22 May 2012 Dearborn
County Council Meeting Notes
[NOTE: This 3 hour meeting
had 3 items that were NOT on the agenda. See those marked with asterisks. One of those items was the jail funding. Two
of the 3 items were tabled until the June 19th meeting.]
Present: Dennis Kraus. Sr., President, Dan Lansing, Jim
Hughes, Liz Morris, Maynard Barrett, Bryan Messmore, and Bill Ullrich.
Also present: Gayle Pennington, Auditor and Teresa Randall,
County Administrator
****This item was not
on the agenda: Request for part time
help from users fees- 4 employees- no more than 20 hours per week to do drug
testing. This is for probation and community corrections fees. Council
approved.
SURVEYOR- Dennis
Kraus, Jr.- fee schedule for sale of plat books- these are the one formerly
sold by County Extension. Commissioners
have not been asked about this. He will break even- no profit- selling them for
$16.00 for these. He has already purchased them and has about 50 of them.
Council sets the fee and then commissioners approve the ordinance. Hughes motioned and Ullrich 2nded to accept
the $16 fee ordinance.
SHERIFF-Mike Kreinhop-
Gasoline – the county uses 8,500 gal/mo for $30,000 a month. What’s left
in the fund and need $175,000 to finish out the year. Gas is running about
$3.53/gal. 7 of the 19 dept’s in the county reimburse. There is a key for each
officer and so they can tell how much each officer is using. Discussion
concerned the usage of county vehicles and being sure there isn’t personal use.
Kreinhop says officers have cut driving time to help with this cost. Morris
agrees with Kraus to cut the request to $125,000 to try to contain the costs. Morris
motioned for $125,000 and Messmore 2nd to approve. Passed
Approval to hire
replacement deputy sheriff- this was due to one who is leaving. This is
because of a medical condition that makes him unable to return to law
enforcement work. He is hiring at lower salary for the new officer- saving
about $10,000 a year. He said counties of our size have 35 patrol officers and
we have 28. Barrett motioned and Lansing
2nd- approved.
JAIL- Mike Kreinhop-
inmate meals- needs an additional $100,000 for the rest of the year. They use
about $35,000 per month for 800 meals a day. They have $239,000 balance
presently. Morris motioned and Barrett 2nd
to approve Passed.
SPECIAL OLYMPICS
INDIANA- Gregory Townsend-Betsy Hensley presented for Greg. Jacob Eldry a
youth in the program for 4 years was with her. They requested $1500 from the
Youth Fund to go to Terre Haute for the Special Olympics. Jacob spoke and told
the board what Special Olympics has meant to him. Ullrich motioned and Lansing 2nd to approve the $1500.
HIGHWAY- Todd
Listerman and Tim Greive-
Equipment- $420,000- they are using a life cycle schedule
set up since 2007. Grieve said they need to keep the fleet current and are
keeping the costs staggered. 2 trucks and a mowing tractor. They need a
$220,000 tandem like last years. The trucks are 11-12 years old. They also need
a single axle. The mowing tractor is a John Deere. The tandems are 1997 with
320,000 miles. They might do some internet
auctions to get more bidders. They think the total value of these old items is
under $20,000. They estimate $425,000 of equipment a year. They expect most of
these last 10-12 years or so. Discussion regarding how to fund these needs and
which funds to use.
They have not paved a
county road in THREE YEARS! A road normally lasts 24 years. That would take
$2.6 million annually to pave a road once every 24 years. That does not include gravel roads. Listerman
said they have been using millings on gravel roads to help there. We have all
but one through gravel road with milling son them. This is to help flatten them
also.
Listerman has locked in prices on salt for last year. They
have a surplus in the salt building from last winter as it was so mild. This
winter we will experience that savings in 2013.
Resurface-
$1,300,000- Weisburg, Lake Tambo, and Benning
Slip repair-
$775,000- West Laughery, Hogan Hill, North Dearborn Rd-FEMA will give them
about $262,000 back on each of these. They are 75/25%. Stateline slip is a
federal project. They are hoping to have that in construction for next year.
Lower Dillsboro
Bridge replacement- $300,000-
Line striping-
$100,000-
Ullrich proposed and
motioned to approve all of the above out of growth and development fund.
Messmore 2nded. Approved.
Grieve went over the fact that they will be back with a
calculated plan to move forward and keep out roads in good shape.
Listerman said the new bill has passed that says you can
spend property taxes on roads. They did cap this. They can use wheel tax or
general fund or out of property and income taxes. The state “helped” by pushing
this back down to the locals, he said.
We are up to 22 bridges that need to be replaced at a cost of over $10.5 million. He is not in favor of increased taxes, but the state is sending the
funding issue back to the counties.
Listerman went over bridge needs of $2.2million that are
critical in the next budget. Some box beam bridge structures were put in
without covers by doing them in house in the county and so they will need to be
replaced EARLIER than usual. Usually they last 75 years – and these are only
lasting 20.
VETERAN’S OFFICE-
Mike Burgess- Soldier Burial fund- He thinks he will need an additional
$30,000 to finish the year, this buries the veterans and their spouses and some
headstones. This number is in keeping with the last couple of years. This is
$1100 for each vet and includes the spouse in that number. Counties can vary
this number. Morris motioned and Barrett
2nd – Passed.
Burgess also asked for Veterans transportation increase
because of increased transport costs – he needs $5,000. Ullrich motioned and Messmore 2nd to approve.
PROSECUTOR- Aaron
Negangard- Professional Witness fees- $15,000 a large majority of these
fees are for AIG Laboratory fees- drug tests for drinking or drugged drivers.
These are from accident cases primarily. Often times opiate addicts can pass a
field sobriety test. They used to use the state dept of toxicology. They have
problems with them and they have come under scrutiny. Turnaround was too long –
sometimes months and now it’s 2 weeks. The $180 fee is paid by the arrested
person. Sometimes these are not paid and this $15,000 is to cover that and
upcoming cases. With an upcoming murder case and has an upcoming attempted
murder on a child with a defense of insanity. He needs the professional witness
fees to be replenished for this. State dept of toxicology did not charge- but
they have become unreliable. Maybe the state will privatize this with a new
governor Negangard said. Ullrich
motioned to approve and Morris 2nd. One Nay from Lansing- Passed.
COMMISSIONERS- Jeff
Hughes- Hoosier Square Building- Terri Randall, County Administrator,
presented several issues that needed to be “fixed” in that building. They want
to replace the French drain system with a $30,000 regraded lot to a sump pump
to get it out to the city drain. This should be a permanent fix (except for
maintenance of the sump pump.) The stairwell to the basement of the building
meets code but is inadequate for the foot traffic load now. (8 inch wide
tread.) Because someone fell and due to potential insurance liability, she got
a quote of $20,000 to do this. When Indicom went to install their phones and
computers. They need to get the fiberoptic cable to them they need to go to CSX
to get a right of way for the county. They installed wireless system for about
$5,000 to work for now. She estimates $65,000 to do all three of the above
items. Randall intends to try to get state help to get the ROW without fee
perhaps. Ullrich suggested an extra handrail and non-skid strips for now.
Randall chose to skip that and just go for construction in a few weeks. Morris motioned and Messmore 2nded to approve to put these three
items out for bid. They will be $65,000 or less. Passed.
****JAIL FUNDING
PRESENTATION – not on the agenda-but
Randall went through the history of the jail project and went on to discuss the
funding options. The construction manager was considered crucial because they
are the ones watching the project. They selected Maxwell Construction along
with Integrus Architect as consultant. They had a dynamic meeting and went to
RQAW and asked all the questions. Jeff Lyness of Maxwell Construction then
spoke: They formulated a budget. Even
though working with RQAW- Commissioners insisted on putting this architect out
to bid on May 22. They are going thru the budget and geotech borings went out
to bid and that is starting and also doing borings on Votaw and Shumway lots.
They are preparing the RFQs for the architect selection process and doing it
similarly to the process they used to
select the construction managers. They will visit 2 jails in Bartholomew and
Brown counties that are similar to our design. He thinks the current design or
a modified version of this will keep the jail officer staff neutral
(number-wise) They will be looking at the kitchen and the HVAC for example to
see about improved efficiencies to reduce costs. Video visitation is an option.
This is a revenue source option. The project will be open to all workers- union
and non-union. They want to get it in for $9.3 million. Kraus reminded him the
sally port was removed from the plan to keep costs down.
Terri Randall went over the timeline for the construction.
Project goes out for bid in Jan 2013. Construction begins Feb 2013 and
completes in June 2014. Randall said “we” are going to push to get the actual
costs etc.
Collette from Umbaugh and Associates went over updated
numbers. The valuation for the county is
$2.3 billion. This gives a debt limit of $15 million. The county receives about
$14million from Riverboat Revenue per year. The project could be paid in full
from the Riverboat Savings fund. They could borrow $6 million and pay $3 million
form Riverboat savings. They could borrow $3million and pay $6 million out of
Riverboat Savings. Or they could borrow it all. There are bond issuance fees.
There is about $19 million in Riverboat Savings. The bonds are paid out over 19
years. You get a lower interest rate if you back them up with taxes. The
courthouse bonds of about $600,000 per year were paid out of Riverboat funds. The
different scenarios have annual bond payments of $220 million to $440 million.
Borrowing it all puts us slightly over the courthouse bond payments of over
$680,000 a year. She figured these rates of 4.75 %. Cash payments mean savings
in interest. You also don’t have the bond issue cost of $150,000. If you use
cash reserves you will deplete savings by nearly 50%. Borrowing would sustain
our cash reserves however. Using one of the other 2 options would help mitigate
negatives from both options.
Council wants to have
another meeting on June 19th to have time to digest this. Then
they may vote.
Jim Hughes read a
statement that said he was looking for more creative solutions besides just
building the jail. Questions around why the jail is so crowded.
Incarceration, rehabilitation, community corrections, and Jcap programs are
options. On the other hand we have serious road issues. We have only so much
money to spend and tax revenues are dwindling. We have to create a better
working environment for everyone in Dearborn county. He believes that the
people have a right to vote on such a large obligation. He moved to have the jail put on the ballot
in the form of a referendum. Dan Lansing 2nded it to get a vote. He and Hughes
voted aye and the rest of council voted nay. The board said they’d already done
this before.
****Not on the
agenda- Steve Walker- Park Board- gave their budget report. He requested
that Council release $31,750 from Park Board Land Acquisition account. This
money was already approved by Council previously as required for a match for a
grant. Kraus Sr. went on complaining about several flaws he saw in the land.
Morris read their previous statement that they had committed to matching the
grant to purchase this land. Messmore asked if there was a way to achieve this
tonight. Walker talked about the land on county farm having to be out of
conservation easements before they can use those parts of the 300 acres. He
also said the location of this piece is crucial to other pieces they have
including Gladys Russell Park. They also have issues with trying to get any
land. He answered other questions from the board. Messmore noted they have a matching grant
from DCF. This Lattire Rd. land is 13.5 acres. This puts them close to Gladys
Russell. A lot of educational possibilities there- also more advanced Scouting
camping activities. The Park board thinks they will not take on the shared private
bridge (with adjoining owner)but will access on foot or by vehicle over the dry
ford. The unanimous opinion of the Park Board is that it is a viable property. Council tabled this until June 19th
meeting to be advertised.
AUDITOR- Gayle
Pennington- July 1st puts new nepotism rules into effect. She has a
resolution regarding these new rules. This resolution establishes policy that
corresponds to the state law. Passed.
Board approved Feb
minutes.
10 EMTs have been
certified at $250 each at Margaret Mary Hospital. Council appropriated this
before- Approved to pay.
Council asked
questions regarding budget – they want a list of all the additional each dept
has been granted this year. Pennington will get that together for them.
Lawrenceburg Lions
Club wants $1000 for Aurora Farmers Fair for the clown for the children –
approved out of Youth services with Messmore saying nay.
Two last minute
changes to Cum Courthouse funds in budget last year- $16,000+ was appropriated
tonight because the state didn’t allow them in the budget approval. This comes
out of Riverboat Revenue contingency fund.
2006 reassessment
fund was cut out of the PTA BOA and
there were some issues- they advertised this and put $10,000 back in there.
[NOTE: COUNCIL has
been written up by the SBOA for using Riverboat Revenue for charitable causes.
Tonight they passed 2 items- special Olympics and the clown for Farmers Fair
that add to that same problem. Council has not addressed the SBOA write-up in a
public meeting.]
Meeting adjourned at 9:35
Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township
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