PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
6:00 P.M.

The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 19, 2006, in the Commissioners’ Chambers of the Administration Center.

Those present were: Commissioners Robert Harper and John Evans, County Attorney Gwenn Rinkenberger, Administrative Assistant Melissa Hartig and Recording Secretary Vi Wagner.

President Harper called the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance.

APPROVAL OF PAYROLL

Com. Evans moved to approve the payroll of September 18, 2006, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

APPOINTMENT TO WEST PORTER TOWNSHIP FIRE DISTRICT
Attorney Dave Hollenbeck

Com. Evans, “The current director, Mr. Paul, is leaving because he is moving out of the area and the letter of recommendation is for Mr. Mike Hamady to take his place. I’ll make that motion.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the appointment of Mike Hamady to the West Porter Township Fire District, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

AMENDMENT TO ORDINANCE NO. 96-31-PORTER COUNTY ANIMAL ORDINANCE AND PORTER COUNTY CODE CHAPTER 6.04—2ND READING

Com. Harper, “Is Matt Soliday here?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “He doesn’t need to be, it’s second reading.”

Com. Evans moved to amend ordinance no. 96-31 on second reading, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Com. Evans moved to approve the amendment of Ordinance

Com. Evans moved to approve the amendment of Ordinance

Atty. Rinkenberger, “No, we are amending 96-31 so these are ordinances that need to be numbered.”
Com. Evans, “The first one would be 06-09.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Then we need a motion to approve 06-09 amending Ordinance 96-31.”

Com Evans moved to approve Ordinance 06-09, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Com. Evans, “And the next one will be 06-10?”

Com. Evans moved to approve Ordinance 06-10, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Those are the motions that we went over the last time and Matt was here the last time under the new state law. The next thing we have is approval of child welfare services agreement.”

CHILD WELFARE SERVICES AGREEMENT
Allison Cox, Family Court

Ms. Cox, “Historically what happens is that the Family Court received funds
through the Department of Child Services for our programming that we provide. This year with the new changes with the Indiana Department of Child Service is they requested they move forward with a contract base for our programming. So we did a proposal to our local resource council, they approved our proposal and now we would like to enter into a contract with the department so we can start billing monthly for services that we provide for Jent’s court.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I reviewed it and what jumped out at me is just that there are a lot of very technical requirements that obviously if we sign the document we will not perform.”

Ms. Cox, “Right. The data collections, that would be my responsibility.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the agreement, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Com. Evans, “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

Ms. Cox, “You should see the application.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I’ve read it, there’s a lot of words that don’t say much.”

Ms. Cox, “Exactly.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Very bureaucratic.”

Ms. Cox, “Yes. Thank you.”

OFFICE HOLDERS/DEPARTMENT HEADS

E-911 2007 Budget, 2nd reading
Dave Sheibels, Director

Mr. Sheibels, “This is the proposed budget for 2007 that I presented to the board that was my usual annual one sheet summary just for your convenience. The budget is virtually identical as years’ past, same number of employees. This does include the 2% raise as indicated by the County Council. There were only two increases from last year’s budget, specifically, an increased maintenance contract agreement up $20,000.00 and an increased data processing of $50,000.00 in preparation for some major upgrade projects that I have planned for next year. The total budget is $2,031,304.00. It’s approximately $66,838.00 larger than last year’s budget.”

Com. Evans, “One decrease in PERF?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Correct. PERF as we calculate it, it turned out to be a slight decrease.”

Com. Evans, “Whose going to be the beneficiary of the computer equipment and the maintenance agreements. Whose got the upgrade schedule this year?”

Mr. Sheibels, “This is going to be a major Tiburon project for next year. We’re planning to get vamped up from 7-2 to 7-5, early in the year which will require some new servers and miscellaneous type of hardware.”

Com. Evans, “So mainly in our 911 room? Will that carry over to the secondaries as well?”

Mr. Sheibels, “That will carry over to…. This isn’t a phone system upgrade. This is a dispatch upgrade with Tiburon and it will carry over to fire departments. They use Tiburon records management software, its across the board global upgrade plan.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the E-911 user charge budget for 2007 on first reading, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

COMMISSIONERS’ REPORTS

All districts:

1. INDOT LPA Claim Voucher #5 for Bridge Inspection, Phase 1 to pay the County, $4,062.24. Recommend approval.

Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

North District:

1. Consultant Proposals for Bridge 127, Lute Road over Willow Creek in Portage. Open and take under advisement.

Com. Evans moved to open the proposals and take them all under advisement, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Center District:

1. Consultant Proposals for Bridge 96, CR 250 West over Salt Creek west of Valparaiso. Open and Take under advisement.

Com. Harper moved to open the proposals and take them all under advisement, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Dave, will they have a price in them?”

Mr. Schelling, “No, no prices, this is just more of a statement of qualification and understanding of the project.”

Com. Harper, “So what you are going to do is take them and review them and come back at the next meeting, is that correct?”

Mr. Schelling, “I would have to do it the following meeting. I don’t think I could do it in two weeks.”

Com. Harper, “First one is Burgess Mantol.”

Com. Evans, “I would like to know if there are any companies that are just bidding on one bridge and not another and if the majority are bidding on both.”

Com. Harper, “This says Proposal on Reconstruction of Bridge for 127 over Willowwcreek and the same company has another one for reconstruction of bridge 96 over Salt Creek. The next one is Farr-Garvey Associates and there is one proposal here for reconstruction of bridge 96 over Salt Creek. In this one is the same company but for bridge 127 over Willowwcreek. Are you going to have these available in case anyone wants to look them over? How do you usually do that?”

Mr. Schelling, “I will have them in the back here.”

Com. Harper, “You can tell we are opening these for the first time. This is McDonell & Associates, Chicago, IL and this is for Lute Road over Willowwcreek in Portage and in the same package they have one for bridge 96 over Salt Creek. This one is from Collins Engineering, one proposal for bridge 96 and I think this is another one. This is also from Collins. This is from Chesterton, Indiana. This one is a proposal from USI Consultants, Inc and it is for bridge 96. Here’s one for bridge 127. Here’s one from Consulting Engineers from Indianapolis. (Inaudible due to the opening of bids in the microphone). Here’s two from Beam Longest and Neff for bridge 127 and the second one is for bridge 96. This is from Butler Fairman and Seuffert in Indianapolis, Indiana for bridge 96 and for 127. This is from Boner Group, Valparaiso, Indiana one for bridge 96 and one for bridge 127. This is from DLZ for bridge 96 and from DLZ for bridge 127. Is that it? What’s our meeting date for two weeks from tonight? I mean four weeks, I’m sorry. That will be October 17th.”

Mr. Schelling, “There are several consultants in the audience if you would like to at least acknowledge them.”

Com. Harper, “Yes, whoever is here would you like to stand and introduce yourself and where you are from?”

Kevin, “Kevin _____ from USI.”

Com. Harper, “As I said, if there is anything you want to review, they will be available here. Anything else, David? John, is there anything else in reports of Commissioners?”

Com. Evans, “I don’t see anything. Just correspondence.”

CORRESPONDENCE

Treasurer’s monthly report for August 2006 is on file.
Court Security Activity monthly report for August 2006 is on file.

Approve trust agreement with First National

Com. Harper, “Mike, is this something from you?”

Mr. Anton, “The trust agreement from First National?”

Com. Harper, “Yes, is that the only thing you have tonight?”

Mr. Anton, “I was just going to give it to you while I was here. We talked about this Disease Management Report and I did have a current report at that time, and we wont spend very much time on this. I think the point we counted on, simply, is that you can see there you had 10 diseases identified and 7 no responses. So what that tells us is we have 7 people that are involved in disease management that are not interested in broadening their education about their own particular conditions. So, hopefully, we can continue the educational program.”

Com. Harper, “Gwenn, you have reviewed this trust agreement?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Yes, I have.”

Com. Harper, “Do you approve of it?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I approve of the concept of having the trust agreement, but the language….”

Com. Evans, “I don’t think we have a whole lot of choice.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I don’t know.”

Mr. Anton, “Well, the choice is to pay more money, which is not much of a choice. We talked to Auditor Vuko, and she is in agreement and they are okay with it. We talked to Treasurer Murphy and he is fine with it. We’ve dealt with Rita Mulingrath from First National Bank in terms of getting the mechanics straightened out. Basically she is okay. She had asked for a very minor change to this agreement. She didn’t fax it to you?”
Atty. Rinkenberger, “No.”

Mr. Anton, “Well, and I think the change is consistent with the whole document so, this is the change here, with the trustee.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Are you sure that is the only change?”

Mr. Anton, “Yes.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Because there used to be one here Section 3.06 now isn’t in this one and it was in the other one. Now we are missing section to it? So now I want to check them over.”

Com. Evans, “304 and 305.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I want to make sure it is the same thing. See what I am saying? Something was 305 and now . . . “

Mr. Anton, “I can tell you what happened. We had to take this document and put that verbiage in there and when they copied it they omitted 306 so what I would ask you to do is simply approve this in concept and I will have the corrected document to you.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “All right.”

Mr. Anton, “The way this works, all that is done here with this trust agreement is adding a layer or two with the adjudication process and what I mean by that is that Stewart Miller adjudicates the claims, they send the check register to the county, to the Auditor’s office. The Auditor’s office reviews the check register and for the most part, always approves it and then returns it with their approval to the third party administrator, Stewart Miller and then they would order that payable electronically to distribute the checks. So what this does simply is the check register will come to the Auditor’s as always, the Auditor’s office will always approve the register. Then they will notify the trustee that the register is accepted into the county. The trustee will notify the payor to release the payments. All this does is to take Stewart Miller out of the authorization distribution of employee benefit funds and that is to satisfy the renewal that was created t his past year requiring either a trust agreement of this nature or a bond. And if they were to be required to have a bond then obviously that cost of the bond would be passed on to the county. We’ve had some experience with other providers that are charging basically $.70 a head per month with bonding costs. And in Porter County’s case if that were to be passed onto us that would be about $4,500.00 a year.”

Com. Harper, “Do I hear a motion?”

Com. Evans moved to approve the trust with the First National Bank in regard to our administrative health care plan, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Mr. Anton, “Can I have another motion that applies to the Flexible Benefits Savings Plan, which is the same thing. We have an FSA Account here that Stewart Miller administrates. Same terms.”

Com. Harper, “Do you have an agreement for it?”

Mr. Anton, “Yes, I do. I have the agreement but I have to change those two words again.”

Com. Harper, “Let’s approve it subject to the attorney reviewing it.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the agreement subject to the attorney’s review, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Mr. Anton, “One other minor thing. The First National has asked that we give them direction as to who is authorized from Porter County to direct the trustee. And this is just a suggestion.”

Com. Harper, “Do we have to do this tonight?”

Mr. Anton, “I don’t think so. I don’t think that the First National Bank will hold anything up for this.”

Com. Harper, “I would rather have Gwenn look this over and decide about this in two weeks.”

Mr. Anton, “We can move ahead without it.”

Com. Harper, “Any other last minute thing?”

Mr. Anton, “Well, we had a safety meeting this morning and was attended by Attorney Rinkenberger and myself, Phil Griffith from Emergency Management and Al Hoagland from the Highway Department. We were missing member Dave Lain from the Sheriff’s Department. The primary focus was to review our losses for the past quarter, I think it is and to determine whether or not we should move forward with an accident investigation if there is any particular incidents in there that would warrant that. We have determined that we think there is and we wanted to have a meeting at the Sheriff’s Department and review a few of the incidents that occurred on their watch. In addition to that, in reviewing all the county’s experience, it was noted that we have gone an “X” number of months at the Highway Department for example, without any lost time accidents. It’s excellent. It’s even bigger than that and we certainly wanted to get them their just due for this because as you recall on August 23rd we had that big storm and the Highway Department was called there to do some extra work, extra efforts and extra hours, etcetera, etcetera and I think it should be noted there were no incidents that occurred during that period of time which is almost a week long that they were cleaning up debris and what have you. So, we think that’s pretty special. Now in conjunction with that, the committee thought that we would like to ask the Commissioners to, it you could create a fund to capitalize an incentive program for safety within the county. So, in other words, if we don’t have this specifically laid out in terms but we could have recognition, for example, in this case, we went five months in the Highway Department without lost time accidents, during that time when we had our greatest exposure, which I think says something about the way they are conducting business there, that we would give them some recognition. I am sure you have experience with this somewhere else, where they got a t-shirt, hats for safety, key chains.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “We are asking for a small budget so we can promote safety.”

Com. Harper, “What’s small, twenty dollars?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “No. Of course not.”

Com. Harper, “You know, the Safety Committee was set up about three years ago and they have really done a lot, they have created books, and safety procedures. And started looking at work comp accidents, and car accidents and different things that raise our insurance. If I understand it correctly, work comp is rated every year so if they have a good year our rates are going to go down.”

Mr. Anton, “You are paying a premium right now.”

Com. Harper, “So this committee has met and I think it has done a lot and I think we should give them a budget. What is the committee suggesting as a budget?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “What were we thinking?”

Mr. Anton, “It was mentioned, I’m not sure who said it, but it was $5,000.00.”

Com. Harper, “That is for awards and different things for the …”

Mr. Anton, “And to potentially hand out fliers, maybe even some posters that we would put in recognition.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Educational things, you know, for the Highway, we were thinking it would be nice to have doughnuts and coffee or just anything to go out there with but we have no money.”

Com. Evans, “Okay, now they are safe and now we are going to ruin their hearts.”

Com. Harper, “Well, I think these people have done a lot work.”

Com. Evans, “I do, too, but I have one question; where are we going to take these funds from?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, first we were going to ask if we could get them, and then if it is something you will consider then I would draft an ordinance creating a special fund, the doughnut fund, for the Safety Committee. No, you know….”

Com. Evans, “I am not trying to make light of it because it really is a significant accomplishment. Those guys really did a lot of extra stuff during and after that storm and in the aftermath. I don’t know if we are even going to have much overtime left. I hope we don’t have a lot of snow because they really did put in a lot of hours. You couldn’t even get through Beverly Shores and those areas and they pitched in and it didn’t matter who called, they were there to help them.”

Mr. Anton, “They are under a lot of stress and to go through that and not have an incident, I mean anything, is really, I don’t want to use the word miracle, but it was close to it.”

Com. Harper, “I think what you guys have done is you’ve raised the awareness of safety in these departments, just like they did. I remember when I used to work in the mill, we would have safety meetings all the time and you’ve raised that issue in these departments. Hopefully it will save the county money. I think John is saying what I am saying, you have to get it together.”

Com. Evans, “Let’s just figure out where we are going to get it from and how we are going to do it and how it is going to be administered.”

Mr. Anton, “I am sure Attorney Rinkenberger can find out where to get it from.”

Com. Harper, “She’s probably been looking already.”

Mr. Anton, “Okay, thank you.”

Approval by Voter’s Registration to move precinct polling place

Com. Harper, “We have a request from Voter’s Registration to move a precinct polling place of Boone 1 and 4 from the Hebron Library to the Gathering Place.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the request,

Com. Evans, “I think this is an emergency.”

Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Request by Valparaiso University to hold annual “Shack City” event

Com. Harper, “We have a request from Valparaiso University Habitat for Humanity to hold their annual event, “Shack City” on October 27-28, 2006. This event is an effort to raise awareness concerning homelessness and to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. I assume you want to do that on the courthouse.”

Sonya Clark, “Yes.”

Com. Evans, “This is what, the fourth or fifth year you’ve done this?”

Ms. Clark, “Sixth year.”

Com. Evans, “And of course the same restrictions apply, you know, to the restrooms and the use and all that kind of stuff and the insurance qualification.”

Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Request for transfer of funds—Highway

02.91 $500 from 4510 Data Processing
Into 3630 Non vehicle repair

02.91 $2,000 from 3710 Rental equipment
Into 3630 Non vehicle repair

To cover repairs to chain saws and engineering equipment used for storm clean up in Pine Township.

Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Approval of Animal Shelter Services with Ogden Dunes and town of Pines

Com. Evans moved to approve the contract for animal shelter services with the town of Ogden Dunes for 2007 for $558.00 and the town of Pines for $1,209.00, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

DLZ WEIGHT STUDY OF FLOORS AT CLERK’S OFFICE

Com. Harper, “Where are we going to take this from, Melissa?”

Ms. Hartig, “We have a line item of Consultants that we can take it out of. There should be enough in there.”

Com. Harper, “This is because of the Clerk’s office cabinet, rolling files, that were going to save a lot of space.”

Com. Evans, “Because of my generosity at the last meeting.”

Com. Harper, “Because of John’s generosity. We are going to have to have a weight limit study done on the second level of the courthouse. It’s never been done and we have a proposal here.”

Com. Evans, “And the proposal is for $2,500.00 to study the weight load.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the proposal from DLZ, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

DOOR REPAIR AT NORTH COUNTY

Com. Evans, “What about the doors? You want to sit on that for awhile?”

Com. Harper, “Well, they are working on them. But let me just say this, John, they are working on them right now and I don’t think they have the price on the doors down. They have done some of the work and I don’t think they have a price. So, I think we should let that go.”
Ms. Hartig, “I talked to Mike Trout today and he said that he came to repair the panic devices on the doors or he could replace the doors, which ever the Commissioners would like to do but he said they are in poor condition. He doesn’t know how long the doors will last.”

Com. Evans, “Why don’t we hold off until I have a conversation with him.”

Com. Harper, “And I think the cost, John, of replacement was $9,000.00. And the security guards are the ones who raised the concern about that.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Let me know ASAP.”

Com. Evans moved to approve contingent on finalizing whether to replace or repair with the contractor,

Com. Evans, “And I will speak to them.”

Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

COMPUTER EQUIPMENT FOR HEALTH DEPARTMENT

Com. Harper, “Sharon, did you want to talk about this computer equipment for the Health Department, do you have anything to say? No? The Council has requested that the Commissioners make certain purchases out of our CCD Fund and then if it eats into the Highway Fund to replace that out of EDIT. They did this in order to balance the budget and one of the projects was a health department project for about $56,000.00 to take care of it.”

Com. Evans, “I am a little confused. The Health Department just got all kinds of computers from the state.”

Sharon Lippens, “They got their desktops a couple years ago, about two years ago.”

Com. Evans, “This is for a server?”

Ms. Lippens, “Correct.”

Com. Evans, “And a data base license for…?”

Ms. Lippens, “Vital Records. The state had been implying they were going to write a state system that all counties would use and they have abandoned that project for the second time. And the current system that the county is using and is written by an individual eight or nine years ago, he was actually working at the state the first time they started on the statewide vital records system and when the state abandoned it, she bought the rights to continue development on her own. The county did that at that time but its extremely old, fairly ruining every day, so they have been looking at a new software and that software is what you are seeing there. It’s got a $49,000 price. That’s the new software, the license for the data base and the server itself.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Is it odd for the county to be buying something like this for a state agency?”

Ms. Lippens, “The Health Department has paid for all of their own things in the past.”

Com. Evans, “Are these birth-death records and are they restaurant permits, are they septic permits?”

Ms. Lippens, “Just about all the records. Bringing in all their old data as well as new information.”

Com. Harper, “We are going to approve this. They asked in order to get the budget resolved, they asked us to do it out of CCD with the idea that they will replace anything they took from the Highway.”

Com. Evans, “It is the county’s responsibility to record all the births and deaths. They pass that information to the state and in what form, that was where the glitch was. The state was supposed to describe the manner in which that information is going to be passed uniformly by all 92 counties and they’ve just never done that.”

Com. Evans moved to approve as long as they don’t put the commissioner of motor vehicles in charge of the new computers, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Now I see you have the sound system. I know there are several things they asked us to do, but you don’t have a price for that yet, right?”

Ms. Lippens, “Is this for Judge Alexa?”

Com. Harper, “Yes.”

Ms. Hartig, “Those should be in…”

Ms. Lippens, “There were two quotes; one quote was to review the existing equipment and the other one was basically to replace everything. And that was the final quote. It was basically replacing their sound system as well as purchasing software to do court reporting. The county would provide a computer and they would be purchasing the software to the court reporting. The company they were going with is used in many other courtrooms in the county already.”

Com. Harper, “Is this for the $16,000.00?”

Ms. Lippens, “That’s the minimum they were requesting. The other one, for twenty six…”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “$22,871.00.”

Com. Harper, “Do you have a recommendation? Why don’t we wait.”

Ms. Lippens, “I don’t know anything about sound systems. As far as the software is concerned I would like to see them go to this software because the software that they use now is one that is not used in any other court. Most of the courts have gone to FTR which is the name of the software. We have two courts that do not. This is one and then Judge Bradford’s court is another.”

Com. Harper. “Haven’t they asked us to buy that one for Judge Bradford’s court, too?”

Com. Evans, “Is any court using this system now?”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes, all of them except Judge Alex and Judge Bradford; they are all using FTR. Now the sound system part and the amplifiers and mixers and stuff, that is out of my scope.”

Com. Harper, “I think we better wait.”

Com. Evans, “Who runs those systems?”

Ms. Lippens, “In this case it would be us.”

Com. Evans, “I agree, let’s wait and see what is what.”

Com. Harper, “Okay, we will go into the Umbaugh presentation if you don’t have anything else.”
CIRCUIT BREAKER TAX CREDIT-
Todd Samuelson, H.J. Umbaugh & Associates

Com. Harper, “Tonight, I met with and Gwenn met with Todd Samuelson and Umbaugh and Associates had done a study for us on the hospital and Todd delivered that and we discussed that and he mentioned they were doing a study around Indiana on this 2% Circuit Breaker and he will tell you a little bit about it. The reason they are doing it is because they advise people on bonds and so forth and he told Gwenn and I that he would have that done at some point and he didn’t get it done and they came and talked to us about it and I thought I’d ask them to give a public explanation of it. I know Bob Poparad is here and Al Steele and I think Kevin, I think he wanted to hear it. Are you going to use these two documents?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Yes.”

Com. Harper, “Do we have one for each of them? Bob, would you like to sit up here and take notes easier and anybody else that wants to move up closer. Is there anybody that would like copies of this while he goes through it? Kevin, if you would like to grab a table or something up here so you can make notes. He is going to be facing us. Todd, we want to thank you for coming and it sure shows if you take off.”

Mr. Samuelson, “There’s two hand outs, one is a paper and the other is bound. I am going to start with the paper hand out. Not to insult anyone’s intelligence or ability to research this topic. This is kind of a 101 discussion on the Circuit Breaker. This is something our firm put together early on once the legislation was approved this last session at the state level to implement the Circuit Breaker statewide. Our purpose in doing that is we advise a number of clients in municipalities, counties, schools, etc. throughout the state so as they had questions, we felt we needed to understand legislature and the potential impact of that. So this is, and I will go through this fairly quickly so if anyone has questions please grab my attention and we will address it. The Circuit Breaker was approved this last legislative session and starting on page 2 of the handout, is basically going to describe what it is. It’s a credit that will be applicable to the property tax liability such that the amount would be equal to the tax in excess of 2% of the gross assessed valuation. What does that mean? Basically what that means is the tax payer would not pay a bill higher than 2% of the gross assessed valuation. In simple terms, if the property is $100,000.00 gross AV, the tax bill would not exceed $2,000.00. It is a simple example. The implementation of the Circuit Breaker is somewhat phased. It is beginning for taxes payable in 2008 for all qualified residential property. Qualified residential property means what you would think of in terms of residential but also includes apartments, condominiums and those types of rental properties as well. So it is not limited to just homesteads. So that would be the first group if you will, of taxpayers that would be eligible for the credit beginning for taxes payable 2008 and also for 2009. It is not applicable for this upcoming tax year pay 2007. It will also become mandatory for taxes payable 2010 for all taxpayers and for all types of property, both real and personal.”

Mr. Poparad, “Do you do anything with the depreciation form? Personal property depreciation form? I understand that is 30%, (inaudible)…”

Mr. Samuelson, “There has been some changes to the personal property calculations. The 30% still applies but there are some other changes I am really not prepared to go into this evening. On page 3, if there are credits generated by the Circuit Breaker they are to be funded by each taxing unit from available funds. And what that basically means is that the county, as an example, could not increase its tax rate or its tax levy to offset any shortfall generated from the Circuit Breaker. And I would contrast this to a situation where if you have a shortfall that is due to errors in assessment or appeals or some other type of error, there are eleven types of errors that can be appealed in order to increase the levy either on a temporary or permanent basis to make up the shortfall. That is not applicable to any shortfall but may be generated by the Circuit Breaker. So, it will need to be covered from available funds or reduction and expenditures as a currently bracket levels. If there is a shortfall in tax distributions, they are to be shared proportionately amongst the funds of the county. As an example including debt service. We will get into some specific example here from Porter County that will make a little more sense but the county has multiple funds that have some type of support in property taxes. So if there is a shortfall to the county unit that shortfall would be allocated to those funds depending on what is relatively to the total. On pages 4, 5 and 6 and 7 for that matter, us being CPA’s by nature, we tend to look at things numerical. I am not going to spend a great deal of time on these schedules but what we have done on these four pages, and this has nothing specific to do with Porter County, but just some illustrations that we ran early on to try and get a feel for what types of property would be in line for the credit. And so basically you could read these scheduled from bottom to top in terms of for the type of property we are using as an illustration on page 4, as an example, this is a residential property. In the upper left hand corner you will see a home value of $50,000.00. So on the lower end if you will the assessed valuation for a residential property given how the tax bill is calculated with the property tax replacement credit, with the Homestead Credit, with homestead deductions, etc. to get to a net tax bill, the first line, what affected tax bill will need to be in place in order for this type of tax payer to receive the credit. You will see at the top line there, it’s roughly $5.80 tax break in order for this type of tax payer to receive a credit. To contrast that we then look at page 5. If we increase the value of the home to $300,000.00 as it’s assessed valuation, you can see given the same type of criteria on how to calculate a bill that affective tax rate goes down in order for the credit to become applicable.”

Mr. Poparad, “I notice you’ve got the PTRC money being flat lines all the way across.”

Mr. Samuelson, “Well the Homestead Credit changes.”

Mr. Poparad, “You’ve got that as …(inaudible)”

Mr. Samuelson, “That may or may not be true.”

Mr. Poparad. “The state may adjust it somewhere to offset.”

Mr. Samuelson, “I’ve got a whole lot of caveats to get to and that is certainly one of them. Let me talk about this for a second, this is anything but an exact science in terms of trying to escalate the impact of a Circuit Breaker. This is one piece of legislation that has impact all types of taxing units whether it’s counties, cities, towns, school, library. There are many other things that also affect tax bills and tax rates. One being the level of PTRC and will that remain constant? The assumption on that is probably no. But in order for us to get our arms on just the Circuit Breaker, you kind of have to assume the other factors will be held constant in order to focus in on this piece of legislation and this type of impact on the Circuit Breaker. So that is one of the reasons you don’t see changes there and I will have some other comments about trending etc that we have to recognize but not make assumptions on. To continue on the illustrations on page 6, this was a non residential property. A non residential property obviously did not receive Homestead Credit so the affected tax rate that would even be applied in order for this type of property to receive a credit, and I’ll go even further, to about $2.50. The final illustration, and again, this is on that $50,000.00 example, using the same $50,000.00 on page 7, the use of this illustration has personal property as opposed to real property. The level of PTRC even though we are holding constant, is lower on personal property than it is on real property. So again the effective tax break that will leave a credit to be applicable to personal property goes now even further. What does all this mean? I think it means that at least from our perspective, the Circuit Breaker tax credit will be most applicable to personal property. It will be most applicable to non residential property given how the tax payer is generally and will be most applicable to a residential property as that property as the value of that property is higher. A lot of numbers and a lot of pages to come to that conclusion but that is basically what those four pages are illustrating. Again, early on we were looking for any kind of information to get our arms around what kind of impact this is going to have statewide. The information on page 8 was generated at a state level that this legislation would have impact or generated shortfall within 89 of the 92 counties throughout the state so its going to be varying levels that will be statewide pretty much in terms of who is going to be impacted. Further, how much revenue is going to be lost is very difficult to estimate for a number of reasons as I mentioned. This is one piece of legislation; there’s other things going on which I will talk about in a moment. But also at county levels, other than Lake County which has experienced this before in residential property, other counties have not. So, at the county level the ability, if you will, push a button to say what is the impact of this, just doesn’t exist but will take some software and will take some understanding at how to generate and calculate these types of funds. On page 9, and I have eluded to these. There are other factors that our out there that make it virtually impossible to determine exactly what the impact the Circuit Breaker might be because other things are also changing. One of those is anything that changes the tax base in terms of what is the amount of assessed valuation that will go into the tax break. It will have an impact on whether that reduces or increases the likelihood if the Circuit Breaker is applicable. One of the items that is still in play is the final removal of inventory as personal property, some counties that has been done, other counties throughout the state has not. The final inventory throughout the state takes assessed value off the rolls and everything must be legal to have the impact of increasing tax rates in perhaps putting the Circuit Breaker more into effect. The automatic investment deduction is also new in terms of real growth that would be occurring. The ability for that new growth to receive a three year phase in if you will, of that new assessed valuation will have the effect of delaying or deferring the benefit of that new growth in terms of increasing the assessed valuation.”

Mr. Poparad, “Can you touch on that again?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Sure. The one is…”

Mr. Poparad, “Is that residential or commercial?”

Mr. Samuelson, “That applies to commercial or industrial.”

Mr. Poparad, “Is that automatic from the state and the AV coming up to speed?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Right. And again, I don’t have all the criteria to receive the automatic deduction but I’ll be glad to provide that but it does not apply in my understanding to residential. But to commercial and industrial development the ability to have that three year phase in if you will and automatic deduction is what that legislation provides. I will be glad to get you more information.”

Mr. Poparad, “What if the state ran a tax abatement. Automatic?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Correct. I will make a note to give you more information on that.”

Mr. Poparad, “Sorry I have to go back. (Inaudible)…. Be on the rolls for three years?”

Mr. Samuelson, “What was the question?”

Mr. Poparad, “The Bass Pro Shop, in Portage.”

Mr. Samuelson, “I don’t know the specifics on that development so I hate to comment. The other large significant issue is trending which is going to become effective for pay 2007 statewide and if you are not familiar with what trending is it is basically what I refer to is a mark to market of residential, commercial industrial property to, on an annual basis, ensure that the value of those properties are at market value which is basically what Indiana is at in terms of how to determine true tax value. The last reassessment in the state of Indiana was based on property values of 1998. And we can all discuss how reassessment went and how it didn’t go but that would be a whole other meeting. But trending was put into effect in order to not have as many a number of years between reassessment and to have a dramatic impact that could otherwise have, in terms of changing assessed valuation due to the time lines between the reassessments. So, trending is an annual “reassessment” if you will, of properties to the neighborhood in terms of what is the trend for a group of properties in a particular neighborhood. I am not an assessor but they have rules and processes that there is to follow to effectively complete trending. So what does that mean in terms of a Circuit Breaker? Trending by most accounts will increase assessed valuations. If in fact, especially with this first year of training for pay 2007 there have been estimates put out at the state level that assessed valuation throughout the state will increase probably 5 to 28 percent. That is a fair amount and the effect of that would be again, an increase in assessed valuation, everything else being equal has the effect of reducing tax rates. So, the impact of trending will most likely be to reduce the impact of a Circuit Breaker of how much will it totally offset and that remains to be seen. Again, how trending will be effective in Porter County, will it be at the 25, 27 percent increase. Averages mean that there are some above and some below, presumably so. Our numbers and our estimates for Porter County does not take into effect trending but we recognize that trending will have the effect of reducing the Circuit Breaker, how much remains to be seen as trending is complete. There are around the state, there’s still appeals from the last reassessment process and they are still trying to get settled so the settlement of those could also increase or decrease. The purpose of putting these caveats out there is any estimate that we do or anybody else does is going to be limited because these other things are going to be coming in. And they are going to come into play in 2008, 2009 and certainly 2010 when the full impact of the Circuit Breaker is felt. On page 10, 11, and 12, I am not going to spend a great deal of time on these. Early on, we were looking for any kind of information to determine what kind of impact this might have. LSA, which is a state level organization legislative services, prepared an estimate based on 2003 data that the Circuit Breaker will generate over half a billion dollars in credits throughout the state. The estimate was approximately 84 million and you could see the other figures there. So it was at least recognized there and there was an impact to this legislation. Which I did think was the intention to reduce property taxes paid throughout the state. 11 and 12, this is various communities that we had information on between our walls, if you will in order to estimate what type of impact could be counted for non residential property, if you have real and personal property in different communities throughout the state. Our purpose here was simply to see what kind of range are we looking at. You can see there is a wide range for potential impact based on various communities around the state. The other area of ___ pads if you will, where it comes into play is on bonds that are outstanding. This is one of the notifications that we send out in terms of what kind of impact does this legislation have on the debt that is outstanding for Porter County, and for all units for that matter. While what the full impact of the Circuit Breaker will have statewide or for this unit of government could be discussed and different estimates put together. I think one thing that is pretty much agreed on is that the Circuit Breaker does impact the security for the bonds that are either outstanding or will be issued. And really the reason for that is previously, any debt that was issued supported by property taxes was an unlimited add to one property tax pledge. Revenue debt service necessary to service bonds that was a levy that the county will put in play. With the Circuit Breaker, obviously, now there is a cap. So its no longer a cumulative cap. There’s a change in security. We sent some information around in regard to that. We also have some this come into play on new projects we’ve financed with the issuance of bonds according to property taxes or backed up by property taxes. One point I want to make is that it’s a disclosure item for resisting the proposed act potentially and the cost of borrowing could be impacted depending on the criteria for each specific instance. That’s probably what I wanted to cover in the one on one information. If you have any questions.”

Kevin Breitzke, “We’ve defined Circuit Breaker different than any other state or the situation (inaudible)…. For lower income to equalize the property tax so people could afford to keep their homes. This is across the board, 2% increases, it’s unlike that Circuit Breaker that I have heard of in the past and I don’t know how the general assemble came to this definition.”

Com. Harper, “Well, Kevin, maybe they came to it because they read the article in the paper about homes and, I don’t know, it sounded to me like they had a 10% tax on it. No matter how much the home cost, I think it’s a crime to take 2% of a person’s value of their home, for 20 years you’re taking 40% of the value of the home for taxes. I think they came to this conclusion because they thought it was a crime to take anymore. There’s a lot of the people that feel that way.”

Mr. Breitzke, “I don’t know, Bob, if you understand what I am talking about. Those are the same people that were hoping they get reduced property taxes.”

Com. Harper, “I understand that and I think there were people that felt that whether it was a $400,000.00 home or a $100,000.00 home, it’s a crime to take more than 2% of the value. That is the way I feel a year, you know, in twenty years, you have taken almost half the man’s value of his home for taxes.”

Com. Evans, “Fifty years ago, 100%.”

Com. Harper, “So, I think the reason they did is because they were trying to send a message that we can’t do that anymore, we just cannot. It is criminal, it is virtually criminal to do it.”

Mr. Breitzke, “We’ve come up with a new definition for it, a new direction.”

Com. Harper, “Well, you know we call things Major Moves when we lease the Toll Road, and we call things Circuit Breaker when we try to protect the person’s homeownership.”

Mr. Poparad, “(Inaudible)… now it may not be three years for trending, especially for Porter County that is involved in the AV. Trending is going to hold on, in this county for what? What about, because there is going to be, I mean, (inaudible),, is going to catch up real fast and the other question I would ask is the growth factor for Porter County this year still going to be factored in the levy backwards against the AV. What happens when we reach the point of 2% of growth, what if we can’t make bond payments?”

Mr. Samuelson, “I will talk about that in a little bit.”

Mr. Breitzke, “Because this summer Munster tried to bond to put a park in for in place of the landfill and they found because of this, and in effect of the bond breaking,…”

Com. Harper, “I bet if you go back, you will find that they are spending a lot of money somewhere.”

Mr. Poparad, “Exactly right. And the legislators are not getting down on the appraisers. They are giving the local governmental bodies a choice, to either bond and build something or you can operate, (inaudible)… for the schools. You get “x” amount of money, that’s all you’re getting.”

Com. Harper, “And is that so bad?”

Mr. Poparad, “I don’t disagree with the whole premise. I only use the analysis that we never hold our own until we (inaudible)… you don’t pay your property taxes they come get us.”

Mr. Samuelson, “I am trying to recall all the questions, but I think first of all, the growth factor is not tied in to this legislation, meaning that the growth factor of 4% or 3.9 or whatever it is, will still be calculated if provided….”

Mr. Poparad, “Eventually that is going to reach a point to substitute the 2%.”

Mr. Samuelson, “Maybe, maybe not.”

Mr. Poparad, “Let’s go back to the first page. This is all going to boil down to… it will boil down to what the state legislature will do with the PERC money in terms of what they send back. That’s the bottom line.”

Mr. Samuelson, “That and what a unit would experience in terms of real tax based growth. You know, if you have growth that more than offsets the…, that’s an issue. Those are things that none of us can predict. But the natural ebb and flow of assessed valuation will certainly, you know, if you hold your budget the same, will still change the tax rate and either get you closer to or take you further away from the Circuit Breaker kicking in. So, I would answer the other question the same way, will trending more than offset or prolong or delay the impact of the Circuit Breaker, that’s impossible for me to predict because no, at least I think I know, no areas throughout the state are experienced in the same level of growth and market value. So, what you all may know intuitively, I don’t know sitting here in terms of what is going on in Porter County, what’s going on as it compares to St. Joe County, Marshall County, where I am from. All those are going to be experiencing different things. The only best thing I can give is it will be what’s it’s going to be. How do you like that for sage advice?”

Mr. Poparad, “Are you an attorney as well?”

Mr. Samuelson, “No. Okay, let me get into some specifics in terms of an estimate that we’ve done for Porter County. I feel like I am just throwing caveat out after (inaudible)…. Gwenn, I don’t know how I am doing in the legal profession.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “You are doing very well.”

Mr. Samuelson, “Okay, the other caveat I am going to throw out there is when we’ve done an estimate for the county, and we’ve done a lot of estimates, all the things I said in terms of trending, there are other things that will impact assessed value and are not included in our estimate. We are using for the county, the 2006 assessed valuations, 2006 tax rates, 2006 levies. That’s what is available, that’s what we are using.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I think this is a caveat, you’re doing this as an informative session, you are not trying to… just as a learning process.”

Mr. Samuelson, “Right. The other thing we have, and again I am not sure it is available, but we have also gone through and done a parcel by parcel analysis of all the parcels that fall into the jurisdiction of Porter County. What we have done is look for readily available information that is reasonable for us to use and provide an estimate. It’s a lot of big words, but basically, and I’ll explain it here, we’ve gone by property class. And that information is available and I will explain that to you. In the report we’ve got a page and a half of verbiage which is basically covering what the Circuit Breaker is, what approach we have taken to provide an estimate. I have covered all that, I am not going to read it to you. We have met with the DLGF to walk through, months ago, walk through and we’re getting lots of questions, and we feel like we need to respond. There is a methodology we’re going to use; they are not going to sign off on it, but they certainly felt it was reasonable. On the second page of verbiage we get into and talk about the impact to Porter County and I will walk through the specific numbers here in a moment, but this estimate applies to the year 2010. And that is what we are focusing on because that is the year of the most significant potential impact, when all property, real and personal, are eligible for the credit. So this estimate is for the year payable 2010. We are estimating the reduction in revenue for the county to be approximately $757,000.00”

Com. Harper, “Now that is just for the county?”

Mr. Samuelson, “That is for the Porter County taxing unit.”

Com. Harper, “All right, $700,000.00?”

Mr. Samuelson, “$757,000.00.”

Com. Harper, “And that is not taking into consideration trending?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Correct. Trending produces an increase in valuation, the rates would come down and everything else, and that’s our last paragraph, that the state has indicated an estimate of 27% increase in assessed value statewide which would have the effect obviously of reducing property taxes, recognizing that but it’s not part of the estimate because we don’t know what the results of Porter County.”

Mr. Poparad, “Just a comment, but I noticed on the first page, that bond payments will be made first, or is that for public discussion.”

Mr. Samuelson, “They have put out, I don’t know the best terminology, I call it an administrative position, because if you look at the statutes, this particular statute says and I touched on this earlier, that any shortfalls would be shared a portion by every bond. That conflicts with the statute that says you must pay your bonds. Because if you have a shortfall in debt service, where are you going to pay your bond to make, if in fact, it’s a property tax issue. So, that question came up and the DLGF came out and said the debt service must be paid first, if there is a shortfall and the debt service fund experiences a proportion of that shortfall, it must be made up by another fund. And I will have an illustration of that in a second. On page 4, there is a landscape orientation. This is, and I am just going to describe for a second, the approach that we took and I don’t know how much time you want me to take, but on page 4 this is how we provide we came up with our estimate. On the left hand side are all the taxing districts in Porter County. In the middle of the schedule the column headings indicate what property class we are utilizing so the real property we grouped the assessed valuation by residential homestead and non residential real property and we did classifications of personal property under non business and business. One of the things you had realized right away in looking at this schedule is there is a shortfall in using this type of approach because of the residential columns you see no credits being generated for residential property. I know there will be. But when we do it in an aggregate, none of those kick out. So it’s kind of a deficiency if you will of this not being able to do it on a parcel by parcel basis. We recognize that, we do have a couple of counties that have the ability to do it parcel by parcel so they ran their numbers and we ran ours, the total we are pretty close. But individually, you are going to have variances because of the fact of the approach that you take. In the third column to the right where it indicates total estimated reduction, that would be county wide not county unit, but county wide for Porter County for all the taxing units illustrated with a total shortfall of approximately $6,044,000.00, not taking into account shortfalls that would be generated in the various TIF districts throughout the county. When you take in the total of the TIF districts, the estimate is approximately 6.9.”

Mr. Poparad, “The TIF district of Valpo, Portage, they are going to take a hit so if somebody bonds in the TIF district, they are going to be short.”

Mr. Samuelson, “I can’t guarantee you they are going to be short, but they will have a reduction in TIF revenue. It’s unlikely that every TIF dollar is leverage for that because it would be coverages and all those kinds of things but then, I can’t speak to where it would cause a shortfall in there. Even if they had an outstanding in those areas. Now in order to provide an estimate just for Porter County taxing unit for each of their taxing districts you will see a number of percentages indicated in the next to the last column. Those percentages represent what was the county’s levy in compare of the total levy of that district. In other words, your rate is a component of the total effective rate for that area. For the first line for example, the county’s rate represents 12.59% of the total so if there is a total reduction as estimated at 245,000 the county’s share of that shortfall would be 30,951. So the accumulation of those allocated shortfalls is where we come up with our estimate of 757,000 for Porter County.”

Com. Harper, “So with that, there is a good possibility with trending, there might not be any shortfall.”

Mr. Samuelson, “That is a possibility.”

Com. Harper, “A big possibility?”

Mr. Samuelson, “I don’t know. I’ve been an expert witness at times, and an attorney asked me one time do you know the answer to this in the words yes or no.”

Com. Harper, “And you said maybe.”

Mr. Samuelson, “I said yes. On the last page, I am not trying to be evasive.”

Com. Harper, “No, I understand.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “They are asking an unfair question.”

Mr. Samuelson, “That’s okay.”

Mr. Breitzke, “Is there a guidance to the trending or is that …?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Yes, there is guidance to the trending. There are some units that are done with trending throughout the state. I don’t know where you stand here in Porter County. On page 5, this is again, with an estimate of 757,000 you are going to look at the county units itself and these are not obviously all the funds of the county that you operate with but only those that are a component of the total tax rate. So the county’s certified rate for 2006 was just over thirty five cents and that is an accumulation of the 8 or 9 funds that are listed here. The general fund is obviously, as customary, is the largest of those funds, and then you have three of the funds for debt service, (inaudible…) for debt service. Now going by the Circuit Breaker legislation in the third column of numbers you will see the Circuit Breaker with potential Circuit Breaker tax credit. The 757,000 is allocated back proportionately to each of the funds based on its relative percentage of the total levy. You will see there are four debts for these funds. There’s one for debt payment, lease rental payment, courthouse bond and down at the bottom, the jail lease rental. You will see a footnote for number two, that’s where we indicate that the DLGF has indicated that the service must be paid so in essence, the shortfalls may become applicable to those funds will have to come from that fund. We’re not reflecting that here, we are just talking about the Circuit Breaker legislation but practically if you add those up it is going to be something close to 70,000 or 75,000; that amount of levy would need to be made up from one of these other five or six funds. Presumably the general fund because that’s where the most of the money is at. Does that make sense? In the far right hand two columns, just for comparative purposes and maybe to give a total what is the total potential impact of 757,000 compared to the total budget for the county, it’s about a little over 2%. Not to confuse it with the 2% Circuit Breaker, but roughly about 2% of the budget that is certified for 2006. Again, that is just to provide some relevance if you will, how much of this in relation to our total budgets, or on the other hand, 2 ½ % of the total tax levy. Now, I am going to pause and see what questions I have generated or what questions you have. Again, this is based on what we were working on with information from the hospital and providing information to Gwenn on the levy disclosed on the terms of the outstanding bonds, (inaudible)… throughout the state to provide information, that’s our purpose here, to provide you with information.”

Mr. Breitzke, “One of the things that are in Vigo County (inaudible)… and estimated without trending …(inaudible) is there a reason for that?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Well, I think, and I can’t speak for (inaudible)… but I can speak to another unit I was in two days ago that was 30%. And I think the reason for that, when you think about the variables involved here, how does the affected tax rate apply. But the other things that I touched on and I went through those illustrations, what are the components of the tax base. And I think the higher concentration and I can’t speak for for either, but the higher concentration would have non residential or personal property in relation to residential and what is the make up of the residential property is where you are going to find why there is more impact in one area versus another. So it is going to be specific to the variables applied.”

Mr. Poparad, “The example here would be Bethlehem Steel, with “x” amount of the AV and if they get capped out, they provide 20 (inaudible)…”

Mr. Samuelson, “That is an example, right. They had a large…”

Mr. Poparad, “Large industrial site.”

Com. Harper, “Why do we forget, and I mean it’s fact, that the reasons some of these counties are going to have a bigger problem than we have, is that they haven’t lost their tax rate. We’ve watched ours here, to an extent, to a really great extent, and I resent the fact that these people are going to be screaming to take that away, to take this Circuit Breaker away, when they haven’t watched their tax dollars and in effect, punish the people here by taking that protection away from them.”

Mr. Breitzke, “(inaudible)..”

Com. Harper, “I understand that, Kevin, but here’s what gets me and I just heard about this today, that some of these organizations like cities and towns and counties, are apparently going to lobby against this, you know, and try to get it changed and I think that before they do that, I resent being a part of an organization that is going to do that unless they come down and ask individuals how we feel about it. I don’t know how you feel about that, John, but I don’t want to see the Association of Counties lobbying to change this without having a say in it.”

Com. Evans, “Another thing, our outstanding bond obligations, what would be the effect, we’ve got a lot of new money with Major Moves check just deposited in the bank, what if we pay off our bonds? How is that going to affect it?”

Mr. Samuelson, “Well, that would certainly have the effect to, I would have to think about the legal use of Major Moves money. But, the effect, obviously would be to reduce your tax rate which would effect the potential impact of the Circuit Breaker.

Com. Harper, “I think some of these are about to be paid off, aren’t they? Some of these bonds that are there, are soon to be paid off.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Our largest one is the jail. But I don’t know about the rest of them.”

Com. Evans, “They will be retired within the next few years.”

Mr. Samuelson, “The other thing that is interesting is that for example, if you reverse that and we are now looking at the jail as opposed to years ago and what happens if we increase our debt service. You can see the impact of that with your outstanding bonds, an increase in debt service potentially is going to impact the general fund. So that’s a thought process that is near in terms of evaluating a project and how to see putting debt on the rolls, what impact that has on the rate, you know, what impact that has on property taxpayers. For now, it is also potentially, I’m not saying here, but in this general discussion, but also it potentially reduces monies available for operating purposes. Because the debt service fund is no longer under the levy, the levy is reduced because of the Circuit Breaker by issuing that and increasing debt you may impact the general fund. But that’s kind of a different thought process.”

Mr. Poparad, “What was (inaudible)…”

Mr. Samuelson, “This type of thing, they are going to see the same type of impacts. Again, there is no one answer for that.”

Com. Harper, “We are all going to have to live within our budgets.”

Mr. Poparad, “I know.”

Com. Harper, “What’s the homeowner going to do if we just keep taking it and taking it from them, that’s what I ask, what’s the homeowner going to do?”

Mr. Poparad, “I have to go back to what he said, a little bit of this, no disrespect at all, this is all smoke and mirrors. They are going to do this trending, they are going to raise the AV on your house, 2% and will just keep going up, this is smoke and mirrors, right?”

Com. Harper, “It may be but it is at least a start.”

Mr. Poparad, “Oh, I agree. We’re not really helping, this isn’t really going to stop anything because 2% of $100,000.00 house is going to be half as much as a $200,000.00 house and they are going to take twice as much money out of your pocket, and keep going on their merry way. That’s the reality of it. Make the trending and the AV, you talked about that in the beginning, as AV goes up the tax rate goes down, this is true but that’s all a gimmick because all I care about is how much money is coming out of my pocket so the tax rate goes down and if they are going to raise the levy, the amount of money they are going to keep, slowing climbing, until the 2% kicks in. It may never kick in.”

Com. Harper, “If that’s true, why is it going to be this big push to get this all repealed. Because I am telling you we are on the verge of huge push in the state of Indiana to get our legislatures to repeal this law. I hope everybody, if they do it, everybody understands who’s responsible because that is what is going on.”

Mr. Poparad, “It’s not like this 2% is a fact, I mean, they are trying to hand it to a few people in terms of the county, but it is just going to… it’s not going to stop the flow of money.”

Mr. Samuelson, “This is a very difficult topic.”

Mr. Poparad, “I mean, if the AV goes up, and you said it and like I said, I get so damn tired of hearing about what the tax rate is, I don’t care what the tax rate is, once the levy, (inaudible)…. Taking out of people’s pocket. Now we talked about that. Nobody talked about is the tax rates. We talked about all the money I am paying in property taxes and I am paying a hell of a lot in property taxes.”

Mr. Breitzke, “(inaudible)… the schools, the townships, cities and towns, the county, we have big proportional splits and how does that impact all these different government units. The taxes are for schools.”

Mr. Samuelson, “To answer your question, if you look at the next to last schedule where the estimate county wide is just over 6 million but the county unit itself shows a shortfall based on these estimates of 750,000, the balance at 5.3 comes from all the other taxing units within the county. But our experience tells us that most of the credit will be generated within the incorporated areas because that is where you have the most layers of overlapping units.”

Mr. Poparad, “Are they going to fund them, what kind of funding? ESU money?”

Mr. Samuelson, “The Circuit Breaker tax?”

Mr. Poparad, “Yeah.”

Mr. Samuelson, “There is no replacement money.”

Mr. Breitzke, “That’s off the table.”

Mr. Samuelson, “Yes, and I said early on, the existing funds or reduction in replacements.”

Mr. Breitzke, “(inaudible)

Mr. Samuelson, “Our purpose is to provide information and awareness. But I appreciate your comments, I am just trying to complete my editorial. The purpose of it is to make it a levy, make it a table, not necessarily figuring out other ways to get around it.”

Mr. Poparad, “Nothing we can do about it, they are going to keep raising the bar.”

Com. Harper, “At least it is a start.”

Mr. Poparad, “I agree, yeah.”

Com. Harper, “I wrote a letter to all the legislators asking them not to back down on this because every group in the world is going to be crying wolf and wanting them to back down and I had to say it to the Council to their good. You know, we have lived on a budget here, a tight budget, because of Bethlehem Steel, we’ve learned to live on a budget. And if some of these other people would learn to live on a budget, things wouldn’t be as out of control as they are.”

Mr. Breitzke, “But as for the same token, I would like to get back to the original one, I don’t have a problem with the Circuit Breaker as it is, but with the additional (inaudible)…. .or displaced worker. It used to be tax credits or in other states, it would be tax credits.”

Com. Harper, “I understand that, Kevin. But when you’ve got articles in the Post Tribune talking about homes in Miller that are worth like $300,000 and have a $10,000 tax on it, plus, that guy’s not going to be able to stay in that home either. You know, I agree with you. We’ve got to protect the lower end, but we’ve got to protect everybody because this thing is totally out of control. I think it’s out of control because of a lot of governments that haven’t watched their budget. And all this is doing is putting, it’s a Circuit Breaker, it’s putting some restraints on spending money and why everybody’s getting so upset about it. You know, this guy’s is even saying here with us, the trending is probably not even going to affect us in 2010. But everybody, I don’t know how we can take any more than of the 2% from a homeowner. Big home or little home, I don’t understand, there is just something, you know there is supposed to be something sacred about homeownership.”

Mr. Poparad, “Maybe don’t touch on the subject to through the whole system out.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Speaking of which, we should thank you for being here.”

Com. Harper, “Yes, and not only for coming, for the work you guys did on this, the time you spent with Gwenn and I.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “And the time you spent here.”

Com. Harper, “And the press may have questions for you. John, do you have a motion?”

Com. Evans moved to recess, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA

Robert P. Harper
John A. Evans
Carole M. Knoblock


Attest: Sandra K. Vuko, Auditor