Tuesday, July 01, 2014

1 July 2014 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes


1 July 2014 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

Present: Shane McHenry, President, Art Little, and Kevin Lynch

Also present: Gayle Pennington, Auditor, Teresa Randall, County Administrator, and Andy Baudendistel, Attorney.

OLD BUSINESS:

Happy Hollow Road-Baudendistel said that the surveyors were working on this and are agreeing where the ROW is. Denny Kraus, Jr. said that he was hoping to have the surveys signed off on before a court date. If they come to agreement on ROW and /or property lines that would be good. Baudendistel said the commissioners can’t sign off on something until the disagreement is settled. McHenry agreed with Baudendistel that this can come off the agenda. McHenry will call Engle’s and explain this to him.

SIRPC- (SE Indiana Regional Planning Commission)-Jodi Comer and Mary McCarty- update on projects- they passed out their brochure and ran down some of the projects they do now. The CBDG- Community Development block Grant program used to have 3 cycles a year- now there is only one a year as funding is going down. Master plans and updates in towns are helped. Local economic development and housing repairs for elderly and disabled are projects they do so they can stay in their homes. Brownfields that they applied for were not accomplished and they will refile for the next round. They learned a lot about how to approach this after the first round. They also gave this report at Council in June.

NEW BUSINESS:

Assessor- Gary Hensley- X-Soft- INcama Software- this request s to upgrade this software so that he can eliminate the issues in the data exchange with the auditor’s office over the last 7 ½ years. Cost of the upgrade is $206,400 and then annually $34,000 for support. They currently use Pro Val which was here before he came in to office. He said this upgrade can be accomplished with little additional cost per year to the county. Because this software includes some things we already use and pay additional money for now. The rep from XSoft was available this morning for questions. Hensley believes they can save money in the long run with this. He is beginning here to get their permission to go forward in the process. The old company is an annual agreement. It ends in Dec. He hopes to present this to Council for approval. Hensley said this software is remarkable and Pennington saw the software too and Auditor has been on board with it for over 2 years. She is hoping he upgrades. Hensley will send the old contract and new one to Baudendistel to be sure they don’t have to give notice of 30 or 90 days or something. Pennington says she thinks she has that old 2002 contract. Commissioners approved Hensley moving forward to the Council for the upgrade funding.

Community Corrections- Superior Court Probation- Steve Kelly- request to approach Council- Pilot Program/Additional from Budgeted user fees. He said they are changing how they do Community Corrections so they will see him more. They have been chosen to do this pilot program for ankle bracelets and it is a full social service program. They applied for grants- this is an additional $ 150,000 and then another $150,000 for a $300,000 total of those grants and he wants this line item separated so it ONLY is used for that pilot program.

He is also here for $62,400 item from budget that needs to be increased. He needs $200,000 in this account. They never spent less than $100,000 historically. Somehow the previous person in charge had only gotten the $62,400 approved.

They are working with a new company Core Soft for the Pilot project and all others on home detention. This has been signed off by everyone on their end ( courthouse) and the company and has been reviewed by Shane and Baudendistel. $6.50/day x 110 x 365 days=$189,300 -leads to more than $25,000 increase per year. The old company couldn’t prove if people were outside their home. First year the pilot program will cover 53 of these people. With the phone they get they sign an agreement that the community corrections has full access to that phone. Some are on RF and some on GPS. This new program tracks where they are and they can set up parameters around schools, parks, victims, liquor stores, bars, etc. and there will be alerts when there person gets in those areas. This will also give 24/7 coverage. They also are setting up projects with employers that want felony tax credits to hire people from this program. Commissioners ratified McHenry’s signature on the contract with CoreSoft.  Commissioners also approved going to Council for the other money and Commissioners approved setting up a new fund for the grants.

Baudendistel said BI will allow us out of the lease with BI for $39,806.85 as this is an old 5 year lease that was signed under the previous head of corrections before commissioners set up contracts that were only annual. It was actually $144,000 or so left to pay on the lease. Commissioners approved the payoff of the lease once it is executed by them.

HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT: Todd Listerman, Highway Engineer:

Tri-Township Water Relocation Agreement- relocation of the water line on Stateline Rd for $286,722. The county does not have to purchase new ROW for them -they are going to relocate in that new ROW. Little said the old steel line in the 1960s needs to be improved anyway- and it would have been under the new road. Approved by commissioners.

INDOT LPA Agreement- Small structure inspection and inventory and INDOT LPA Agreement- Stateline Road at Georgetown Rd – tabled will cover later when agreements are redone due OKI and INDOT changing funding sources thru the MPO. Hope to be done by September.

Construction Inspection Contract- for the bridge rehab- Certified Engineering was low bid at $18850. $34,560 and $39,200 were the other bids. He checked out the work the low bidder has done in Rush County. They will start work when he is on vacation. Commissioners approved the contract for Listerman to sign.

Revised Design Contract for Bridge #138- Bonnell Bridge by Burzelbach. There were issues with the railroad. Design is now finalized. There will be some additional charges and an additional RR fee and more geotech work and ROW acquisition. This is a not to exceed contract in case some items are not needed. It is fully funded. Commissioners approved amendment #2 on this contract for $174,391.

Bridge Rehab Contract Award- for box beams and Bridge 88- three bidders- low was Paul Rohe Co- $639,955.70. $856,509.58 and $864,364.50 were the other bid amounts. Commissioners signed the contract.

Listerman will be on vacation from Jul 10-20 and will have his computer with him for email contact should he be needed.

Convention Visitor and Tourism Board Replacement- Hollywood Casino Rep- Tina Bojack- replaces Debbie Walter from the casino. Randall said the board highly recommends her and she meets the political balance criteria. Commissioners approved.

Supplement Adopting Ordinance-Pennington said this would be the ordinance adopting revisions to our codes. American Legal Publishing of Cincinnati did the work. This makes the code match up to the Indiana code. They consider this an emergency measure. [WHY emergency?] They only put in the ordinances that were approved by the county in our regular open meetings per Pennington. Commissioners signed the ordinance.

2014 Tax Sale Work Plan AND Tax Sale Support Services Addendum-Pennington said this is SRI and is an annual agreement that we do. They have done this for many years and they also do our sheriff’s sales. Commissioners signed the agreement.

Emergency Management- Bill Black Jr. – Grant Signatures for 2 grants. One is $15,000 for the Local Mitigation Plan they already signed and they need the redone version resigned. There was a change that said it all had to be adopted before the final payment is made. Baudendistel said he reviewed as did a lot of others before it got to us.  The second grant is a Performance Grant  of $40,151.45 that helps pay 3 salaries for EMA. Commissioners signed both agreements.

ADMINISTRATOR: Teresa Randall-had Brad Rullman from Maxwell Construction to update on the jail. Punch list on the addition on August 1. Paving parking lots and the building is finishing. They will be getting inspections and flooring and ceilings in. As always a walk-thru is available anytime. They had a few unforeseen conditions but they are still OK on their contingency set up. The time project for FULL project completion in November. They will have move in time and renovate the existing building area which proceeds a little slower as there are prisoners in the area they work around.  Baudendistel said the new law says that eventually even if you have a year to do for a felony you will stay local- not go to the Dept. of Corrections. Randall said that they are reconciling the final budget on the jail and she is working with the auditor. Randall is meeting to find a place for coroner and John Lee with IT also has a problem so they are trying o work for them in the design. [NOTE: Why wasn’t this addressed before the spaces were set up in the design?]

Randall said a small team is going to meet in INDY to save money with DLZ on the annex project.  [NOTE: Why is a small team going to INDY to see DLZ out of the public eye? Who is on the small team? No discussion of that in a public meeting.] Randall continued: They need to get a better line on the financials. McHenry said they have to be more educated on where we are financially before we head to Council. For a not to exceed fee of $5,000 Umbaugh and Associates would gather info on the project and analyze the county resources and lay the revenue stream going out and come to the meeting to let us know what position we are putting Council in. There is a page listing the scope of the work on this. Randall said she’d gotten their price down and it was a good price for a firm of this size. Kevin Lynch strongly supports this as does Art Little who said that he likes to see expert advice when he doesn’t know something. Commissioners approved. [NOTE: Why can’t the auditor’s office get the financial data requested? They have Frank Cummings as their consultant for Council already.  The revenue stream would be an estimate and the past history will not be able to be used due to the new casinos in the area. And lastly, why was a budget not discussed up front before money and time was spent on the design? It seems like we keep rushing into things and then backtracking and fixing mistakes or redoing things. Perhaps a better mix of people including qualified citizens( taxpayers) in the original planning stage would have prevented this. Just a thought…]

AUDITOR: Gayle Pennington- claims and minutes signed.

ATTORNEY: Andy Baudendistel- the public records request forms were mailed out to dept heads. The clerk’s and recorder’s office jumped all over this. They have statute that covers their requests and costs of copying. Coroner and 911 dispatch had questions. Subpoenas don’t fall under this. There was discussion of getting draft copies of minutes on the county website. They county website will be up soon. They think this will be a good time to start the new forms and also get draft copies of minutes etc up online faster. Randall thought they’d have  a presentation to roll it out in 30 days or so. Baudendistel answered my question about the length of the form 9 3 pages ) saying the last 2 pages were for the county officials to fill out in reply. I also asked about the creation of a lot of paper and they were going to have the form available online for digital submission. It was also discussed that digital copies sent for the requests would save time and paper. Media will do story on the form and get some public comment.

COMMISSIONER COMMENTS- Lynch thanked Listerman for getting him into INDOT to help build those relationships. He thanked Bill Black for meeting and discussing other technologies in the area that we could check out. Also wished everyone a Happy Independence Day and encouraged people to get out and remember what it stands for. Little said the weatherman will cooperate with the holiday. And remember the birth of a great republic. McHenry said that last week he met on 275 to work with the state and tourism to have a better product as we enter the county at that 275 /50 interchange and Belleview. It was a first meeting with a lot more to do. This would help promote tourism. And be safe with the fireworks, he warned.

LATE ARRIVAL INFORMATION- none

PUBLIC COMMENT- none

Meeting adjourned at 10:16 AM

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township

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