22 June 2004 County Council Meeting Notes

22 June 2004 County Council Meeting Notes

Present: Charlie Fehrman, President, Mark Mitter, Aaron Negangard, Bill Ullrich, Tom Cheek, and Dennis Kraus. Absent: Bo Lansing. Cary Pickens, Auditor, and Lorie Howard, County Administrator, also present.

1. Judge Jim Humphrey – Requested additional funds for pauper attorney funds. They had requested $64,000 and another $15,000 for related pauper expenses and the fund was down to $5,100 and $1700 respectively. Conservative estimate was that they would need another $50,000. Negangard motioned and Mitter 2nd. Passed.
Humphrey also noted that there is a state mandated change in court computer software for 2005 or 2006. State will pay for software, but they may need to upgrade the hardware to handle it. Plan for it in 2005 budget.

2. Kathy Nevels- Family Connections- Child Abuse prevention program and prenatal substance abuse and smoking cessation programs. Want to be in our budget for 2005 for $4,000. All offices except for Versailles are closing and their staff is working out of their homes and cars during the bulk of the week now. She will submit their budget to Cary Pickens for budget hearings. They cover 129 families out of 6 counties.

3. Lifetime Resources- Karen Anderson requested to be on 2005 budget for $5,000 and another $5,000 for Catch-a –Ride. Cary Pickens told her that they’d been given and extra $5,000 in 2004 and needed to refund that to the county. He’d questioned it back in February 2004 and it still wasn’t settled. They will submit their budget for consideration also.

4. Heart House- Craig Beckley- requested $5,000 for 2005 budget consideration. Gave a similar report to the one he gave commissioners Monday night. He did go into further detail about the rules of Heart House and how the residents there nicknamed him “warden”.
Tom Cheek asked about cleaning up the grounds around the facility and eliminating the outside burning of trash and junk cars. They are working on those issues. Also Beckley reported that they are using a grant to build a lock and store on site so that will provide some income for the facility. He also gave details on the fees that the residents pay for their programs and will submit a budget to Cary Pickens for consideration in the 2005 county budget.

5. Girl Scouts – Nancy Cross presenting for Becky Mitter. Mark Mitter abstains due to his wife’s’ involvement in the Girl Scout program. They requested $3,000 from the Youth Fund for 2005 budget to help fund their Day Camp program, specifically for equipment needed to run it. Kraus motioned, Negangard 2nd. Passed. Mitter abstained.

6. County Administrator – Lorie Howard – Needed approval to spend the $3200 from County General for Indy Shred to perform records destruction under the supervision of the clerk and the judge. Negangard motioned, Cheek 2nd. Passed.
Tabled from last month- the money requested to correct and error on the payments to Harrison EMS for $32,254 was passed with Ullrich motioning and Mitter 2nd.
Lorie advertised for $32,000 for consideration next month as an additional for shortfall on Social security.
The jail expansion BID – only one- came in from RQAW. Their original bid was for $46,000 with a rebate potentially if they got the job for the construction and this one was for $23,700. She noted that competition worked here- even though others did not bid in the end. Negangard motioned and Cheek 2nd. Passed - to allow Lusby to proceed if the technical review boards evaluation approves the proposal form RQAW. The money is already in the sheriff’s budget.
When asked why the others dropped out of the bidding- Lorie reported that they cited not enough face time in our county and that the expense of the proposal would not be worth it, if there was already another bidder with a track history here. (i.e. RQAW)
Lorie has a draft of the 2005 budget for commissioners and noted that she is moving some items to dept. budgets from the commissioner’s budget. (vehicles and copiers)
She and Charlie met with Med Ben and Pinnacle to project health care costs for next year. They are considering some creative ways to keep coverage but reduce costs through incentives.
The personnel policy is nearing its final draft for review.
Lorie will give copies of resumes for the professional engineer position to council for review.

7. Transportation Department- Mike Davis- requested and additional for $81,732 for vehicle insurance from Fund 146 Contingency money. Cheek motioned, Mitter 2nd. Passed.
Request for $10,000 to finish out the uniform allowances and supplies for 2004. Cheek motioned, Ullrich 2nd. Passed.
FYI- $60,000 budgeted for line striping so far.
Triple Whipple Bridge- history given by John Graf- engineer. 80/20 project and 16% of the 20% is Dearborn County. The cost total in 1994 was estimated at $843,000. In 1998 it was over a million to repair. If it falls in the river- we have to pay to extract it. It will be cheaper to repair than to demolish. Requesting $8,000 for engineering review from Cum Bridge Fund or Special Projects- 203. Cheek motioned and Mitter 2nd to use 204 Fund. Passed. Ultimately Dearborn County's share will probably be around $150,000 on this project. It will become incorporated into the bike trail also.
O’Mara was $99,000 lower than Rohe and will do Phase 1 road paving list. Council OK’d.
This leaves $1.1 million for Phase 2 work out of 147 head tax money. Significant discussion here regarding the derivation of this list on Phase 2 roads. Negangard was under the impression that since Vera Benning wasn’t at the meeting it looked like the other two commissioners railroaded her out of her money. Some comments about politics and lame ducks were further discussed. I (Christine Mueller) spoke at this point to explain the history of the road money and district expenses over the past few years. We further discussed the nearly $2million that D-2 has been shorted in the past and the foremen being told to do work in D-3 without the approval of at least 2 commissioners. Legality of that is questionable. [Note: Foremen should be able to do work based on communications from commissioners – but perhaps that communication should be coming from Davis directly and not a single commissioner. Davis should only be acting on legally voted work. This would prevent further money squabbles.]
Council decided to send the memo commending commissioners on the phase 1 work based on the transportation assessment study data. They further RESPECTFULLY requested that Commissioners review and re-evaluate the Phase 2 list in light of the same data. Cheek motioned, Mitter 2nd. Passed.
They voted to keep Phase 1 going, but to deny any release of 147 money for phase 2 pending reevaluation by the transportation assessment plan. Ullrich motioned, Cheek 2nd. Passed.

8. Charlie Fehrman reported that trailers will be used for the jail overload at $6/day cost rather than housing work release prisoners out of county.

9. Minutes approved.
Meeting adjourned 10 PM.

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township