18 February 2014
Dearborn County Council Notes
Present: Dennis Kraus. Sr., President, Dan Lansing, Liz
Morris, Charlie Keyes, Maynard Barrett, and Bill Ullrich.
ABSENT:Randy Lyness
Also present: Gayle Pennington,
Auditor and Teresa Randall, County Administrator
DC
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION – Fred McCarter- The Dearborn County
Quality of Life Endowment Fund was one of the first and now they have 110
endowment funds. Endowment matching program is essentially doubling your
donation. $25,000 is the maximum that any one donor can get matched now.
Endowment has grown by nearly a million dollars. Endowments are different from
the grant programs. Donor base has grown. Some funds have donations continuing
to come in- some don’t have any more. $84,057.35 is the county’s distribution
this year. McCarter asked that they allow them to keep $75,000 of that. Or all.
Council decided to roll the entire
amount over to continue to grow the endowment for the community.
PROBATION – SUPERIOR
COURT – Judge Blankenship - Salary Adjustment from probation user fees to
supplemental for Steve Kelly who is also heading up changes in community
corrections. Morris is very impressed with the
progress they are making in getting people back to the community. It addresses
the monumental drug problem we have here. Lansing asked what they reorganized.
Community Corrections is funded by non- tax dollars. It provides a way for
people to get in touch with community service and also the in-home program and
have case management. They meet goals and go to classes. They want them to
become productive citizens. They were not up to par with what was expected by
the dept of corrections. They have improved. They are also coordinating with circuit
court, Ohio County, and Switzerland County. Kelly is Probation Officer for both
Superior Courts and head of Community Corrections. Probation officers are paid
through the county and the state sets guidelines of what they have to be paid.
Mr. Bradley will not be coming in for the same thing- he is more than happy for
Kelly to do this per Judge Blankenship. This money is already budgeted $58,581
as Kelly’s salary. Council approved the
transfer of funds. With Lansing the only nay. Kraus said he only voted Aye as
it was already appropriated.
PROSECUTOR – Aaron
Negangard- represented by Bryan Messmore. $25,000 from pretrial-Diversion Fund
to pretrial diversion special investigations. $207,439 is in the pretrial diversion fund
now. It is for special equipment etc. Council
approved the transfer.
Messmore also asked
for a 4d child support and pre-trial investigator position and asked for
Council to support and endorse Negangard’s selection of Shane McHenry for that
position. Council already approved salary for that at Budget hearing. Lansing
said he didn’t think they’d want to lose him as SCU investigator. Council said
that they approved the position- who Negangard appoints is his choice. Nothing
changed from what was approved at budget hearings. This was already advertised
at that time.
SHERIFF – Mike
Kreinhop- applied for a grant from the DC Foundation for the canine training.
$5500 grant. They have the only one in the county now. There is no line item
for this- they use discretionary funds and donations for this. Rico is the
dog’s name. They travel with him to schools etc. He is docile and gentle with
kids. It is a tracking dog for missing people and suspects. They had a drug dog
before- they switched to a bloodhound for tracking. Approved by Council.
Mike Kreinhop asked
for the vehicle installation funds of $25,000 to take
equipment out of old cars and install it into the new cars. It costs about
$4500 per car. He asked to reinstate that fund. Approved.
Baudendistel brought
up the copay ordinance for jail inmates. He fixed the
ordinance to say 60 days to match state code rather than the 30 days they
currently have. There have been abuses in the payment of this copay with the
commissary card. They were waiting it out for 30 days and then the county
covers it as they are considered indigent. Approved
by council.
SUMMER ART 2014 –
Ruth Batta- brought in art work to show what the
kids have done. She is scheduling a trip to Columbus IN for the Miller house
and the architecture there this summer. Students are from age 7- a few high
school kids. They have been doing it for 28 years. They have an art supply
store that gives them a big discount for them. REMC is giving less and Proctor
and Gamble is giving some with a match form an annuity company. They get some
endowment money from Sunman- Dearborn to finish out the rest. It is originally
from Lawrenceburg. $2000 was approved by
Council again this year. She tries to get money from ones with the least
paperwork.
PARK BOARD – Jim Red
Elk
Guilford Covered
Bridge Park- $2,800 for preliminary engineering study to build earth berms to
slow down the velocity of flood water there. They are hoping
this is new money to Park budget. They will get a ball park number from the
study. They flooding keeps destroying the playground area. In addition to the
berms there will be planting of a lot trees from part of the North Dearborn
Project mitigation that is moved to Guilford with IDEM’s approval. Highway Dept
will help with this. Preliminary engineering will show the layout for the trees
and plantings. Council approved $2800.
Bright Meadows Park- updated
Council of where they are at and wants agreement and guidance. They are not
asking for funding yet. New restrooms would be $92,000 estimated. Traffic flow
was looked into also and parking. That made up the rest of the $235,000 estimate.
SDYA should be involved per Morris. This
is a long range project. It may be broken into pieces. Morris wants the
horseshoe range removed. It will be when weather breaks as they are frozen.
County Farm Park Disc
Golf – This has been in the works for some
time. Approval for $25,100 to be used out of their fund that has $76,000 in it
from timber sales. They have local volunteers that are helping with this set up
etc. They could do tournaments a couple times to raise money to keep it
maintained. This is the only disc golf in the county. Council approved the $25,100.
County Farm Park
Privy & Parking – Part of long range plan for County
Farm. $25,500 approved for this.
COMMISSIONERS – Terri
Randall- County Administrator
Maintenance- diesel
fuel leak on jail back-up generator. Commissioners
approved it as emergency. $48,751.68
Approved.
Jail Construction-
$3.5 million to continue thru May. They need to draw
this down now. Approved. Lansing NAY.
Randall said it is going well- she could email numbers to
them after the meeting.
Randall said that
there will be an annual report that will go to Council on the state of the
County from Commissioners. This is the first time this was ever
done she said. It is in draft form and will be finished by March 1 and sent to
Council.
Baudendistel gave
council the update on the unsafe Building Ordinance and it needs council
approval as it establishes an unsafe Building Fund. Commissioners
already passed it. See Commissioners notes for the details on this ordinance. Council approved.
Steve Kelly from
Community Corrections spoke on reorganizational bookkeeping.
They get $500,000 a year grant from the state to house people to keep them out
of jail. Raise an equal amount approximately from user fees for people in home
incarceration.
All full time salaries into one line item for reorganization
purposes rather than 7 different line items. It will be easier to track. Part
time salaries of $100,000 a year are a separate item.
Prosecutor’s office, probation etc do this also. Council approved. They will still see
itemized at budget time.
HIGHWAY – Todd
Listerman - Infrastructure/Growth & Development
for Stateline Rd project- in 1999 Beam Longest and Neff contracted with county
on Stateline project. The project is designed and ROW acquired and utilities
are relocated. $2.3million requested for the construction from both these
funds. $1million out of infrastructure and $1.3 million from growth and
development. Starts at Hafners Landscaping for about ¼ mile. Storm sewers etc
and ADA compliant sidewalks etc. Traffic lights might be addressed after
finished. It depends on traffic patterns. Turn lanes will be there now too. There
are 6500 vpd there now. Council approved
$1million out of infrastructure and $1.3 million from growth and development.
Keyes NAY.
REDEVELOPMENT – Terri
Randall -Redevelopment Commission 2014 Budget Amendment-
Lynch spoke with Randall. They have worked with auditor to see how much to
transfer to the budget to cover Randall and Hayden’s extra work. Dennis Kraus
interrupted at this point and read the personnel policy to them and said that they had to go thru the proper
procedure on these positions. Changing job description, new job descriptions,
and compensation were to go thru this procedure with Human resources and the committee set up to recommend and review these requests. Council
tabled this to have them follow the correct procedure. March 11, 2014 at 6:30PM
the Council will have a meeting to consider this after it goes thru the proper
procedure. It changes job description, salary, and where the compensation comes
from. Charlie Keyes will be missing from March 11th.
AUDITOR – Gayle
Pennington
Lawrenceburg loan
payment- $37,745.01This bill comes annually. The total
bill is about $230,000 for radios. This is old equipment we can no longer use.
Morris wants to see if L-bg will accept half as payment in full to just be done
with it. ($115,000)McHenry will have to approach L-bg Council for this. Tabled
until Lansing can approach the city about this.
One dept wanted-
travel and reimbursement policy in black and white
with signatures on it. Mileage at 44 cents per mile and other required
documentation is in this. Signed.
Minutes-
December minutes and January minutes were approved.
Salary Ordinance
signature for- sheriff’s contracted employee question did not get a raise to
answer council member Keyes question. The salary ordinance was signed. A copy
will be sent to the state.
Council re-appointed
Rick Pope to BZA.
Meeting adjourned at 8:55 PM
Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township
