18 February 2014 Dearborn County Council Notes

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 11^th. 

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