15 August 2018 Dearborn County Council Budget Hearing Notes
Present: Liz Morris, President, Dennis Kraus. Sr., Dan Lansing, Alan Goodman, Ryan Brandt, and Bill Ullrich.
ABSENT: Charlie Keyes (who has been absent from the hearings all week)
Also present: Connie Fromhold, Auditor
Register Publications and WSCH also covered this meeting
Eric Hartman- Maintenance- Requesting $10 to $12 per hour for apart time employee without available funds. It was approved- but to get the funds he needs to advertise and get Council approval.
Sheriff Mike Kreinhop- introduced Stan Brown- from company who did the study for 2 years on police pension plan. Also John Lee- IT person- and Dave Hall- jail commander- and sheriff elect- Shane McHenry.
Council went over items in the sheriff budget for vehicles to lower back to $27,500.
Reduced sheriff vehicles in 2018 to 5 vehicles from 7 for $150,000 It lowers some installation costs as well to about $21,000.
Pension was a big issue. Morris is not in favor of changing yet. Kreinhop- Serving beyond 20 years gets no extra benefit. Also trying to retain individuals for longer times. Also to keep up with the local city departments. Lawrenceburg has two pensions but he can’t give particulars on it. Can get up to about 24% increase in pension if work to 32 years. This would mean they would retire at about 74% of current salary.
Morris asked about the jail being over 80% of the jail population as recommended by the state. They are now taking Decatur and Ohio county inmates. Kreinhop thinks this outside population fee can cover the pension increases. Morris said that might not be a way to do this- like building a house of cards. They might increase per diem to $50 from $35. Average 329 inmates- including 42 Level 6 inmates from the state and 8 sentenced misdemeanors.
McHenry said that in the future they will work out something with Ohio county to pay for bed space at $35 even if they don’t always use it. Kreinhop - There may be a way to redo space to house more inmates- maybe using the work release space. 60 beds in work release and we only have 5 in there. Lansing asked- how come many more are not on work release. That depends on the judges sentencing. McHenry plans to meet on that with judges to take more advantage of that program.
Hall- 424 beds including the 60 work release beds.Morris tried to pin them down on what number can we use to be compliant. Presently they have a memo of understanding with Ohio county. She does not call that a long term financially stable way to budget the jail. Morris is NOT COMFORTABLE with using this as a reliable revenue stream.
Goodman- we are required to cut $2 million and we will have to underfund medical benefits. What exactly does it cost to house prisoners per day.
Brandt- not sure how to get those costs. It would include staff etc. Kraus Sr- Its $54.78 per day of the internet search. Goodman- So at $35 a day we are LOSING $20 a day. Goodman reiterated about revenue is not the same as net income. Ohio County paid in $228,000 since Oct last year for inmates. State revenue for housing- $249,020 this year.
Stan Brown- the 32 year plan would be 31.7% of pay. Right now you have a 22.3% of pay.
Shane McHenry- getting tougher to get qualified people to want this job. Wants the county to have the best police force we can have. One said they wanted a pension. We cannot compare to Lawrenceburg- they have way more money. Some will stay their whole career if we have better benefits.
$322,596- 20 year plan- this was advertised. Can consider this- Cannot consider the 32 year plan. Commissioners do not have to sign off on this. The merit board and council does. Stan Browns firm works on 91 of 92 county plans.
$442,396- 32 year plan- this goes to 6% You can phase it in to go to 32 years.- not to consider this till 2019.
McHenry- since you are all in favor of the 32 year plan- we need to come back in 2019 and re-present this. Morris and have more data and the impacts. Stan Brown- you have 8 year vesting in this plan. A lot of people have 10 year vesting. Many other communities are considering these options.
Kraus Sr- Before we fund this- want to be sure we have medical insurance for the rest of the employees. Morris- we can only consider the 20 year plan- as advertised.
Morris - said that at this time we are unable to afford the 4 additional jail officers. Zero it out Lansing agrees as does Kraus Sr and Ullrich.
They went on to drop a portion of the various costs in the sheriff budget.
Cum Courthouse budget- patrol car hardware per John Lee and maintenance contracts. $70,000 and was $55,000 last year. $5k for computer hardware and $10k for the patrol car hardware.
Highway Dept- Todd Listerman- $1.480.000 in MvHA acct. Just under $2.3mil by year end. Cash balance $684,000 by Jan 1 in that account.
$2,966,000- is revenue.
Should have $3,650,000 to spend 2019. We would spend $4,657,354 in 2019. He needs to cut $1,100,000 from his budget. Cannot use MVHA for this. Maintenance, safety supplies, bituminous, gas, hardware section. $621,000. Take equipment out- and that brings it to $1million to cut. The equipment repair and rental out for $60,000. Take out insurance and it will be $120,000 out. This leaves $300,000 in MVHA substitute. Cannot allocate for match money. So no applications in the beginning of 2019. This gives him a cut of $1,120,000. Lansing said- you have done this before. Fuel and repair sometimes comes out of casino revenue. Leah Bailey thinks this will be enough to cut for Highway. They are trying to keep the match funds intact for roads.
Wheel tax- dedicated tax for highway roads and their repairs- Cum Bridge is dedicated to bridges and culverts. Wheel tax is for roads- cannot be diverted to other depts.
$19,487,062 is the budget number now.
Cash reserves at $1.1 million, if kept proposed budget at $22million.
Riverboat funds- maybe take $145,000 out of capital improvement long term fund.
Morris wanted a number that reflected all the cuts made. $3,725,728 was what Leah could estimate. Gov’t operations is $4.7 million of the total. They have officially cut $2.5 million.
Meeting adjourned at 3:15 PM
Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township
No comments:
Post a Comment