ffPORTER COUNTY COUNCIL
March 19, 2002

The Porter County Council met on March 19, 2002 at 7:00 p.m. in the County Administration Center, 155 Indiana - Suite 205, Valparaiso, Indiana.

Members present were Karen Conover, Carole Knoblock, Karen Martin, John Ruge, President Barbara Stroud, and Leon West, who was not present at roll call. Also present was Attorney David Hollenbeck, Auditor Sandra Vuko, Jamie Dziabo and Jan Balcerak.

Ms. Stroud, We need to approve the minutes for February 12th and February 26th. All of you should have gotten copies. Are there any corrections for the February 12th minutes? Do I have a motion to approve?

Mrs. Knoblock moved to approve the minutes of February 12, 2002 as received. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Are there any additions or corrections for the February 26th minutes?

Mrs. Knoblock moved to approve the minutes of February 26, 2002 as received. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

FIRST READING

At this time Mrs. Vuko read the Notice to Taxpayers.

ATTORNEY'S REPORT
Ordinance 02-3-19

Ms. Stroud, Attorney's report.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Madam Chairperson, I apologize for what will probably be an inordinately long report tonight. There has been a number of critically important things that have occurred of late that we need to discuss. I've got these in order, not necessarily of importance, but of chronological significance.
The first thing on my list is the current status of the County's cash flow situation. The most recent cash flow report completed by Umbaugh on our behalf shows that the County's cash position will basically be zero following our payment of the April 8th payroll. So we are saying around April 9th or April 10th, the County will again be out of cash and unable to operate.
In that regard, the status of the bridge loan legislation that the General Assembly passed under Senate Bill 17 is that it has arrived on the Governor's desk. Under Indiana law he has seven days and three options. He can sign the bill. He can veto the bill. Or he can do nothing, in which case, after seven days it becomes law.
As you'll recall, the bill provides for all 11 units of local government in Porter County to access up to $28,000,000 to replace the shortfall experienced from the Bethlehem Steel bankruptcy. It also provides for a nominal interest rate if the local option income tax is not adopted. It also extends the date for the adoption of that tax this year from March 31st to May 15th. The failure of the General Assembly to take action on the tax restructuring and the financial problems of the State has certainly made the Governor's decision more problematic. But we firmly believe that the situation in Porter County is indeed unique and that the Governor will do the right thing.
The outcome in the fate of that funding is now in the Governor's hands and our local Northwest Indiana Delegation has encouraged anyone from Porter County who does have a concern about whether the schools will open in the fall and whether county government will stay open after April 10th, to contact the Governor's office and encourage him to see the distinctive nature of the problem we are experiencing in Porter County, and hopefully have him expeditiously sign the bill. The outcome of that, obviously we will have to wait and see.
As with any good strategy, we have a Plan B, which you authorized me at your last meeting to implement and that culminated today at 1:00, when we successfully sold $10,000,000 of tax anticipation warrants. As you'll recall, we sold $5,000,000 of tax anticipation warrants through the Indiana Bond Bank and received that cash in January. What this $10,000,000 will do is it will enable us to repay the $5,000,000 to the Indiana Bond Bank. In so doing, free ourselves from two specific constraints that we are currently experiencing. First the fact that the $5,000,000 must be repaid by June 30th; these tax warrants are not payable until December 31st. That buys us six more months of breathing room. Secondly, it relieves us of what we've come to call the lock box requirement, where the Indiana Bond Bank was requiring us to take the first $5,000,000 of tax receipts and set it aside and not use it for cash flow purposes but to protect their interest.
We are going to attempt to close on Monday on the tax warrant sale. We have to really express our appreciation--and I want to do that now--to the three local banks who stepped up and came to our aid, specifically First National Bank of Valparaiso, Centier Bank and Mercantile Bank of Indiana, who all are taking approximately one-third of that $10,000,000. I can't say enough for the cooperative effort and the willingness of our local institutions to step up. This would have been an extraordinarily difficult warrant to sell on the open market. The typical people who buy these things, unfortunately when they punch up Porter County or the Duneland School System on their computers it comes up red right now and they are not inclined to buy our debt. So we are very, very fortunate that the local banks have been willing to do this on our behalf. I want to publicly express, I know my appreciation for working with them over the last month and them coming to our aid with this offer.
The other $5,000,000 we will use as a line of credit on an as-needed basis as a backup. If the Governor signs the bailout bill tomorrow we made be hard pressed to have any money by April 10th the way the system works in Indianapolis. So we need this backup through the sale of these additional tax warrants. I would emphasize that the sale of these tax warrants does not take the place of the bailout bill. It simply provides us with another cash-flow device that enables us to keep the lights on for a period of time.
In order to consummate the bonds--the tax anticipation warrant sale--I had the commissioners this morning adopt the ordinance that the bond counsel requires be adopted. I have a similar ordinance for your consideration this evening. I'm going to need you to adopt this ordinance so that I can close on the tax warrant sale on Monday. It is identical to the ordinance that you have already reviewed and considered in the past in the context of the sale of the tax warrants through the Indiana Bond Bank.
I will answer any questions you may have, but I would ask that the Chair entertain not only a motion for its adoption tonight, but also a motion to suspend the rules and adopt it on second reading this evening so that we can close and secure this money on Monday. The ordinance would be Ordinance 02-3-19.

Ms. Stroud, We need a motion to approve this ordinance.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve Ordinance 02-3-19 as submitted on first reading. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Mrs. Conover moved to waive the time requirements for the second reading. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously

Mr. Carmichael moved to waive the rule delaying the second reading. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Mr. West moved to adopt Ordinance 02-3-19 as submitted on second reading. Ms. Martin seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I have four copies I will pass down. If you could sign those I will get those to the bond counsel tomorrow. Again, our goal is to close next Monday. We will get a payoff figure from the Bond Bank and pay them off, then access the additional $5,000,000 on an as-needed basis. Hopefully the bridge loan legislation will facilitate accessing cash and not having to use these tax anticipation warrants.
As you are also aware of, an intricate part of our cash flow strategy is to get the tax bills on the street as soon as possible so that the taxpayers who are inclined to do so can assist us in our cash flow problems by paying their tax bills upon receipt and get money back in here. In order to accomplish that, we really had to have a concerted effort.
I want to express my appreciation to the Auditor's office and to the Treasurer's office, as well as the Print Shop and the data processing people who have really put a very tight schedule together. I am pleased to indicate to you this evening that that schedule will result in the Auditor's office being done with its work on Friday. Thank you, Auditor. The Data Processing people and the Print Shop are literally going to print the bills over the weekend. They are going to be here on Saturday and Sunday printing the bills.
Also, again, the local bank, First National Bank, has indicated to us that next week we can have three days on their machine that folds and stuffs and puts the bills in the envelopes so they can go out, which is a real godsend compared to the machine we have to use, which inevitably breaks down and is about one-fifth the speed. We can take a five-day process and put it into a two-day process. So we are hopeful that the tax bills will be going out the door of this building a week from Monday on April 1st, which is a good three weeks before they normally go out.
I've also had discussions with the local banks that have escrow accounts for people with mortgages and they have also agreed to expedite their turnaround time as soon as they get the bills. I think they get the bills electronically--and I'm not a computer person--on disks or electronically and as soon as those bills are out, they will start processing, then they can send the money back expeditiously and not wait until the May 10th deadline.
Then finally, the Treasurer's office has a plan in place where they will expedite, literally the counting of this money as it comes in so that the Auditor's office can access that money virtually on a daily basis for cash flow purposes. The Treasurer's office is basically committed not to go home on any given day until all the money that has come in that day has in fact been counted and whatever they do with their books in terms of sending it on so that Sandy can access that money again on a cash flow basis, on an as-needed basis. Again, I appreciate the work of the Auditor's office, the Treasurer's office, Data Processing and Lee printing them, because that I think will go a long way in helping us with the cash flow problem.
Next is a status report on the Bethlehem bankruptcy proceedings. As you know, the joint agency that we formed has taken the lead in dealing with Bethlehem Steel and their bankruptcy. I received a call on Friday from our Ice Miller lawyers in Indianapolis, who are handling the bankruptcy on our behalf, indicating that the first major meeting at the New York bankruptcy court will be tomorrow morning at 11:00. That is the first major meeting of creditors where for the first time Bethlehem Steel will reveal at least a preliminary plan for the payment of the debt that they've deferred in the bankruptcy process.
Interesting as well, our bankruptcy lawyer tells me he has received a specific communication from the lawyers--Bethlehem Steel's bankruptcy lawyers--to the effect that they would like to meet with the units of local government who are owed tax money. We don't know what that means at this point other than obviously we are on their radar screen and we need to stay on their radar screen. So with that report, Steve Hewlett--from the Duneland School Corporation--and I talked about it on Friday and we decided we had to be there. So on Friday we authorized our bankruptcy attorneys, and we talked about whether it would be better or cheaper to have our Indianapolis attorneys hire someone in New York to go to that hearing. In talking it over, we decided that our Indianapolis bankruptcy lawyers said that they wouldn't have to stay overnight, that they could do this in a one-day, round trip. If they bought the ticket on Friday it would be a cheaper ticket than if they waited until yesterday or today to buy it, so we authorized our Indianapolis bankruptcy attorneys to go to New York on Wednesday on our behalf. Our behalf, meaning the 11 units of local government that are affected by this and to be at that first meeting of creditors on our behalf and also then attend this second meeting that's been called for by the Bethlehem bankruptcy lawyers after the meeting of creditors and find out what is up--so to speak--in terms of the desire to meet with us. Obviously I will keep each of you advised of that. But the bankruptcy process is going forward and hopefully we will be able to get at least a little bit of a picture of what we face here in terms of a plan to repay these delinquent taxes.
Chairman Stroud and Council Members Carmichael and Conover and I met with the Chamber of Commerce people and the League of Women Voters people who have stepped forward and offered their assistance with the process of evaluating our situation. Would you like to come up now, if you wouldn't mind.
I sent each of you a Porter County Government funding process committee sheet with a proposed mission statement. Basically what we have come up with is a process that will have an umbrella committee of approximately 14 people, not necessarily representing any specific constituency, but trying to kind of be a broad base of different kinds of interest in the community, both governmental, public sector, private sector, agricultural, citizens. That process umbrella group would oversee the mission of this process. Also working with the umbrella group--the process group--would be, and we've identified so far six working groups that were on the sheet, that would really, where the work of this process would occur, and those subcommittees or working groups would be as broad and open a membership as anyone who thought they had something constructive to contribute, would have an opportunity to work in their particular of interest, whether its cost reduction, whether its revenue enhancement, whether its, and this has been one of my pet peeves all along, that we have to make sure that we have an external component of this, that we don't look at ourselves without looking around us to see what's been done right and what's been done wrong in other communities and compare ourselves to those other communities.
We obviously have an important relationship that's now influx given what the General Assembly didn't do with state government. We talked about a working group in the area of how tax restructuring and reassessment is going to affect all this. Something that is near and dear to the chambers of course is how this will all relate to economic development such as, are my kids and your kids going to have jobs in Northwest Indiana in terms of what we are going through and how all this impacts on the ability to bring new industry and new people to the community.
Then another working group in the area of the quality of life, what does all this mean in terms of the 10% cuts we've already made in county government and what else we are going to have to do. As the sheet says, how do we define it and what are we prepared to pay for, in terms of the quality of life issue. Then finally education, which is such an important component of the tax rate and is in fact going through some changes themselves right now at the state level in terms of funding.
So this is what we've come up with. We are in the process. Barb asked that anyone who was interested in serving on any of these working groups to write a letter. I'm not usually the skeptic, but I was surprised. We got some real neat letters from some real neat people. I think more than a dozen of people have written in offering their time and their talents to the process. I think that's a real neat reflection on the county that we live in, in terms of people willing to come to the table and help us in this process.
What we've been doing the last couple of meetings is looking at those lists of people and combining it with some other names that we came up and trying to come to a consensus on this 14-member process committee. The thought is, the process committee will do just that. As the working groups get done with their respective assignments and put their reports together, again, where the real work will occur, then all of that will be assimilated by the process group into some organized structured report that can be brought back to the County Council on some of these issues that we face.
Barb or Karen or Bill, you can certainly comment on it, but I'm really excited about this opportunity. The League of Women Voters are offering in their usually competent role to facilitate the whole process and to get the assistance of the business community and academia is really an exciting opportunity for us. Not to be too Pollyannaish, but out of crisis a lot of times comes opportunity to really think about what we are doing and how we are doing it. I think we really need to grab this ring and take up this opportunity.
So this is the format that we've come up with, with the help of Barb and Bill and Karen. We've got a proposed mission statement that I think captures, although we certainly can modify it, but I think it captures what we are really about.

At this time, Mr. Hollenbeck read the Mission Statement.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I mailed you one of these. These folks are here to help us and I want to take them up on the opportunity to do that. They are here to answer any questions and I will answer any questions. I guess I hope to leave here this evening with the assignment of filling these slots and getting the process going.

Mrs. Conover, I guess I just wanted to add that it just seems neat to see all that we talked about on a piece of paper and in an orderly form. That was a very, very busy working bunch. Not to sound Pollyannaish either, but I thank you all so much. You see we were in trouble and you're here to help. We've got some big jobs ahead of us. Thank you so much for your assistance.

Ms. Stroud, I wanted to thank you also. We have quite a representation here from the Chamber and the League of Women Voters. I thought the meeting went quite well. I did turn over to the committee all the letters that were sent in. If there is anyone sitting here that did take the time to send a letter in and show interest saying that they would be willing to serve, this particular committee here in front is going to, I want to say selecting, but putting the people of these various committees.
We have a long task ahead of us. I don't foresee this going on for six months or a year, but it needs to be intensive. We need to get together. You need to get together with these various groups of people so that you can report back to us what your findings are so that we have a better perspective as through the eyes of all the people that are going to be involved in this. Does anybody have something to say?

Deb Butterfield, I would just like to thank the Council for your hard work and Dave certainly for all of his hours. And maybe clarify just a little bit that what we are trying to do is put together a process and a structure. We really view this as a very open and public process, one that we think, regardless of whether people have already sent us a letter, there will be plenty of opportunity to get involved in these six working groups. There will be public forums facilitated by the League of Women Voters, around the county, so that we can all try to come to some consensus about our quality of life and our government and how we can fund it.
So it's not really, I did want to clarify that it's not a chamber-driven process. We're just trying to get the process together, then let the process do its work and come to conclusions and make recommendations. We concur with Dave that we think this is a great opportunity to take something that is kind of at a crisis point right now and turn it into something that can have long-term benefits.
I also wanted to introduce John Leander as the new chamber executive from the Portage Chamber. He just started on April 1st and I don't think he's had a chance to get out.

John Leander, It's not April yet.

Ms. Butterfield, Well it seems like we are in April. Alright it was March 1st, but you will be seeing him around. I know his Chamber sent a letter to the Governor, as did ours, I'm sure Laurie's did as well, urging that they pass Senate Bill 17 so we can get on about the business of looking at the long term solutions. Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Does anyone else have something?

Mr. Carmichael, I think we're in pretty good hands seeing some of the names and faces that are involved in this whole process. I am encouraged by the fact that you are willing to spend the time and put some good people together and come up with a recommendation, whatever it may be. Certainly it will be one that is well thought out, well planned, well investigated and we will know the true facts by the time the final report is finished. Hopefully in another month. Do you have a final report coming up in a month?

Ms. Butterfield, Well I already think it's April, so. It was probably done last week, Bill.

Mr. Carmichael, Alright now. No, it's going to be a long, slow process and we have to come up with hopefully a perfect solution.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And I would reiterate with what Deb said. There is plenty of work to do here in the working groups. I think it's fair to say that we don't have enough people yet to do that work, so we're still looking for anybody who is inclined to want to participate in the process. We are more than willing to take them aboard and assign them a task.
I don't know if there is any specific action you have to take, unless there are some other questions that we need to answer. Otherwise, unless I hear otherwise I'll assume we're on the right track. We will keep going with the process and I will keep each of you informed. I would assume the next step will be to finalize the identifying of the 14 people in the process committee, then we will try to get them together and they can hopefully give us an idea of time frames and size of working groups, that kind of stuff. Again, I'm sure we will be calling on you folks individually for some part of that process in the working group level.

Mr. Carmichael, Do we have a cutoff date for requests?

Ms. Stroud, We didn't make one.

Mr. Carmichael, There should be some sort of cutoff date so we can move on from that point.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Well Barb kind of already gave them one cutoff date and I guess I'm soliciting more names. So I guess my timeframe is, I would like within a week to have the 14 names finalized and the process group scheduled for their first meeting. There is some urgency for people to contact us. I think Barb should still be the conduit through which those names pass.

Ms. Stroud, Right, send them to our office.

Mr. Hollenbeck, You can send them to Barb, care of the County Council office and we'll put you to work.

Ms. Martin, I have one question. How many names have been submitted so far?

Mr. Hollenbeck, We probably had 14 or 15 letters, then we've thrown around probably an equal number of names, so I think we're probably close to 30 people.

Ms. Martin, And how many are you proposing on the committees?

Mr. Hollenbeck, That to me, our job is going to be to put the process committee together. Then once we get the process committee met we'll figure it out these are our thoughts on six working groups. There may be eight working groups. So there may be subgroups of the working groups and I don't contemplate any of those having a specific limited number. I think it's in the working group process where the real cutting edge thought is going to go on. I want those groups to be as open and as big and as working as we can get. That in my mind, Karen, means as many people who show interest in it.

Ms. Martin, I guess what concerns me, we are talking about deadlines. We just had one deadline and you're saying that that is not enough people. So we are going to extend the deadline because we don't know exactly how many people we need. We don't know if we've got enough or whether we don't have enough because we have no idea. We've got six committees approximately set up, but we don't know how many we need on each committee. I understand we will have individuals coming from the outside to work on these committees, so I guess at what point do we have enough people to set up the 14 and to start working with the other committees?

Mr. Hollenbeck, I guess my thought is within a week we will have the 14 people identified and a first meeting set up. You have my commitment and I think the Chambers and the League of Women Voters to work with those 14 people and start setting some of those parameters.

Ms. Butterfield, I think this is probably the first that maybe we've talked in any detail about some of these working groups. I know one of the questions that we get from people who have expressed an interest is, when are you going to meet? In the essence of being able to answer that question, people are not going that next step and making a commitment. I think once the structure is in place, the meetings are set and the locations are identified, I'm optimistic that we will get a lot of participation.

Mr. Hollenbeck, The builders are being heard from.

Chuck Mosley, I'm with the Porter County Builders Association. Under the initial committee--the steering committee--if tonight you decide that you want to have a specific cutoff date, it might be helpful if you announce what that date would be. If you say a week from today that's the date we are going to use. That's great, we don't have a problem with that as the Association, but it would be helpful if we had that date.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Then I guess I would recommend a week from today.

Ms. Stroud, We will say March 26th. That's a week from today.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Now that's not to say that two weeks from now we may decide we need more people in the external analysis working group and go out and try to get some people. In terms of the deadline, a week from today, I think that's reasonable.

Mr. Mosley, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Does anyone else have any comments or questions? Karen.

Mrs. Conover, I just wanted to ask if we could write a letter to the three local banks from us as a council and thank them for the package they have offered us through our financial situation. The banks that Dave has worked closely with.

Ms. Stroud, You can direct Jan. I'll do it.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I think that would be a nice thing to do. Thank you. Shirley, you are the next thing on my list of reports. Would you like to come up?

Ms. Martin, Before we go into that, I had a question on your other report. With reference to the bankruptcy and the attorneys who worked on our behalf, has any money been appropriated or set aside for them? Do we have any idea of what this cost is going to be and what is the County going to do to cover the cost?

Mr. Hollenbeck, Yes, the interlocal agreement provides that we will share the cost based on the proportional loss, which means the Duneland School Corporation is paying almost 70% of the bill. We are paying about 20% of the bill and the rest of its being paid by the other units of local government that are participating. We don't have a bill from them yet, so we don't know.

Ms. Martin, Have we appropriated any money is my question? Is there money set aside for that?

Mr. Hollenbeck, No.

Ms. Martin, Okay, so we're already in the hole. We've got attorneys working on our behalf. We have a signed contract but we have no funding for the contract. It looks to me like we've got some problems.
Mr. Hollenbeck, You're absolutely right. We have problems. But the option, Karen, was to sit on our hands and do nothing.

Ms. Martin, I understand that, but I think the financial aspect needs to be addressed.

Mr. Hollenbeck, You're right. As soon as we get a bill from them we'll have to see where we are and how we are going to pay them.

Ms. Martin, We have no idea what it's going to cost us in the long run?

Mr. Hollenbeck, No, they have given us an hourly rate and we've agreed to that. They couldn't predict either. We didn't know. They've done virtually nothing for us up to this point, but now we are kicking into gear and yes, they are going to New York tomorrow for us.

Mr. Carmichael, They are only spending money with our permission.

Ms. Martin, It's not that I don't trust lawyers, I just have a problem with having an open contract and not having any idea what its going to cost us and where we are going to get the funding.

Mr. Carmichael, They request to do certain things and we can deny those requests, such as this meeting that's coming up in New York. They were authorized to attend that meeting.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Right.

Ms. Martin, I know, but Bill, you do not have additional expenditures without knowing how you are going to cover them. You just don't do that.

Mr. Carmichael, Well you can appropriate $1,000,000 and how would you know…

Ms. Martin, I don't know if you can appropriate it, but we don't have it in the county.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And I'm certainly sympathetic with Karen's comment. I guess my thought is, I think we all agreed, we've got to have representation in this bankruptcy. We've got to give them blood to pay for it. We can't sit here on our hands and let Bethlehem Steel put a plan together that says they are going to pay these taxes back $1.00 a year for the next five years, then everything in the sixth year. That can't happen.

Ms. Martin, I understand that, but in the total equation we should have something somewhere. I mean, we already know that we are in the hole. We already know there might be additional cuts and we already know that we've got some financial problems--major financial problems--so how do we expect to come up with this money. We haven't even planned for it. I mean, we don't, it's like, go ahead, let's spend the money but we don't have it. I just don't see this concept working. I mean, this is why we're in the position we're in because we're not looking forward to what we have to cover.

Ms. Stroud, All the units are in the same predicament. I mean, where are any of the taxing units going to get the money from that have been hard hit. The school corporation is the same way. If you want to get into the spoils you have to be in on the lawsuit. I agree with Karen as far as where are we going to get the money. The only thing I can say is, hopefully if we get the bailout we can cover the cost. I don't see bills coming from them tomorrow. It is a down-the-road thing.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And they are well aware of our financial problem. When they came to the interlocal we made it perfectly clear to them that they know they are dealing with people who have got serious financial problems.

Mr. Carmichael, That's right.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And this law firm has worked with this county for 30 years on things. I guess I'm not concerned about that. We will find a way to get those bills paid.

Mrs. Conover, Let's just get the money in so we can pay them.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Right.

Ms. Stroud, I think we're all concerned about, but I didn't think that we had a choice at the time that we had to go in on the lawsuit. I think that's how all the other taxing units feel also. Our proportion is what we gave, as far as the tax dollar coming from it. The school corporation and the other units of government such as Burns Harbor is going to have part of that lawsuit, so they are all going to have monies to pay.

Mr. Carmichael, It's very simple, we have to play the hand we've been dealt.

Ms. Stroud, Right. None of us like it, but we have to do it.

Mr. Carmichael, And however it turns out--win, lose or draw--it has to be done.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, Dave, do you have anything else?

Plexis Contract

Mr. Hollenbeck, The next thing on my list, I've sent you copies of a letter I received from the county attorney and a memo on the problem we have with the contract for the assessing. I forgot the name of the company.

Ms. Stroud, Plexis.

Mr. Hollenbeck, The Plexis contract. I was at the county commissioners' meeting this morning to get them to sign the ordinance on the bond issue and they had Shirley and I sitting up there, basically saying to us that they perceive this problem to be a county council problem and that they need some direction or indication from the County Council as to--back to Karen Martin's concern--how are we going to pay for this. Shirley, what don't you refresh everybody's recollection quickly as to what the problem is.

Shirley LaFever, I went before the county commissioners in December 2001 and gave them the contract, which had been reviewed for Plexis software. It's a three-year contract with six payments to start in 2002 and ending in 2003. At that time the commissioners signed the contract based on council funding. I came before the Council in December and I also told you about the contract that it had been approved by the county commissioners based on funding and how I was going to fund it. Mr. Carmichael--and I have the minutes before me--said he thought it looked like between the two accounts we have about $1,000,000. That was between the 108 and 08 fund.
At that time you had not heard reassessment budgets, so in January the township assessors and myself came back with the county auditor for our reassessment budgets. After the budget hearings in January we were told the only thing that was left, I think it was $1,300. So Plexis is now ready to install our software. I spoke to Gwenn several weeks ago and asked her, I am a little concerned that we have money to pay for 2002, but this is a three-year contract. So if we only have $1,300 left, how is Plexis going to get paid for 2003 and 2004? At that time, she realized there was a problem and I think that's when she contacted Dave and I was told to be here tonight.

Ms. Stroud, So all the reassessment money has basically been used? Is that what you are saying?

Mr. Carmichael, Its been appropriated.

Mrs. LaFever, Its been appropriated and this is a three-year contract for my software, 2002 for software and my annual support fee is included in 2002. Then 2003 would also just be for the software and 2004 and 2005, but we also have an ongoing support until the next reassessment for the annual support fee like we do for Manatron and that runs 47-600 a year. But right now, I think the commissioners are concerned with the contract that they signed. There's money to pay for 2002 and that's already been appropriated, but the problem is for 2003 and 2004. I can only come before the Council to do a yearly budget, so I can only ask for one year. I guess Dave can jump right in there. Jump right in, Dave. Help me out.

Ms. Martin, So we've taken care of it for this year.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Now I need Karen's speech.

Ms. Martin, I'm not going through that again, Dave.

Com. John Evans, Shirley, you forgot the $3,400 a year for the telephones.

Mrs. LaFever, I haven't gotten there yet.

Ms. Stroud, She's getting there.

Mrs. LaFever, I just haven't got there yet, John. Let me do one step at a time.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And I'm not trying to pass the buck, but I would like Councilperson Carmichael--since you work with the assessors--to maybe start the discussion as to what your thoughts are in this whole thing.

Ms. Martin, What did you do, Bill? You're the liaison, what did you do?

Mr. Carmichael, Spent a lot of money without having anything appropriated. It was absolutely necessary for reassessment that that contract be allowed.

Mrs. LaFever, Like I said this morning, this is not Shirley's wishes, this is a state mandate that we have to purchase new software to do reassessment. We cannot do reassessment without this software.

Mr. Carmichael, Do you have enough money this year--2002--to pay the amount?

Mrs. LaFever, The Plexis contract for 2002, yes, it was appropriated.

Mr. Carmichael, And you are talking about 2003.

Mrs. LaFever, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, Why are we considering 2003 at this time?

Mrs. LaFever, I don't know.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Bill, principally because…

Mrs. LaFever, They told me to come before the County Council.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Because the commissioners have come to…

Mr. Carmichael, We don't normally appropriate money three years in advance.

Mr. Hollenbeck, No, and we can't and I told the commissioners that this morning.

Mrs. LaFever, I don't know if they know that.

Mr. Hollenbeck, What they are looking for though is some kind of commitment out of this body that you will in fact in subsequent years, out of reassessment, appropriate the necessary monies to pay this contract.

Mr. Carmichael, Out of the amount of money that's collected for reassessment funds for the year 2003. Are we able to appropriate out of that particular dollar amount?

Mrs. LaFever, I do not know that, because I've never got an answer and I've asked several people in the past, how much money is collected for the reassessment fund. The money being collected now, I believe, its supposed to go for the next reassessment, which is supposed to be starting in 2003, which we won't be finished in 2003.

Mr. Carmichael, Who knows, Shirley. The way the state legislature acts, things are so much up in the air that you have no idea what is going to come down.

Mrs. LaFever, And I don't know how much will be collected and I don't know how much goes into the fund.

Mr. Carmichael, We can find out real quick how much has been collected. Dale, how much has been collected?

Mrs. LaFever, Dale's not the responsible person.

Mr. Carmichael, I know. What's the rate that's been set on it? Does anybody know the rate that's been set on reassessment and how many dollars it will generate in 2003? Try 2002.

Mrs. Vuko, Shirley, let me see those. I gave her a printout on all that today.

Mrs. LaFever, I got a printout, but I'm not a county auditor so I have no idea.

Mr. Carmichael, Hand it to Sandy and let her look at it. Maybe she can refresh your memory.

Mrs. LaFever, I shouldn't say this, but I am going to say this. There was…

Ms. Martin, Shirley, that should be the red flag.

Mrs. LaFever, I know that.

Ms. Stroud, Wait a minute, Shirley. Think about it.

Mrs. LaFever, I'm just going to say one thing again for the record. There was plenty of money here before we purchased the GIS system. The money was spent out of my reassessment fund for the GIS. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Mr. Carmichael, How many times have you told me that?

Mrs. LaFever, I've told you that probably once a day.

Mr. Carmichael, I wasn't here when they appropriated the money for the GIS.

Mrs. LaFever, And neither was I. I was not the county assessor at that time, but I was a township assessor and I knew there would be problems.

Mr. Carmichael, Look, I have the same answer for you. The GIS is going to be a useful tool for your office. You'll get some use out of it.

Ms. Martin, How are you going to fund that too, Bill?

Mr. Carmichael, You've got one township already done.

Mrs. LaFever, One township out of 12.

Mr. Carmichael, You've got 11 to go.

Mrs. LaFever, There's no money there.

Mr. Carmichael, We have nothing but time. Your good looks will hold for a long time, Shirley.

Mrs. LaFever, But also, Mr. Hollenbeck said back in December, in which I know this is the law and I know Dave does too, and I understand, I don't know where we are going to get the money for 2003 unless we have someone leave us a lot of money. There's not enough money to pay for reassessment.

Mr. Carmichael, We have two options. We can either come into the money and have it appropriated at that time or we can call the company and tell them to come get their gear and take it back.

Mrs. LaFever, Then what do we do in the meantime, Bill? Those assessors cannot do reassessment without the software.

Mr. Carmichael, They have to have it. You have to get it this year.

Mrs. LaFever, We have to have the software or we cannot do reassessment.

Mr. Carmichael, Right, I understand that.

Mrs. LaFever, We don't do the reassessment, you do not get any new assessed valuation for the county.

Mr. Carmichael, We can't give you a promise for 2003 at this point. There's no sense in…

Ms. Martin, I think what she is wanting is an assurance from us stating that the first funds that will be appropriated will be to cover these costs and not to be put out in other areas or appropriated for other things until this cost is covered. This is the basis of what the assessors need.

Mr. Hollenbeck, That's pretty much what I told the commissioners this morning. That's about the most you can give them and that's a commitment that this will be the first in line, and that in fact, you will pay this bill.

Ms. Martin, But, from someone who's been there, keep in mind that the members on this Board change and sometimes the memories change also. So it will be the responsibility…

Mr. Hollenbeck, Shirley's pretty good at getting copies of your minutes. I learned that.

Mrs. LaFever, I have got them. Yes, I did.

Ms. Stroud, We have copies of them also, big stacks of them.

Mr. Carmichael, Do you want a vote out of us to assure?

Mrs. LaFever, No, I was told to come here by our county attorney and also Mr. Hollenbeck.

Ms. Martin, We can't vote on it.

Ms. Stroud, We can't.

Mrs. LaFever, I'm only doing what I was told.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Dave, why don't you, it was principally, and I don't want to pick on anybody, but it was principally Com. Burrus who said to me that they needed something from the Council.

Mrs. LaFever, Dave, you said you would help me out tonight. Where are you, come on.

Com. Dave Burrus, The concern the commissioners have is, we are asked to address a contract on behalf of Porter County that we do not have good faith in because of the funding problem. Now we don't want to have anything executed because we are responsible for it unless money is secured for it. I understand that we have done these lease purchase agreements in the past and we have always had the sufficient funding to carry through, but we are in different circumstances right now. What we are asking for is some kind of written commitment that the assessor's office through some fund or another will be given priority status in funding this contract for the next few years.

Mr. Carmichael moved that the Council allow the commitment for the lease purchase agreement to be the first item on the agenda with the highest priority for reassessment funds. Mrs. Conover seconded.

Mrs. Conover, I need to ask this. Is this company not doing a lot of business with government? I mean, this is not unique to Porter County. This is with everybody, we can't…

Mrs. LaFever, The company is not even aware of this.

Ms. Martin, It wasn't the company.

Ms. Stroud, It's not the company, it's the commissioners.

Mrs. LaFever, And I'm hoping the company does not find out about this, otherwise they won't even want to bring my software in period.
Com. Burrus, Karen, the company is not concerned.

Mrs. LaFever, Correct.

Com. Burrus, It's our concern that we are executing a contract without sufficient money.

Com. Evans, We need to operate in good faith and you can't operate in good faith if you don't have the money.

Ms. Stroud, But we can't appropriate, we can't do the funding for three years ahead. We can give you our word that we will do the funding, but we can't appropriate it three years ahead.

Mrs. LaFever, And I understand that.

Mr. Carmichael, Sandy has something to say.

Mr. Hollenbeck, The Auditor has something.

Mrs. Vuko, There is no money in there. There won't be any money in that account. All that money goes into 2006, so there's nothing to appropriate out of that fund.

Com. Evans, When we entered into the contract we were told the money was there. That's what I mean, we can't operate in good faith if the money is not there.

Mrs. Vuko, Well its not there.

Ms. Martin, Who told you it was there?

Com. Evans, The Council told the assessor and the assessor relayed that to us.

Mrs. LaFever, At that time in December…

Com. Evans, You told…

Mrs. Vuko, At that time there probably was.

Mrs. LaFever, At that time there was money.

Ms. Martin, There was money in December.

Mrs. LaFever, Because you did act upon it. You thought there was $1,000,000 in there, but you had not heard all the reassessment budgets yet, until January 2002, and that brought that total down.

Ms. Stroud, That's what happened. When she brought it before us the money was in the fund. The money was there.

Mrs. LaFever, But I think we can probably be realistic. We haven't even started reassessment yet to go on the books. I think we, and I don't know, Dave will have to find this out, I believe that you probably could write and ask, the money that's being collected for the next reassessment, we might have to use it, and it's already been told to us that you can ask for next money to be used for this project going, because reassessment has been extended for so long and its cost more money this time. So I think the money that's collected for this year probably can go into the 2006 reassessment fund, but I believe you can write and ask if you can use it to finish your reassessment.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I don't know the answer to that, but that's the logical way to go here to find this money.

Mrs. LaFever, I'm not worried. I know the money will come up somewhere, but I was concerned from the very beginning. We're getting low on money so how am I going to put in for the next three years.

Mr. Carmichael, There's a motion and a second on the table.

Ms. Stroud, Would you please read the motion.

Ms. Balcerak, That the Council allow the commitment for the lease purchase agreement to be the first item on the agenda with the highest priority for reassessment funds.

Ms. Stroud, Any other discussion? All in favor.

Motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, that has to be a priority. I just want to say a couple of things. When we passed for you to do that the money was there. They had not come in for their reassessment funds. So after we had the reassessment hearing, then obviously that money has been depleted. I know the state has dragged its feet, because originally all this was supposed to be done March 1st of this year. Am I correct? And they changed it to next year to get everything in and done. They've been late with the software and there's been all kinds of problem. It was supposed to be done last year and they moved it to this year, now its next year. So it's been one problem after another with the reassessment and getting it done for the state. That is the only thing we can do at this time. Obviously you heard the financial report, we do not have the money to put in that fund.

Mrs. LaFever, I understand that.

Ms. Stroud, I'm just saying, as soon as the money becomes available that's the only thing we can say to the commissioners, that we will probably have to take it on a yearly basis, year-to-year, because that's how we do the budgets. So it has not been appropriated. Yes, Mr. Burrus.

Com. Burrus, You're description there, Barb, is exactly what cause us concern. Apparently, originally, the money was there and it disappeared.

Ms. Stroud, Once they got their reassessment budgets in after the first of the year that's what happened.

Ms. Martin, I think the difference is they don't understand the reassessment process. It's not like the general fund process. They have a certain amount of money they have to use to do the reassessment, within that reassessment. But this contract is going from one reassessment into another reassessment.

Ms. Stroud, Into another, and that's the problem.

Mr. Hollenbeck, That's why its relevant, Shirley's comment about whether we can take this out of the 2006 pot. I'm going to find that out, I don't know the answer to that.

ASSESSOR REASSESSMENT 108.09

Transfer

$1,000 from account 3610 Maintenance Agreements into account 3220 Telephone

Mrs. LaFever, Okay. Our phones now, as John Evans referred to, I did not get to that. Since we're going to Plexis we all have to be hooked into one server, which is coming into the county. So we have five townships--satellite township offices--that we are going to have to install some phone lines at a cost of $703.60, then a monthly fee at a cost of $3,548.88. Data Processing, when we originally did the contract, was not aware that we were going to have to have these extra phone lines put in. We will be online at all times into our server in our county office.
I went before the commissioners this morning to ask them to fund $3,458.88. They told me to come here tonight. The township assessors do not have funds in their budget, as you are all aware of. They have cut and cut and cut their budgets down to the bare minimum. When it's off reassessment year, the township assessors do not have a reassessment budget. The only ones who have a reassessment budget on the off years is the county auditor and myself. The county commissioners said they had to cut their own phone line budget so they didn't have any money to help us out.
I think I can swing this out of my reassessment budget by looking at it today. I could probably move some funds around. I'll have to come back before you to move some funds around, but I guess I'm going to, but its going to cost $703 for the installation for the five townships to get hooked up, then a yearly cost from Net Nitco at $3,458.88. Since the commissioners can't pay for it and since the township assessors do not have reassessment budgets every year, then its going to have to come out of my reassessment budget. So I will be coming back before you probably next month to ask you if it's okay to move some money around in my reassessment budget so we can get these phone lines installed for our Plexis software.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you for looking into that and seeing if you can help us out at this time. If you could find the money there we would greatly appreciate it at the present time.

Mrs. LaFever, But in the meantime I will have to have those phone lines installed. I have the money there, I'm just going to move it around so I'll be back before you next month to move the money if that's okay.

Ms. Stroud, So right now you're going to pick up the cost out of your reassessment?

Mrs. LaFever, I'll have to. We have to have it done.

Ms. Martin, Is there a reason? Do you have an idea of what funds you are going to be moving around?

Mrs. LaFever, I will probably take it out of my maintenance support because right now I'm paying Plexis and Manatron both. I know since we're going to go ahead, even though we don't know what downstate is going to do, we cannot wait for a special session, we have to go ahead and go to Plexis, so I put money in my reassessment to probably pay Manatron for 12 months, but we'll be getting rid of Manatron sooner because we are going to go to Plexis. So I'll have some money that I can move down to pay for this.

Ms. Martin, Is there a problem if we do it tonight? I have a problem with doing things and then appropriating the money.

Mrs. LaFever, I have no problem with that.

Ms. Martin, Its a transfer and it doesn't have to be advertised. So if you know the amounts, I would prefer that we do it now. That's just my personal opinion. Then we know its allocated.

Mrs. LaFever, Probably right now what I need to move is $703.60 so when I get the bill. You know I'm not going to get the bill from the telephone company for probably another 60 days.

Mrs. Knoblock, Shirley, I'm not a computer person but, you can't do the reassessment without these telephones?

Mrs. LaFever, Right now we have five township assessors and they bring tapes into the county and we download them on our server. With the Plexis, we're going to be coming in through the Net Nitco, online, so we'll be seeing everyday what work's been done out in the township and everything will be rolled into the county.

Ms. Martin, It would be more updated.

Mrs. Knoblock, I know it is, but we don't have the money.

Ms. Martin, This is reassessment though, Carole. It's not the general fund.

Mrs. Knoblock, I know, but.

Mrs. LaFever, This is the only way Plexis will work. It will not work off the tape. We've had problems with the tapes before from the townships. Instead of installing it in our server we will be running the server from Portage without buying a new server and it will come automatic through the phone lines into the county. The Plexis software will not work like we had with Manatron. That's why we need to do this.

Ms. Martin, If we don't do this, then all the money that we spent on Plexis was for naught, because you can't utilize the system.

Mrs. LaFever, I do not know my line item numbers, Karen. But let me put $1,000 just in case there's some extra costs for the phone company. This is an estimate they gave to Sharon Lippens, but you know yourself once you get in there, there might be problems with the telephone company.
Ms. Martin, Which one would you be taking it out of, support?

Mrs. LaFever, Support down to, what line would I be paying the telephone company out of?

Ms. Balcerak, I think its 3220.

Ms. Martin, Is there anybody in the audience available to look it up and find the exact numbers?

Mrs. Vuko, I think Dale might know the number.

Ms. Martin, Is that okay with you? I just hate to have this work approved, if you know that's where you are going to have it done.

Mrs. LaFever, That's great with me. That's fine. If I don't have to come back before you next month that's great.

Ms. Martin, You don't want to spend quality time with us.

Ms. Stroud, You don't want to come back here with us.

Mrs. LaFever, I need to move it out of Maintenance Support to 3220.

Mr. Stroud, Did you say $1,000?

Mrs. LaFever, Sharon gave me $703.50. That's what the telephone company gave her, but this is between Verizon and Net Nitco. I would like to ask for $1,000 in case something comes up and we have to have something else done.

Ms. Martin, You're transferring out, so if there's extra you can just transfer it back.

Mrs. LaFever, Correct.

Mrs. Vuko, Shirley, is that your maintenance agreement line item that you were talking about?

Mrs. LaFever, Correct. What line item is that?

Mrs. Vuko, Line 3610.

Mrs. LaFever, From 3610 to 3220.

Ms. Martin, The other $3,500, where are you coming up with that?

Mrs. LaFever, That's going to be a yearly cost, a monthly fee, $47.38 for Verizon, $49.36 for a multi-fee for Net Nitco, but we don't need that until we are up and running.

Ms. Martin, Okay, so you only need $1,000.

Ms. Martin moved to grant the request for transfer of funds, $1,000 from 3610 Maintenance Agreements to 3220 Telephone for Assessor Reassessment. Mr. Carmichael seconded, motion carried unanimously.

ATTORNEY'S REPORT - RESUMED

Mr. Hollenbeck, I have one more item. As you know since last we met, a second steel manufacturer in Northwest Indiana has chosen Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Midwest Division of the National Steel Corporation has gone the route of Bethlehem Steel. That has an additional impact. Unfortunately we've been through this drill now once already.
The total deferred property tax payments for the entire county is approximately 5.5 million. You can compare that to the $20,000,000 from Bethlehem Steel to show the relative impact. The impact on Porter County is $878,000, then it goes up. The Portage Township schools, I believe, are hit the hardest this time by the National Steel bankruptcy with the City of Portage a close second, in terms of dollars.
A couple of issues that are different in the National Steel bankruptcy though are that they have an appeal that's been settled. We settled with them on some of their back taxes based on their theory of abnormal obsolescence. They have been receiving, I believe, Shirley, the last two years, they have been receiving credits off of what they owe us as part of the settlement. So in that sense it won't impact, the impact won't be a total of $878,000 coming in because we would not have gotten that anyway because we have been giving them credits.
The interesting question from a legal perspective though is that they've in that sense, we are a creditor of theirs in Chapter 11. I don't have the legal for this yet. I've got to talk to our bankruptcy lawyers, but it may well be that National Steel, that's an asset of National Steel that needs to go to the creditors of National Steel versus us given them a credit off their taxes. So I've got to get that clarified from the bankruptcy lawyers as to how exactly we stand in our relationship with National Steel.
But it is another insult to injury here in terms of our financial situation to the tune of approximately $878,000 for the county and 5.5 million for everybody, payable this year. It's the same drill, it's Chapter 11, which means they are deferring the taxes this year and they will in fact then have to start paying in May 2003 in whatever form they come out. Now they are probably going to come out of it pretty similar to where they are now because they've already had, their appeals have already been adjudicated, so there probably isn't a lot of downside left for them, as opposed to Bethlehem Steel where 60% of their assessed valuation is under appeal and we don't know what will come of that. I am done, literally and not figuratively.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, does anyone have any questions they want to ask our attorney before we go on?

SUPERIOR COURT 3 - KENNEDY 01.37

Transfer

$100 from account 3630 Equipment other than Vehicles into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100
$100 from account 3110 Legal/Pauper into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100
$50 from account 1310 Legal Services into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100
$178 from account 2110 Office Supplies into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100
$100 from account 1330 Psychiatric Services into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100
$500 from account 3130 Training & Education into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100

Judge Robert Kennedy, Given Mr. Hollenbeck's numbers, mine are somewhat diminutive, if not small, but they do deal with the realities of running an office in Porter County now days. The fact of the matter is our fax machine quit and we need to replace it. We have investigated the cost of repairing our current machine, as well as three options of buying a new machine. You've all been provided copies of the estimate on the repair, which is $450 to $500. The three options on purchasing a machine range from approximately $280 to $500 to a $878 machine, which with maintenance it would cost us a little over $1,000. We've submitted those estimates to you along with our transfer request to transfer the funds since given the reductions of our budget we don't have enough money to buy the machine from any one account. With that, we have submitted to the County the requests for your instructions on which machine you want us to buy and therefore how you want us to finance it.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, we do have all the information in front of us. So what we have to do is go through and transfer from the various funds so you will be able to do this.

Judge Kennedy, Correct.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by Superior Court 3. Ms. Martin seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, You have the money there so you can get your machine.

Judge Kennedy, Thank you very much.

Ms. Stroud, You're quite welcome.

Judge Kennedy, Do you have any instructions on which one you want us to get?

Ms. Martin, The least cost.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, the least cost, but the best one that you can get for your money. We know that you will investigate that.

Judge Kennedy, Thank you very much.

Ms. Stroud, You're quite welcome.

PRINT SHOP 01.86

Transfer

$11,500 from account 1110 Salaries into account 1120 Hourly

Ms. Stroud, Lee, you are losing your full-time person, which we just retained during the budget hearings.

Lee Childress, Right, you approved the retention of a full-time person. However, a few weeks ago my assistant gave me notice that at the end of the month he will be leaving to work for the Sheriff's Department. At that time I went to the commissioners and explained that it would be time to hire again. Their concern is the budget and they think that by going to part-time we can help the bottom line.

Ms. Stroud, I think the discussion during the budget hearings, part of the discussion was, how much work you have picked up down there that the County has put on you so that we can save some money in-house. Am I correct?

Mr. Childress, Correct.

Ms. Stroud, And your workload has increased down there?

Mr. Childress, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, So now you are saying you want to go to hourly because the person you had full-time got a job with the Sheriff's Department making more money?

Mr. Childress, Correct.

Ms. Stroud, Are there any questions or statements?

Mrs. Conover, I just wanted to refer to the minutes of our meeting when we were reducing the budgets and we allowed Mr. Childress to keep a full-time position in that department. To refer back to what the county attorney was saying: This department we have asked to print out our tax bills.
I think this is a situation where we have to spend some money to save a lot of money. I'd like to see that position remain full-time. He's got to train someone. He's already agreed to be in over the weekend to print our tax bills. We took printing out of everyone's budget during our last budget process because the Print Shop was going to do it. If we are going to pile a workload onto a department we have to make sure they have adequate help there to get the work done.

Ms. Martin, I have one question. I guess my concern is this, since this falls under the jurisdiction of the commissioners it's their decision because it is their department as to how they want to handle it. So it concerns me that this is the second time this issue has been brought before us with the same situation. So what is going on?

Com. Evans, He's presenting our will right now.

Ms. Stroud, Why wasn't that presented at the, I mean…

Com. Evans, It should have been.

Mr. West, In the minutes he said that it didn't pay to train a part-time employee. That's why Bill and I fought for the full-time position the last time.

Com. Evans, That was not our directive.

Mr. West, Because he said every time you train a part-time employee they walked away from them.

Ms. Martin, My concern is this. I'm looking at this. I don't have a 144 looking at an hourly rate for a part-time person. Did you come up with an amount for that?

Com. Burrus, The original proposal was $9 an hour.

Mr. Carmichael, I don't think anything has changed since the last time we went through this and discussed the situation.

Mr. Carmichael moved to deny the request for transfer of funds as submitted by the Print Shop. Mr. West seconded.

Ms. Stroud, The motion has been made and seconded. John.

Mr. Ruge, Is there still work? This one full-time person that's going to the Sheriff's Department, now is there still, couldn't that just be elimination without or is there work needed?

Mr. Childress, There is enough work; we would have to have another employee.

Mr. Ruge, You would have to have an hourly worker to take care of that work?

Mr. Childress, There's too much work for one person.

Ms. Martin, I guess I would request that the commissioners present, it is my feeling that this is your department. I guess I'm concern here, so could you give me more information as to why this is happening here?

Com. Burrus, As a result of the 10% budget cut proposal, we had discussions with the Print Shop and it was determined at that time that a part-time employee would be sufficient to bolster the workload that he anticipated. During the budget hearings of those cuts, I personally was not able to attend until later in the evening, and I think there was a comment made by Dave Hollenbeck, something to the effect that since they were going to be printing the tax bills that there might be an increased need, but I see that as only happening twice a year on weekends.
So it is the opinion of the commissioners that this is the proper way to go right now. We want to make a transfer to try part-time to see if it will work. Hopefully we can cut the fringe benefits component that goes along with a full-time position to try and save some money to the benefit of all of us.

Ms. Martin, I think the tax statements are only printed once.

Com. Burrus, Then that makes my argument even stronger.

Ms. Martin, And I guess my concern is this. We had the recommendation that you do it. You as commissioners made that proposal. It is your department. You probably know more about that department than we do, because it is your department and you oversee it. It concerns me that if we do not take your wishes at hand--I mean, I can see this happening two-fold. Okay, you do it, it doesn't work out, then you come back and ask for the full-time person to be put back onboard. But I guess my personal opinion is that you should be given the option to at least explore it and try to save the County some money.

Com. Burrus, That's what we are asking for.

Mr. Ruge, Will there still be a savings to the County by having the hourly person instead of the full-time?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, there would be because you don't pay benefits.

Mr. Ruge, Would there be a savings to the County?

Ms. Stroud, Yes. By going part-time, yes, because you don't pay benefits.

Mrs. Knoblock, Isn't there a motion on the floor?
Ms. Stroud, Yes, would you read the motion please?

Ms. Balcerak, The motion was to deny the request.

Com. Evans, We're not questioning that Lee doesn't work his tail off and that he doesn't need assistance. We're just saying that everybody is in that boat right now and we're trying to cut corners where we can cut them. I mean, it is our department and that's what we wanted in the beginning, but that's not what we got.

Ms. Martin, Call for the question.

Ms. Stroud, A motion has been made and seconded that we deny the request. All in favor.

Ms. Martin, I'm requesting a roll call.

Mr. Ruge, The motion is to deny?

Ms. Martin, The motion is to let Lee do what he wants with the department and deny what the commissioners want.

Mr. Carmichael, The motion is to deny, John.

Ms. Stroud, We are requesting a roll call vote.

Motion carried on the following roll call vote:

Martin-NoRuge-No
Stroud-YesWest-Yes
Carmichael-YesConover-Yes
Knoblock-No

Ms. Martin, Lee, you have a full-time person for the Print Shop.

Com. Evans, Now does the hiring freeze affect this person so we don't get him anyway? Is that what you are saying?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, there is a hiring freeze. That's exactly right, so we don't hire anybody right now.

Mrs. Vuko, Wait a minute.

Ms. Stroud, What was the vote?

Ms. Martin, It was 4 to 3. It's not a 144, it's just a request for transfer so it's 4 to 3. So they're allowed to do it but they can't do it because there's a hiring freeze.

Ms. Stroud, So they can't do it. We know that.

Mrs. Vuko, But I was told when we made cuts and this position is already in the office coming vacant.

Ms. Stroud, And now its vacant, its going to be vacant.

Mrs. Vuko, Right.

Ms. Stroud, There's a hiring freeze, so they can't hire anybody in there right now.

Mrs. Vuko, Okay, but I was told that once you got rid of certain employees then if someone quit after that you could hire.

Ms. Stroud, We haven't lifted it. We haven't changed it.

Ms. Martin, I think it's been on a case-per-case basis and most everybody has been able to come before us.
Mr. Carmichael, And in this case you've only got one other employee. If he gets sick you are out of business. You might as well close the shop.

Ms. Stroud, But right now we do have a hiring freeze and at the present time we cannot hire anyone in there.

Mr. Carmichael, Barb, with part-time help you're retraining and retraining and retraining.

Ms. Stroud, Right, but it stays vacant.

Mr. Carmichael, How many people have you trained since we started the operation?

Ms. Stroud, I'm not arguing it. I'm just saying that because the position is open it stays open. What I would like Lee to do--if it's alright with the commissioners.

Com. Burrus, We're out of this.

Com. Evans, No, you guys take care of this.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, what I would like for you to do is go back maybe the last four months or so and see how much your workload has increased during that time. But the position has to stay open. You cannot hire anybody in there at the present time so it stays open.

Com. Burrus, Let me get this straight. The position stays. He can't hire anybody and he doesn't get any part-time.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, We have a request from the audience.

Woman from the audience, Did he originally have someone helping him and that person quit, then why…

Ms. Stroud, We have a hiring freeze.

Woman from the audience, I understand there's a hiring freeze, but why can't he replace that person because there was already a person in that position.

Ms. Stroud, We have a hiring freeze. When somebody leaves or whatever the reason we are not hiring new people in to fill those positions. That's been truth for all the other departments.

Com. Evans, You also know he's got to do the ballots for the election.

Ms. Stroud, Well…

Woman from the audience, That's not right.

Mrs. Vuko, Okay Barb, I have a question. I was told within the office that you could, from position to position fill another position.

Ms. Stroud, You're not hiring a new person.

Mrs. Vuko, I'm not; just moving a person.

Ms. Stroud, Because you are in the same office. You are not changing anything. But in Lee's case he has somebody whose leaving. It's vacant, out the door. He can't hire a new person in to fill that until we lift the hiring freeze. It's a simple as that.

Mrs. Vuko, But I was told the hiring freeze was lifted as soon as the 10% cuts went on.

Ms. Stroud, No.

Mr. West, No.

Ms. Stroud, Absolutely not. Not only do you have the 10% cuts, but you also, if people leave a position and those positions are full-time positions and you are paying all of the benefits, you don't want to fill those positions. We are not filling those positions. We don't have the money to fill those positions.

Mrs. Vuko, I know, the three positions I got rid of, they're gone.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Mrs. Vuko, I'm not going to fill those. But there is a present position in my office that's going to be open after I got rid of three people. Now I can't get rid of it for another person.

Ms. Stroud, Well, we're going to have to cross that bridge when we get to it. But right now we have a hiring freeze, therefore you cannot fill those positions if it means general fund money.

Mr. Carmichael, Barbara.

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Mr. Carmichael, I think and I hate to correct you, but I think what we required was that they, in order to fill a position, they come back before the Council.

Ms. Stroud, They can come back before us.

Mr. Carmichael, And Lee's here tonight…

Ms. Martin, Well I suggest the commissioners request what they want to do with it.

Com. Evans, We tried to suggest that. We thought it was our department and we had the suggestion before you.

Mr. Carmichael, John, now you've got a full-time employee. Do you want to fill the position?

Com. Evans, No, absolutely not.

Com. Burrus, I agree.

Mr. Carmichael, I'm giving you the opportunity.

Com. Evans, We want a part-time employee. We don't want to pay the additional benefits. We're trying to save you some money.

Ms. Martin, And I want to thank you for looking at that option.

Mrs. Conover, Excuse me. Does your department normally print the ballots for the election?

Mr. Childress, We don't do the ballots, we do the poll books and the other various books, but we don't do the initial ballots.

Mrs. Conover, Okay. Is this something new to your department, to be printing the polling books and whatnot?

Mr. Childress, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, And you're supposed to commence with it in your duty this year?

Mr. Childress, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, Well I hope we can have an election.

Ms. Stroud, The ballots, you don't.

Mr. Childress, Right, I do not do the ballots.

Ms. Stroud, They can't do those.

Mrs. Conover, But the books though.

Ms. Stroud, Lee, I would still like you to go back and get some information to us as to what the workload is and how its changed. If that's okay with the commissioners. Then bring that back to us.

Mr. Childress, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael, Barbara, John wants to say something.

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Mr. Ruge, Did we deny him the extra help?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, he has a full-time position there.

Mr. Ruge, I don't like it. You're taking away from…

Ms. Martin, There was an option there, John.

Mr. Ruge, You're taking away a person, then don't give him any money for extra help.

Mr. Carmichael, That's right.

Mr. Ruge, What's the?

Ms. Stroud, John, you would have had then to go along the other way than what you did to put in the hourly.

Ms. Martin, He voted for the hourly.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, I'm sorry. Sorry, I wasn't paying attention.

CLERK PERPETUATION 199.01

144 Form

Deputy Records .08 from $0 to $21,113
Deputy County Records .14 from $0 to $20,574

Additional Appropriation

$41,687 into account 1110 Salaries
$3,190 into account 1210 FICA
$1,876 into account 1230 PERF
$10,372 into account 1220 Medical/Life Insurance

Ms. Martin, I would say good evening, but I don't know, it's not been one.

Ms. Stroud, Would you like to explain what you are proposing to do?

Dale Brewer, I'm trying to save two of my positions in the perpetuation fund for records. These are both records positions. They are the only types of positions I can put in there. I figure I should have enough money to cover both positions at least for this year, including their benefits, the cost of their medical, their PERF, their FICA.
It's the only way I know how to save them. Other departments have done this with their perpetuation funds. Mine is a new fund, it just came on July 1st. I would have preferred to use this fund to microfilm and save records, but I can't hire people to do that anyway, because we have a hiring freeze. So in the meantime, I'd like to just at least keep my department running in a professional and expedient manner.
You know, you talk about public safety. My department is public safety too and I think people have forgotten that. The warrants come out of there. The protective orders are processed there. Also, when you did the 10% budget cut, I let you cut more probably than you should have. 66% of my child support, which $125,000 is reimbursed back to the County was not taken into consideration. So you got my 10% plus and I would like to save at least two people.
We are working overtime, comp-time, because we have no choice. I don't have a control where I can say, 'This warrants got to sit today; that protective order is not going out today.' I've got to move the papers for the court system for public safety and somewhere along the line somebody forgot to mention this for the Clerk. I don't know why, but I'm telling you now that is the way it is.
I don't want a reputation in Porter County that we didn't get a warrant done and somebody is out there walking the streets that shouldn't be or maybe we didn't process the paperwork where they don't get arrested. That is my concern. I cannot take people off other jobs to fill in for records, because this is what's going to happen. So I ask that you let me take these people out of the perpetuation fund so I can prevent some consequences.
I have already reduced some of my counter staff--the person waiting on the counter. I have a sign up there. The attorneys have been real good. The public has been very good, but I don't know where else to reduce.
We also have a problem that the commissioners will back up with our computer system and transmission. My Portage office was down. For one full week we could not process stuff on the computer. One full week. Now the incoming stuff doesn't stop. We had Operation Pullovers. We have court cases coming in constantly.
This weekend that office spent a whole 35 hours again trying to catch up and we're still not out of the woods on this computer problem. The system goes down a minimum of five to six times a day. We'll be in the middle of something and we've got to stop and re-enter and come back on the system. So I'm fighting a double battle here, a shortage of people and a system that isn't cooperating.
I need your help to do this. I know other people have done it. I'm taking every cost out of here. I can do it for this year. If I run short in this, then I'll have to let these people go. I will have no choice. I've already cut my supplies to the minimum. If I run out of money there I know I can't come to you. That comes out of my pocket if I can't pay for it. But I'm willing to do that to save the positions.

Ms. Martin, Real quick, from these reports it shows that we don't have to appropriate that fund. Is that correct?

Ms. Brewer, You do have to appropriate this fund.

Ms. Martin, It states no on this report for records.

Ms. Brewer, No, you have appropriate it, but it doesn't go downstate. It's a council appropriation.

Ms. Martin, Okay, that's why I was questioning if that was true or not.

Ms. Brewer, No, it has to be appropriated.

Mr. Carmichael, When did you start collecting this, Dale?

Ms. Brewer, I started collecting in July of this last year.

Mr. Carmichael, How much do you have in the fund now?

Ms. Brewer, I have right now at the moment $29,000 with nine months to go yet in this year. So I've covered one position already and I should bring up the rest of the money to cover the rest of it. If I don't, if I'm in trouble, yes, I will let the person go. I'm going to do it the same way I did before with seniority.

Mr. Carmichael, In other words, if we did approve this tonight those positions would be paid for out of the perpetuation fund in perpetuity and not requested as new employees?

Ms. Brewer, These are not new employees.

Mr. Carmichael, No, not requested next year as new employees?

Ms. Brewer, No, you know I didn't remove my employees that I cut off my 144 and I won't, because I'm coming to tell you truthfully I can't run an efficient Clerk's office and keep public safety in mind and do that.

Mr. Carmichael, Do you have them on part-time?

Ms. Brewer, No, I don't.

Mr. West, You didn't lay anybody off?

Ms. Brewer, Yes I did lay people off.

Mr. West, Then what is this? Are these new people?

Ms. Brewer, I want to keep two of those people, those records people.

Mr. West, But they're laid off right now?

Ms. Brewer, These people are not laid off. I have enough money in my general fund to take them this far. After this, if you deny me tonight, then yes, they have to be gone. I have one criminal person that's already lost a job and two vacant positions that I couldn't fill.

Mr. West, You can use this money to hire people?

Ms. Brewer, For records.

Mr. West, For salaries to pay people?

Ms. Brewer, Yes.

Mr. West, Well, with the E-911, then you better send Butterfield a check and Doug a check.

Ms. Brewer, This is not the same type of fund.

Ms. Stroud, It's not the same. It's different.

Mr. West, It's the same thing.

Ms. Brewer, This is not the same type of fund. This is a records perpetuation fund for the Clerk by law. You have to understand what it is. Just like the Recorder has a perpetuation fund. This is the Clerk's perpetuation fund, set up for clerks.

Ms. Martin, When we did the Recorder's, we let…

Ms. Brewer, I collect it; $2 off of every new case in Porter County when its paid. So I'm really racking it up. Like I said, I would prefer to be able to use this to do microfilming, but I can't. I can't get the people to do it. I can only maintain what I have and cross my fingers that something else doesn't go wrong.

Mrs. Knoblock, You will pay their benefits out of that?

Ms. Brewer, Yes, Ma'am. It's all listed here.

Mrs. Conover, She has indicated that this will include the benefits for the two employees who are now being paid from the county general.

Ms. Brewer, Yes, it moves them out completely for this year.

Mrs. Conover moved to approve the 144 Form as submitted by Clerk Perpetuation Fund.

Mrs. Conover, We've allowed other departments to use their perpetuation for the same type of thing.

Mr. West, You keep saying other departments; she keeps saying other departments. We did it for one person.

Ms. Brewer, No, the Auditor's Plat Map Fund.

Ms. Stroud, Not all…

Mr. West, We did it for Jackie Sterling.

Mrs. Conover, And the Auditor.

Ms. Brewer, Jackie Sterling. You have Pretrial Diversion. You have the grants.

Ms. Martin, We transferred Adult Probation over to the User Fees.

Ms. Brewer, Yes.

Mr. West, Then if that fund grows we won't have to lay anybody off in the County.

Ms. Brewer, No, Leon. I can only use it for records. That's all I can use it for. Believe me, I'd of loved to kept a criminal deputy too, but I can't. It doesn't fall in that guideline.

Ms. Stroud, The law says for any of them that they have to use it for specific things and that's what happened with Jackie's when she came to us. It's the same way.

Ms. Brewer, This is a little different.

Ms. Stroud, It's a little bit different, but again, there's guidelines and there's certain specifications that the state sets up, which says that they can only use for certain things. In this case, I'm sure you've checked it all out on what it can be used for.

Mr. Ruge, Is this to increase the salary?

Ms. Brewer, No, John. It's just to keep two people that I was going to lose; two out of the five. It's not the general fund.

Mr. Ruge, Yes, I know that, but it says salaries.

Ms. Martin, She's transferring the cost of the salaries from the general fund to a different fund. So we don't have to cover it in the general fund anymore. Just like some of the other departments did.

Mr. Ruge, I still don't, does it increase the salaries of the people you have?

Ms. Brewer, No, John. It's existing salaries that are in place. I'm just moving them from one to the other.

Ms. Martin, And she's going to cover the expenses for the benefits also.

Ms. Stroud, Anyone else?

Mrs. Conover, I made a motion.

Ms. Martin seconded.

Ms. Stroud, This is a 144 Form so we need a roll call.

Motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, We need a motion for the additional. $41,687 to Salaries, $3,190 to FICA, $1,876 to PERF and $10,372 to Insurance.

Mrs. Conover moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by the Clerk Perpetuation Fund. Mr. Carmichael seconded, motion carried unanimously.

At this time, Ms. Martin left the meeting.

HEALTH TOBACCO FUND 203

Additional Appropriation
$5,500 into account 4540 Other Equipment
$2,000 into account 2410 Medical Supplies
$100 into account 3930 Fees

Ms. Stroud, Is there anyone here to represent the Health Tobacco Fund? We can still act on this even if no one is here. It's not the general fund.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I can answer any questions. This is the tobacco settlement monies that the state is distributing to each county to use for county health purposes. Again, this is a Health Department effort to salvage some programming that was cut from their general fund and shifted to the tobacco settlement monies.
We slashed their medical supplies basically down to nothing and they need to have that so they can do their programming. I believe the equipment money is for the equipment they need to install an alarm system on their refrigeration units. There's been problems especially at the North County facility with the electricity going out. Most of these modern vaccines have to be refrigerated and there's been a couple of substantial losses where thousands of dollars of vaccines have been lost. Like the electricity will go out a 8:00 on Friday night and nobody knows about it until Monday morning.

Mrs. Knoblock, This is not the general fund.

Ms. Stroud, This is not the general fund. This is the tobacco settlement fund. So we need a motion.

Mrs. Conover moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by the Health Tobacco Settlement Fund. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

COMMISSIONERS 01.30

Transfer

$15 from account 2110 Office Supplies into account 2410 Medical & Dental
$5 from account 2110 Office Supplies into account 2410 Medical & Dental

Ms. Stroud, The first request is a transfer of $15 to Medical & Dental and $5 to Medical & Dental. Such a small amount of money here.

Com. Larry Sheets, This is for the people who have had their TB test out of the Juvenile Services Center and we're just reimbursing them. I think we might have another one or two coming alone.

Com. Evans, Yes, one at a time.

Ms. Stroud, Can't you get one big bill and do it at one time?

Com. Sheets, We're trying.

Ms. Stroud, We need a motion for the transfers.

Mrs. Conover moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by the Commissioners. Mrs. Knoblock seconded, motion carried unanimously.

COMMISSIONERS 176.30

Additional Appropriation

$277,030.34 into account 0001 Jail Fund

Ms. Stroud, The second request is an additional request for $277,030.34 to the Jail Fund. If I remember correctly this came up last month and we tabled it for more information.

Com. Sheets, I'm here to give you very little more information. The fact of the matter is, this is the money from the $2,000,000 originally appropriated or borrowed for the jail. We have not come before you to get this re-appropriated from year to year, but this year the Auditor's office said we ought to do that. We are not going to argue with them. We will certainly work with them. I'm here to tell you that this $277,030.34 is for the construction, it's for the jail project. I cannot tell you exactly what it's going to be spent for. As the bills come in we pay them. We are not completely done with the interior of the jail, so I can't say if its going to buy a desk, but it is part of our budget overall for the jail.

Ms. Stroud, I don't think anybody has any questions about that, just maybe knowing a little bit how the money was being spent before we transferred the rest of this. Just get an idea of what was being spent out there.

Com. Sheets, Only somebody with a crystal ball could tell you that. I cannot.

Ms. Stroud, If the bills are coming in where are the bills coming to, your office?

Com. Sheets, Yes, they come in as the claims come in. It may be for the furniture. We can't tell you how the bills will come in. It might be for pouring the pad for the tower. It might be for technical equipment.

Ms. Stroud, I understand what you are saying to me, but I think in working with people you would make them very happy if you would make up a list and say that x-number of dollars was spent for or its going to be spent for. I think that's what we were asking. A little visual.

Com. Burrus, I think maybe in general terms what Larry was saying is that it's going to be used as a final closeout cost of the jail as its completed.

Com. Evans, The list is about 40 pages long.

Ms. Stroud, I know, but is this the end?

Mr. Carmichael, No, it's not the end.

Com. Sheets, I can't get specific. I wish I could. I can't even apologize because I can't do it. I just can't tell you exactly what it's going to be used for.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by the Commissioners. Mr. West seconded.

Mrs. Vuko, I talked to the State Board of Accounts and she said that it does have to itemized as the bills come in. As they come in, she said that you can just itemize them as they come in so we can identify them and be put in the fund.

Com. Sheets, We can do that as they come in. Absolutely, we can do that.

Mrs. Vuko, Okay, that's all I care about.

Com. Evans, You got it.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, so in other words the bills have not come in for this portion, for this $277,0303.34.

Com. Sheets, That is correct.

Ms. Stroud, That's the amount that has been set aside for that, correct? Is that what you are saying? The $.34 kind of grabbed my eye there, when you don't know what you are going to get bills for. How we got $.34 here is beyond me, unless you're going to buy a stamp.
Okay, a motion has been made and seconded that we approve this request. Also remember what Mrs. Vuko said, because I had talked to her about this earlier. It must be itemized before that money can be spent.

Com. Sheets, That will be done.

Motion carried unanimously.

Com. Burrus, I have some information I want to share with you, but I will wait until the last item here if I could.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

A & A MANUFACTURING - COMPLIANCE WITH STATEMENT OF BENEFITS

Matt Robbins, I am the general manager for Gortrac.

Ms. Stroud, It's nice to meet you. Okay, Matt, obviously this is dealing with an abatement.

Mr. Robbins, Correct.

Ms. Stroud, I know you have to report to us and I've read through the statement that you put with the request. There has been a downturn, but you do expect your numbers to increase the rest of this year and into next year.

Mr. Robbins, That is correct.

Ms. Stroud, How many are you down this year?

Mr. Robbins, We had been at 66 permanent employees this time last year. We are currently at 58 employees. We had a 30% downturn last year, which is the same industrial product. Our growth this year is around 5% per month and we were on track for the first three months of this year. Our new business has not even yet started to produce, which it should start either the first of May or the first of June.

Ms. Stroud, You submitted all the necessary paperwork.

Mrs. Knoblock, You've been in business since April of 1999.

Mr. Robbins, In this location.

Ms. Stroud, They were in business at another location.

Mr. Robbins, Yes, on the other side of the airport.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the Statement of Benefits for A & A Manufacturing as submitted. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

At this time, Ms. Martin rejoined the meeting.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Longevity Pay

Ms. Stroud, I have a few things. One thing that has come up, we left the longevity in our budget. The amount of money was $118,000. If you recall, in August we did cut half of it out, but right now with everything that's happened and we still don't have a signature on our bill, in order for us to implement the second half we have to have it out of budget by May 1st. So what I'm asking to do is come before you and discuss this. We can take it out of our budget now. It has to be done by May 1st.

Mrs. Knoblock moved to remove $118,000 for Longevity pay out of the Council's budget. Mr. West seconded.

Ms. Martin, And we still have to cut what? We were like $500,000, plus the $688,000, 1.3, 1.4 million and still short for the year.

Mrs. Conover, Does your figure include the latest steel mill bankruptcy, Karen?

Ms. Stroud, No, it doesn't. A motion has been made and seconded.

Motion carried unanimously.

Mr. Carmichael, That includes all merit pay. Is that right?

Ms. Stroud, Not merit. It has nothing to do with merit pay. This is longevity.
Mr. Carmichael, All longevity regardless of where they're employed.

Ms. Stroud, The longevity that we pay. This is not the sheriff's.

Mr. Carmichael, The sheriff's employees get longevity.

Ms. Martin, Yes, they get longevity.



Ms. Stroud, A couple of other things. I feel that as a council here that number one, if you haven't done so, I would urge you to email the Governor of the importance in signing our bill. If any of you need the address I have it.
I would also encourage you to write a letter to the legislators that were instrumental in working on this, as far as getting the bill passed. The senators and house members spent a lot of time and energy this session working on that particular bill. So that would be greatly appreciated on their part.
I am going to ask to change to the meeting date for April so that we will meet four weeks from tonight, which would be April 16th, then four weeks after that May 14th, which would be one day before. If this bill passes, they say that if we want to take any action on any kind of tax that it would be that night. Then I'm going to recommend we leave our June meeting the same, which would be six weeks, but we are also going to be in the budget workshops. So we will be here in June working with the different departments before we get into the regular budget hearings in August. So the change will be for the 16th of April, the 14th of May and keep our regular meeting day in June. Is that agreeable?

Mrs. Conover, Madam Chairman, not that one councilperson should matter, but I will not be able to make the May 14th meeting, if that's conducive to this board.

Ms. Stroud, Gosh, I hate to. To me that's the pertinent one, because it is the day before they are asking any kind of action be taken downstate. That is one reason why I would like it to be on the 14th? So if we take any action or we don't take any action at least it's the day before the deadline. Any other time I would say yes. I don't really have problem with moving it, but I think that's the one date we should keep there.

Mrs. Conover, Okay.

Ms. Stroud, Anybody else?


Ms. Stroud, A couple of other things that I'm going to bring out now. One of them has already been mentioned. I would like for the people that worked with the E-911, which I think was Mrs. Conover, Mr. West and Ms. Martin and also Mr. Evans, I would like to see you people get back together again and see if we can work on this problem and see if we can come up with some type of an outcome. I would like you to get back together on this.
The other one would be the sheriff's pension fund. If my memory serves me right, Mr. West, Mr. Carmichael and Ms. Martin, if you would get together with the Sheriff's Department and get working on this pension fund, so it's not just all thrown at us during budget time where we're back to square one as before. They are supposed to be working on it. That is what we were told by the lawyer last year, so I would like to see this done. We've got a few months.
As far as the committee that was meeting on Thursday, I got together with Mrs. Vuko and based on the requests that were coming in, there wasn't any really big requests. So at this point in time, if it's agreeable, she is going to contact myself or if I'm not available anyone else to kind of go over the purchase orders if there is something that is a big item or if there is a problem. Is that agreeable with everyone?

Mrs. Knoblock, That's a commissioners' decision anyway.

Ms. Stroud, No, that was set up by us.

Mrs. Knoblock, But they are the ones that are supposed to look at the purchase orders.

Ms. Stroud, We are too, that's what those meetings are on Thursday. Two council people and a commissioner.

Mrs. Knoblock, I know we volunteered to do that, but that's really their job.

Ms. Martin, I think during this period of time we were just trying to make sure the monies were being spent as we had appropriated them.

Ms. Stroud, Right, and if that's agreeable, that's what we would like to do. The meetings on Thursday mornings, there weren't a lot coming in because we put a halt to purchasing. With trying to get three or four of us together it was causing some problems, so I talked to Sandy about it and she agreed that if there was something that was large and needed our attention that she would contact us or if she saw some abuse then we would get back together again. But if it's okay with you we wouldn't meet every Thursday to do this.

Com. Evans, I think that makes sense, but I think you need to attach a dollar amount to it.

Ms. Martin, I think they are going to make a report and Barb is going to handle them. It's still going to happen, it's just not, because a lot of times you couldn't make it or we couldn't make it at 10:00 on Thursday, so that's what I think it boiled down to.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, it was and it was becoming a problem. I understand what you are saying, John. The only thing, if we put a dollar amount on it, some of those amounts, it can be just a purchase order for like food for the jail and they may go over it because they have to buy it every week or every two weeks or whatever, so they may have this big bill. We don't really need to go over that particular one, so that's why I hesitate. I think if its $250 or $300 then she would call one of us and let us look at it. If you don't have a problem doing it that way we'll handle it that way. I don't have anything else at this point in time, but we do need a second reading.

SECOND READING

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve second reading. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

HEALTH INSURANCE DISCUSSION

At this time, Com. Burrus submitted a report to the council members.

Com. Burrus, What we want to talk about is, for the last several weeks the commissioners have been spending a great deal of time on health insurance issues. This comes from a couple of different directions. The first direction is that April 1st is our policy year--anniversary year--and we had to address the renewal programs for our umbrella policy--our stop loss policy. We did that this morning at our meeting.
The other portion of the time has been spent on the issues that began with the budgeting process in August. If you'll recall at that time, I had made a short presentation requesting an appropriation for health insurance to the amount $3,000,000. I think the budgeted amount came down to something less than $2,500,000, then obviously since then we've been dealing with the 10% cuts and that's our primary concern right now how we are going to implement that.
During this time, we've had conversation with various people within the county offices. I have heard rumblings and discussions about an insurance fund. We've heard rumblings and discussions about a balance in this insurance fund. So I set about trying to get back on a historical note what all has transpired with respect to the health insurance, the best I could piece it together.
The information you have before you is to substantiate the fact that yes there is an insurance fund. It is identified as account number 45 and it's in the form of a checking account at First National Bank. The chart you have in front of you are laid out with a horizontal scale across the top by years starting with 1997 going up through 2001. Then coming down the left-hand margin then are entities that contribute monies into this fund.
We start at the top with the Highway Department who pays their own hospital/health insurance cost. The Airport, the Airport Board. Tourism. Solid Waste. Then we have the withhold portion or the employee contribution, the co-payment. That is the contributions that go into that fund in addition to what is budgeted through our account. The line item that is addressed 'Budgeted' is what the commissioners put into that account.
On down we have another item that goes into there in the form of 'Others'. This could be COBRA payments. It could be refunds. It could be any number of different sources of revenue that are appropriate to go into that account. What we have then shows a total of contributions that go into that account every year including some interest. Then I've shown some fixed costs that go along with claims that get paid out of there.
The discussions and the feelings that I perceive here are that health insurance cost being a major cost are in a large part a problem that has caused a part of the problem that is with the budget. I think I need to make some comments on that. Number one, we do know that medical costs in general have increased. Industry increases are approximately 12 to 13% a year and of course also the other issue that would factor into that with the number of people that we are insuring.
What John just passed out to you is a bar chart that indicates the numbers of people on the County's plan. That is the employees on the County Plan. This one starts back in 1995 or 1996 at about 426 or 427 employees, then it has increased up to the year 2000 where we have an average that year of 559. That represents a 30% increase during that period of time and of course that figures into the increase for insurance costs.
Those costs then are represented on this chart. You can see in 1997 that our insurance cost was $1,751,387. In 2001, its just under $3,500,000. So the increase represents a 110% increase during this period of time. Again, just to repeat, those increases are from two major components. One is the number of employees that we've added and the second one is the increase in medical costs.
Now this chart is dealing with net insurance cost and this means net in the fact that it is what the County and the contributions have to pay, excluding employee co-pays. So you're going to see a little bit of a difference in these numbers. This is taking out the co-payment portion of it. The blue line across the top represents the actual cost and it shows the increase over the years that we just mentioned. The red line shows the amount of appropriations that have been made against those costs over the same period of time. So we're seeing a spread between the appropriations that have been made and the actual cost of the program. The yellow line then picks up more recently and it represents additional appropriations that have had to been made by you folks into our account later in the year to finish paying the bills. So what we are seeing here is a spread between actual cost and what's budgeted.
The next chart I think tells a very significant story. This is the fund balances of Fund 45 on December 31st of the years indicated. What this shows us is that at the end of 1997 there was a fund balance slightly in excess of $1,000,000. The fund then has been systematically and obviously drawn down annually to the point now where we only have a $35,000 and some-odd cent balance at the end of 2001.
Now the question is the surplus that existed back in 1997. Porter County's claims this year or for 2001 also have been on track cost wise. For a program with the benefits that we offer and with the number of people who are covered, this utilization, this expense is statistically on the mark. However, statistically also, the insurance people will tell us that every three to five years there is going to be a bad year and you are going to have an exorbitant or at least an excessive amount of claims over the norm.
So the recommendation from them and of course they don't run our budgets, but they say you should maintain a surplus--a reserve in this account--to take care of those kinds of statistically, predictable occurrences. We did that up until 1997 and that's what this chart indicates, but the draw down has been very systematic to the point where we don't have anything anymore and that represents and that explains the discrepancy between the lines on the previous chart--insurance costs versus what has been budgeted.
So what I am saying is that by under funding and under budgeting the insurance cost, we have drawn down this surplus to the point where we don't have it anymore. Obviously, also, that money has been freed up to be used elsewhere. My only guess is that it's gone into payroll to increase more positions and that simply perpetuates the problem.
Now to address our side of the problem, what are we going to do to try to make this budget balance and make sure that our 10% cuts can be realized, we are going to be implementing in the next month a three-tiered or a three-menued insurance program where the employees are going to have a choice of the level of coverage that they want. Similarly they are going to have a choice as to the amount of payment to go along with their program. So this then will be our hope and our intent that we can address the 10% budget cut that we have proposed.
I failed to have mentioned though that incorporated with this proposal for insurance changes will be a wellness program. We want to try to encourage a wellness program such that we can reduce some of these claims and there will be financial incentives included in this somehow such that we can encourage people to take advantage of that.
So where it leaves us then is the fact that we think and we're hopeful that we can address the 10% cuts, but that still doesn't address the $500,000 shortfall that we had proposed back in August. So this method, I think we need to be concerned about. The real message I want to try and leave tonight is to plead and ask for a little bit of a revision in the budgeting process that's coming forward in the next three or four months. I would ask that we have the opportunity, that all departments have the opportunity, to address their fixed costs early on before we run out of money to be budgeted, particularly such things as significant as the health insurance.
I also did one other piece of statistical investigation. With our own budget, if we look at things that include FICA, health insurance, PERF and the utilities, we come up with a budget amount that you gave us this year of about $6,100,000. That's also about $1,000,000 less than what we asked for. The point I'm trying to make is, these are the kind of things that we can work on and work on, but we don't have a great deal of success in bringing them down. If we throw in two more items into this fixed cost list and make that Porter-Starke and Opportunity Enterprises, which we don't have a great deal of control over, fixed costs compromise 72 ½% of our budget.
So I'm just wanting to again re-emphasize the fact that as we get into these tight times and we're there now and we know it, there are some things we are going to have some control over and some things we are not. I think we need to look at the process and the priorities that we establish when we go through this process and hopefully we can make some good decisions that way. If there are any questions I'll be glad to entertain any.

Ms. Stroud, I have a few. First of all, the statistics here during that period of time was there an increase in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 of the fees that the employees paid? Was there a small increase? Did they review the fees at all?

Com. Evans, The fees weren't raised until last year and that was the first time in eight years.

Ms. Stroud, That's what I thought.

Com. Burrus, We've got a graph on that too.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, I have a couple of other questions also. With some of the cuts that have been made, are we seeing a decrease in the cost for this year?

Com. Evans, No.

Ms. Stroud, Not at all?

Com. Burrus, Not yet. Frankly speaking, one of the things that we understand is that because of the uncertainty of county government a lot of folks are taking advantage of the insurance program in anticipation of layoff, dismissal, whatever. So for the early months of 2002, we've actually seen an increase.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, my other comment since you brought it up. We can't include Opportunity Enterprise and Porter-Starke because they are outside our frozen levy, aren't they?

Com. Burrus, But when we take…

Com. Evans, But they are in our budget.

Ms. Stroud, They are a line item in your budget, but it's not general fund money that goes to those.

Com. Burrus, Well that's been recently been discussed and determined, that's true. But when we were looking at our budget for your 10% cuts, we took them into account because they are included in our bottom line.

Ms. Stroud, Which…

Com. Burrus, Probably shouldn't have been.

Ms. Stroud, It should not have been in there and no one caught up on it and that's what I'm saying. Opportunity Enterprises and Porter-Starke should not have been cut the 10%, because we all did. I'm not pointing fingers and I'm not putting blame but we didn't get the budget until that evening and their budgets should not have been cut to the tune of 17%, because they are outside of the general fund. We couldn't cut the highway funds or anything like that so I don't see how they could be included in this.

Com. Burrus, There's even a question whether we could have done 10% on them.

Ms. Stroud, I don't think you can. Personally, this is my own opinion, I don't know how the rest of them feel. Personally, I don't think we could have cut any of them, because they are outside of the general fund. Our directive was 10%, basically cuts from the general fund.

Com. Burrus, That's going to be resolved on way or the other.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, we are going to get it resolved.

Com. Burrus, We're working on it.

Ms. Stroud, But it was something that none of us caught up on and they are not general fund money. My question is, they are not part of this insurance package in that sense at all?

Com. Burrus, They have nothing to do with that, not at all.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, that's what I wanted to make clear.

Com. Evans, But they are part of the 72.5% of our budget that is beyond our control.

Ms. Martin, It should have been taken out of your budget.

Ms. Stroud, It should have been. It's a line item that's in there, but it should have been taken out from the beginning because its not general fund money. We all understand that mistake was made.

Com. Burrus, I think that's being resolved. I think we are good on that one. Bill had a question.

Mr. Carmichael, When you receive a claim from the hospital--PMH--is that claim in any way audited?

Com. Burrus, Yes, we have an auditing…

Mr. Carmichael, And verified?

Com. Evans, CPI is the name of the company.

Com. Burrus, ICM.

Mr. Carmichael, Do they audit nickel and dime claims or do they audit thousand dollar claims or $10,000 dollar claims or all claims?

Com. Evans, Any admission to the hospital. Any trauma related injury. Any bill that's triggered over--what's the dollar amount--$400.

Mr. Carmichael, Do we have any sort of facts or figures from them on what they have?

Com. Evans, They've saved us $30,000 last year. Their fee for that was $11,000.

Mr. Carmichael, Okay. The second part, what agreements are currently in place with PMH concerning the handling and the billing for our recipients on this plan? Is there any agreement in place with PMH?

Com. Sheets, Other than a preferred provider, no.

Com. Evans, They are a preferred provider as are many of the doctors. We have a plan that administers it. I don't think legally they can treat us any differently than they do anybody else who crosses their doorstep.

Com. Burrus, But the comment I made regarding the wellness program is something we are negotiating with PMH to the point where they will be providing that service for us and hopefully we will being to see some reductions that way.

Mr. Carmichael, Didn't we negotiate a fee for the prisoners that we take to the emergency room?
Com. Evans, I believe the sheriff has that in his budget. He also has a doctor on staff at the jail that treats many of people.

Mr. Carmichael, I think it's something you ought to check into. At least make the inquiry.

Ms. Stroud, Yes.
Com. Evans, Sure. The hospital should get kudos for the fact that they are working with us very vigorously on this wellness program to have things like smoking cessation and many other things that could save us money and it will tied to what the people pay.

Mr. Carmichael, Watch those stubby cigars.

Com. Evans, I haven't had one in a month and a half. Why do you think I'm so feisty.

Ms. Stroud, Karen.

Mrs. Conover, I just wanted to thank you for the cost analysis--it really tells a story--and for the commissioners for working with the insurance industry and the three-tier level of benefits that the employee will have a choice as to how much they want to pay and what type of benefit correlates with that. I think the wellness program is long past over due and it's an excellent idea. It's going to help everyone in the long run like you had indicated. I commend you for all of this work.

Com. Burrus, Thank you and hopefully it's a good value to you folks, because we're all in this together.

Ms. Martin, I want to know what Graph, page three looks like. What do you have there that you haven't given us yet.

Com. Burrus, It's our fixed costs. If you take a look at it you will notice that they have remained extremely flat over the period of year. That's our umbrella insurance coverage, our third-party administrator and probably our local agent representative.

Com. Evans, And that contract has remained the same for the last three years and we have that for another year to fall back on.

Com. Sheets, Everything is bid out.

Com. Evans, Yes, everything is bid out.

Ms. Stroud, Let me ask you this. If I go into the three-tiered program--which I think is a good idea--where you do give people a selection? Will there be any increased cost to the employee or what?

Com. Burrus, We don't have the details worked out yet.

Com. Evans, It's probably going to be an increased cost and it will depend on which plan they opt to take.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Comments? Mr. Poparad, did you want to say something?

Bob Poparad, Yes, I have a question. I'm a little confused. You said that they don't control Porter-Starke or Opportunity Enterprises. Who oversees it?

Ms. Stroud, We oversee it but they are outside the levy.

Mr. Poparad, Who sets the levy?

Ms. Stroud, We do, well it can be set up to $.10--and correct me if I'm wrong.

Ms. Martin, They set their own budget though.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, they set their own budget.

Mr. Poparad, Alright, do you guys put the levy?

Com. Evans, Its between four and ten cents.

Ms. Stroud, Four and ten cents.

Mr. Poparad, Who approves the levy?

Ms. Stroud, It was approved…

Mr. Hollenbeck, There is no levy.