They don’t go out looking for infractions. Approved.
McCormack answered Morris regarding the blighted properties- and stated that they will be applying for more. The last application for 9 houses is about 400 pages long. They will have a rescheduled webinar so that they will know what to do for phase 2. He is frustrated at this point with not having more info yet.

Emergency Management- Bill Black Jr- Radio equipment account- $2610 to come out of County General to reprogram. This was put in there previously when Sprint-Nextel went out. These are EMA radios only. There are 54 radios or so. These are used at fall fest, for vehicles etc. Cost is about $54 per radio to reprogram. Approved.
 Black also requested - Repair and replace equipment- $5,000. For water rescue there has been more training and some boats breakdown. Somew drysuits had to be repaired, masks, boat motors. Approved. He will also get out and fix leaning siren by South Sparta Church on West County Line Road.

Sheriff- Mike Kreinhop ( who did not show for this)- Gasoline- represented by  Jo Wesley and Terry Van Winkel. 8,500 gal every five weeks ordered. Paid $2.83 a gallon plus tax to get $3.01 from Laughery Valley in Dillsboro.  $45,000 is needed to finish the year. $64,104 reimbursed from other departments this year so far. The sheriff’s dept uses about 46% of the gas in the county budget. Approved.

Jail- Mike Kreinhop-( also represented by Jo Wesley as Kreinhop did not come for this)  requested $38973.73 using$25,000 out of commissary for 100 sheets, towels, pillows, mattresses, laundry baskets, carts, 200 blankets, 12 tables, 116 chairs, garbage cabs  and 12 TVs for jail addition leaving $13,971.73 which was approved with Lansing Nay. [NOTE: They must be planning on filling up the jail.]

902 inmate meals today as an average day. They use about $400,000 a year. Requesting $100,000 as they have used the $300,000 appropriated. Approved.

Park Board- Jim Red Elk- Bright Meadows Park security- Trying to see if Cincinnati Bell would help create wi-fi for the park. If this gets installed- there will be a monthly fee that will be charged against utilities. There has been more than $4000 repaired from vandalism at the park. They are installing cameras at the park in Bright. If you had a wi-fi router they will store the recording for a week. If there is an incident Red Elk will have to view the footage at this point. They will put the cameras in shielded places. They can also be moved as they communicate wirelessly. All the equipment would belong to the Park Board.

They also got IRS approval for the 501c3 statusas a charity for the Dearborn County Parks Foundation. He also got a $5000 check for it from Celeste Calvitto of Bright Beacon with the stipulation that it go for the security system. So they do not need to approve the money for the security system. Applause for Celeste!

Auditor- Gayle Pennington- Minutes approved

Resolution 2014-009 for signatures- for the fine schedule for Animal Control Ordinance- Commissioners already approved. Hold till they can read the entire ordinance. Tabled till Nov meeting.

Budget Review Forms- non-binding budgets- reviewed and  signature obtained for DLGF. Approved for the schools etc. Dennis Kraus Sr signed all.

Proposed salary ordinance- updated showing the changes made since the last time we updated it for name changes and movement in highway  and other departments, retiring,  etc for 2014. Approved for submittal.

Randall – said that the landscaping around the jail building is in need of repair. $10,000 quote from Caseys Outdoor Solutions to put in low maintenance plants and the mowing could be easily done. It is an embarrassment to the county the way it looks now. She will email the existing shrubbery and facility  pics and the quote and design proposed.

Randall also wanted the board to stay to get their picture for the website.

Art Wenzel addressed the Council warning then of information he had just received regarding the building site for the SCU building approved by Lawrenceburg. He was shown where it was planned on the site area by the Lawrenceburg garage ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LEVEE WALL- so it is apparently in the flood plain. He wanted Council to know that. Some discussion was held and Randall weighed in on what she had read from the paper’s account of the funding for the SCU building at Lawrenceburg’s meeting. Forensics is in the jail building she said. [NOTE: There is a fair amount of technology in the current SCU building. If that moves to the new one- locating in the flood plain could be problematic as far as insurance is concerned.]

Meeting adjourned at 8:30 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township

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