4 May 2016 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

4 May 2016 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

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

Also present: Gayle Pennington, Auditor, Andy Baudendistel, Attorney, and Terri Randall, Administrator

OLD BUSINESS:

NEW BUSINESS:

Election Update- Rick Probst, Clerk of Courts- 13,030 votes cast of 33% turnout. Internet was down all day and they had to clarify voter registrations with Indiana election division. They did get some hotspot access later in the day via sheriff dept. Highway dept helped also. Also had Boys Scouts helping out for a civics project. They had provisional ballots to that will have a minor affect on final official vote count. 

Litter Update- Celeste Calvitto- Editor, Bright Beacon- Major cleanup last weekend. Bright Fire Dept did a great job clearing in the rain. Some of the high schools have kids signing up for this. Mollie at Recycling Center has the bins almost al placed. Community Corrections has a cleanup scheduled later this month. 

Greendale EMS Contract- $40,000 for 2 units at $20,000 each. Approved. 

Fire and EMS Website- Jason Sulivan- EMS- demonstrated the website - he said they will tweet the text to make it bolder in sections and easier to read. There will be videos for recruitment to show current volunteers etc. There is also a page for questions. It is live right now. Mobile phones can pick it up but it doesn’t display everything correctly but that is being worked on now. Lynch wanted to see the hit counts on the page to see how much interest it has. Bill Beinkamper- Creative Services in Aurora did the website design. The address is 

www.dearborncountyfire-ems.com 

HIGHWAY DEPT. Todd, Listerman, County Engineer- Request to approach Council $550,000 funding requested for Bridge #43 Platt Road Some funding is available from savings on one bridge.

$1,125,000 for Wolfing Road old arch bridge that is very narrow. They would like to look at this as an applicant for the new state program for funds. The cost to us would be less if we do that.

Johnson Fork Road Bridge- bad scour problem on a pier. Meeting with DNR. Needing $25,000 for design funds from the bridge  rehab account. It needs an overly etc. 

Baudendistel is still working on some of the owners for ROW for these projects.They are optimistic they will get them all. Lynch said he’s glad he is aggressive on these state funds as the competition is going to be great for these funds. Approved for all four bridges to be done.

Maintenance assessment plan is needed for roads and bridges. Our bridge date will be available from our bridge review program done every two years. Will also do this for small structures book too. Some of those will be $250,000 each to fix. The assessment of the paved roads - 490 miles- using 1 mile max segments on longer roads and smaller roads will be also done. A true unbiased look at our roads will be done. It also has a program to analyze the system based on the budget we have to spend. Tim and he have talked to some people- he wants to ask for $75,000 MAX - he thinks it will be less than that- but he wants to be sure to have enough. He will get a program  tied to our GIS system. This assessment is necessary to get to the program for state funds under these two state programs that have been enacted. Slurry seal, chip seal, and micro-pave will all see looked at. The treatments will be assessed and the typical life of the process is shown. So if it lasts 2 years or 5 years or more is also figured in the system.Commissioners approved going to council for $75,000. This gives us a long term look and the means to do it ourselves after it is set up.

Tim Grieve- Highway Superintendent- Request to approach Council- there is a nasty slide on North Hogan- 1700 cars a day. Between Soap Hill and Possum Ridge. There is already a section closed. Needs to approach Council for $103,600 in his account  - and he needs another $129,000 plus to finish it. It’s dangerous there and needs attention ASAP. McHenry said they have worked it out so they can move money around to get this done. He has to see Liz Morris today about it. They will have to shut it down 10 days or so to do the work. Baudendistel said if they declare it an emergency they can invite quotes from at least 2 people and get this done. 36-1-12-9 allows this. This bypasses the bid advertising requirement. They have 2 quotes already. Commissioners declared Hogan Slip as an emergency and they can proceed with the 2 quotes to decide and begin work. Slow Mill ( now called Geo Stabilization Inc) $233,550 and United Consulting $493,074. are the 2 quotes. Pennington said the funds are there and he can go to Leah to transfer the amount needed. 

ADMINISTRATOR- Terri Randall:

Internal Controls Ordinance- to be covered by Baudendistel- (Randall is hoarse again) 5-11-1-27-  to promote accounting and transparency. This 10.17 section of the County Ordinances will be created to have this enacted here. Each county sets its own “materiality threshold”- to require notifying State Board of Accounts. So if perhaps $100 is missing is that the threshold or is it a different number? That will be decided by the board. They also need to train personnel. Randall said they have some guidelines from insurance company on tightening some procedures via the dept. heads. They need to have controls about every penny that is coming into the county. Pennington said by June 30 they have to have this finished. We need all these forms signed by debts etc to be filed with the annual report. It will be noted in the audit if we don’t have this. Otherwise there will be penalties per Randall. Each dept will be asked for their internal controls.  The ordinance was passed and signed.

Title VI Plan Update- INDOT reviewed the plans and just needs one thing to be fixed in the highway dept. Employees will be trained. Assurances have to be separately signed for this document. TABLED. 

Request to Approach Council- for legal fees for law suits against the county- all filed in 2014- and deductible is $25,000. Requesting $35,000 for this and the future ones. Lynch said maybe Council should fund this accordingly- Randall said its often hard to predict. She said we have now moved to a $10,000 deductible. There have been an increase in law enforcement jail claims- she attributed to overcrowding and said we have prevailed in all of those claims though. [NOTE: That's interesting- the previously overcrowded jail was supposed to cause lawsuits and Randall says it has and the county has not lost any of them yet.] Approved to approach Council for these fees.

$17,290 also need to be put back into the county attorney’s account for his work on these same cases. Approved to go to Council. 

AUDITOR- Gayle Pennington- Claims approved. 

ATTORNEY- Andy Baudendistel- nothing more- but wanted to briefly reiterate that all political subdivisions have to adhere to the Internal Controls ordinance- and they can be given ours and invited to training if that helps them.

COMMISSIONER COMMENTS- Lynch- thanks to Celeste for her Litter Work and raising awareness. Also thanked those who signed up to run for public office. 

Little- agreed with Lynch- restating some of it and especially thanking those who didn’t make it. It’s hard to be in that spot, he knows.

McHenry- thanked Celeste and congratulated his fellow officeholders who got passed the primary. 

Unrestricted grant from Perdue Pharma for prevention of meth labs presented by McHenry for $5000 MAX is being applied for. Approved to go to Council- and there is no County match. THIS WAS NOT ON THE AGENDA.

PUBLIC COMMENT- none

LATE ARRIVAL- Sulivan EMA- reminded this was a soft launch and will be set for public in 2 weeks.

Randall reminded Lynch to talk about the- Greater Cinti Real Estate Power Breakfast with 700 people in attendance yesterday morning. Whitewater Mill was a finalist recognizing businesses new to the are among 190 others. There were 7 finalists. Dearborn County mentioned several times in the room. REDI CINTI was the major sponsor of this- showing the prominence of that organization. Press release on this should be released per Randall. 

Meeting Adjourned at 9:33 AM

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township