PORTER COUNTY COUNCIL
June 25 2002

The Porter County Council met on June 25, 2002, at 7:00 p.m., in the County Administration Center, 155 Indiana - Suite 205, Valparaiso, Indiana.

Members present were William Carmichael, Karen Conover, John Ruge, Leon West and President Barbara Stroud. Also present was Attorney David Hollenbeck, Auditor Sandra Vuko, Sheila Riley, Becky Clark and Jan Balcerak.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, our first order of business, we need to approve the, it seems like we have to back step a little bit, we have to approve the budgets as they were heard in August of last year. Even though in February we had to change these budgets. But these were never officially approved, so we have to do that.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the 2002 Budget Hearing minutes. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, The second order of business is for us to approve the minutes from the May 14th meeting, which all of you have been given a copy of and have a copy of. Does anyone have any corrections in here? I know they were quite lengthy. I spent quite a number of hours going through, since I had the hours. I didn't see anything. I don't know if any of you did.

Mrs. Conover moved to approve the minutes of May 14, 2002. Mr. Carmichael seconded, motion carried unanimously.

FIRST READING

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

CUSTOM MACHINING SERVICES, INC. - STATEMENT OF BENEFITS

Ms. Stroud, Our first item of business is Mr. Leeth. Good evening.

Atty. Todd Leeth, Good evening. My name is Todd Leeth. I'm here on behalf of Custom Machining Services. Custom Machining Services is a long time community machine shop. It started in the City of Valparaiso, moved to unincorporated Porter County about 11 or 12 years ago on CR 400 E in the industrially zoned area there at 326 N.
They originally constructed a new building. I am circulating to you some pictures of their facility, both inside and outside; a very nice facility, I think you'll agree. At that time they had an expansion. After that, in 1994 and again in 1999, none of those expansions or the initial development did they seek tax abatement or any incentives at all from the County.
The company is a, like all industries in our county, in some tough times economically and facing some stiff competition even internationally in the industries that they serve. Most recently they are proposing to add a new multi-task machine to their operation. The cost of that machine is $451,000. Quite an expenditure for a small business--if you will. As they are doing that, they have learned that one of their competitors inside the City of Valparaiso has received tax abatement for new manufacturing equipment for that very same machine.
So with that, they have asked me to present to you their request for a ten-year new manufacturing equipment or personal property tax deduction for the ten-year maximum allowable time. They currently have 27 full-time employees. They have a division that they are looking to expand and that's the purpose of this machine. They are anticipating the addition of at least a minimum of three employees with an annual salary of approximately $86,000 for the three new employees if this machine goes into operation.
That's our proposal, that's our request before you. Mr. Jack Thompson the president of Custom Machining is here and we'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Mr. Carmichael, Todd, you've been here 12 years? Is that what this company has been here?

Atty. Leeth, The company has been in its current location in the county for 12 years, yes.

Mr. Carmichael, And what was the original tax abatement that was granted for this company.
Atty. Leeth, It did not receive any abatements.

Mr. Carmichael, It never received a tax abatement, okay. Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Does anyone else have any questions?

Mrs. Conover, So the competitive company has received tax abatement through the City of Valparaiso?

Atty. Leeth, For this very same machine, yes.

Mrs. Conover, And in order to stay competitive and offer some new jobs, it's the purchase of this particular piece of equipment to hire the new employees and that's what you are asking for the personal abatement on.

Atty. Leeth, That's correct.

Mr. West, Have we ever done that before?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, that would be my question.

Mr. Carmichael, Sure.

Mr. West, We have.

Mr. Carmichael, In south county.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the Statement of Benefits as submitted for a period of ten years. Mrs. Conover seconded.

Ms. Stroud, What was the total amount?

Mr. Carmichael, $451,000.

Atty. Leeth, $451,255.

Mr. Carmichael, The reason I asked that question, Todd, is so many companies after two or three years of tax abatement all of a sudden they bail out and go somewhere else or something like that. Your company appears to be very stable and very interested in this community for the long run. I would certainly hope that you would live out your commitment to pay the full amount on the tenth year, pay the full amount of the taxes.

Mr. West, Who was the other company that they gave the tax abatement to?

Atty. Leeth, It was the City of Valparaiso who gave the abatement to another competitor.

Mr. West, Was it another machine shop?

Atty. Leeth, Correct. Well, it was to a competitor. I'm not sure I would classify it as a machine shop, but it's a competitor nonetheless.

Ms. Stroud, Are you asking for five or ten years?

Atty. Leeth, For ten.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Mr. Ruge, How many employees?

Atty. Leeth, Currently we have 27 full-time employees and we are anticipating an additional three employees.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, any other questions?

Mr. Carmichael, Call for the vote.

Motion carried unanimously.

Atty. Leeth, Thank you so much.

Ms. Stroud, You're quite welcome.

Mr. Carmichael, Are you principle in this company?

Paul Downing, No, no. I'm here for Sheriff Reynolds.

Mr. Carmichael, Okay. You looked like maybe you were the owner.

Mr. Downing, Oh no.

PROSECUTOR IV 182
144 Form

Part-time Clerical from $0 to $7.25/hr

Ms. Stroud, Next on the agenda is the Prosecutor.

Jim Douglas, Good evening.

Ms. Stroud, Good evening. You're asking for an additional.

Mr. Douglas, Yes. It's an additional request for the Prosecutor's IV-D program. It's from fund 182, $3,200. Just to refresh your memory, 182 is not a taxpayer account. This is a fund that we receive from the State of Indiana and by statute must be spent solely for the IV-D office. Lois Holiday is here, she's the head of the IV-D office and she can explain in more detail.
But the long and the short of it is, the state mandated that all the files be put on their computer system all over the state. You know, which has been done, but now they've decided--the state--that there are a lot of duplicate files. There is a statewide effort, mandated to review the files and get rid of duplicate files and that's what all the counties have to do. We have to do it along with everybody else on a deadline. To do that we need some part-time help. Is that more or less right?

Lois Holiday, That's more or less right.

Mr. Douglas, That's pretty good for me.

Ms. Holiday, That's good. When I started reviewing this request, it's our incentive money that we want to use. We have found out since we submitted this to you that if you approve this and we have it at $3,200 transferred so we can use it for part-time help that we can then submit that $3,200 and receive two-thirds reimbursement back to the county. That will come back to the general fund, it won't come back to our office. So that will be a little over $2,000 that would come back.

Mrs. Conover moved to amend the 144 Form as submitted by Prosecutor IV-D Fund 182. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Additional Appropriation

$3,200 into account 1120 Hourly

Ms. Stroud, We have to also approve the additional.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by Prosecutor IV-D Fund 182. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you.

Mr. Douglas, Thank you very much.

Mr. Carmichael, Thanks, Jim.

Mr. Douglas, Yes, I wish it was always this easy.

ASSESSOR SALES DISCLOSURE 202.09
144 Form

Part-time Hourly from $7 to $10/hr

Ms. Stroud, Okay, Shirley. I see you also want to from $7 to $10.

Shirley LaFever, No, that's my part-time hourly range. This is the sales disclosure fund that was created a year ago by a new law. That people when they sell their homes they have file a sales disclosure form. What I gave you states the statutes and 80% of the fund collected goes to the county assessor's office and the other 20% goes to the state treasurer.
This is to be strictly for the assessors and is to be set up to use, there's four different categories or you can use them all. This is a, the county assessor shall forward the sales disclosure form data to the State Board of Tax Commission in electronic format. So we need a person to scan these in, to data-key enter them in and we have to get it on a disk to go down state. It's a state mandate. So I'm asking, the fund has been created a couple of months ago but we didn't do a line item, so I'm back here tonight to ask to put the fund into a line item so I can pay a part-time person to do this job.

Mrs. Conover, Do you have any idea how much the fund has generated since the inception?

Mrs. LaFever, I think I checked with Sandy a couple of days ago. Didn't I, Sandy?

Mrs. Vuko, Yes.

Mrs. LaFever, Do you have the amount in there? It's like $14,000, wasn't it?

Mrs. Vuko, Yes, it's something like that.

Mrs. Conover, Do you expect that fund to continue to grow?

Mrs. LaFever, We're getting probably around $200, between $200 to $300 a week, off the sales disclosure money. So I want to work a person three days a week to do this job. She's only going to be working three days a week.

Mrs. Conover, To be paid for out of this fund.

Mrs. LaFever, Yes, it would be paid for out of this fund. As long as we can keep up doing three days a week that's all she will be working.

Mrs. Vuko, Shirley, there's $15,398.

Mrs. LaFever, Because we had an update probably from last week.

Mrs. Conover, So that's really adequate to pay that staff for the year.

Mrs. LaFever, Yes, I've been paying her out of my reassessment fund--because the job had to be done--since January. Now since there's enough money in there I need to move her over to the proper fund to pay her for the job.

Mrs. Conover moved to approve the 144 Form as submitted by the County Assessor. Mr. Carmichael seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Additional Appropriation

$6,500 to into account 1120 Hourly
$500 to into account 1210 FICA

Ms. Stroud, Okay, on the additional you are asking for $6,500 to go to the Hourly and $500 to FICA, which again comes out of that fund. Correct?
Mrs. LaFever, Correct..

Ms. Stroud, Okay. I need a motion to approve.

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

Mrs. LaFever, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, This is not the general fund here.

Mrs. LaFever, That's not general fund money. It's not an expense to the taxpayers.

Ms. Stroud, That's what I am saying to them.

Mr. Carmichael, Thank you, Shirley.

HIGHWAY 02
144 Form

Secretary from $22,110 to $0
Asst. Secretary from $21,000 to $25,000
Part-time Clerical from $8 to $9.25/hr

Ms. Stroud, Okay, Highway. Good evening, Jack.

Jack Jarnecke, Evening.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, you have a 144. I see you want to take your secretary that had been making $22,110 to $0. You want to take an assistant secretary from $21,000 to $25,000 and part-time clerical from $8 to $9.25. Do you want to go over this?

Mr. Jarnecke, Yes. We've been working with the two since Sue retired in May. Everything has been going along good and I think we can save some money by not funding or filling that other position. I feel that these two secretaries--the part-time--need additional funding for the workload they are going to be carrying.

Mr. Carmichael, Where do these funds come from, Jack?

Mr. Jarnecke, What?

Mr. Carmichael, How are these funds generated?

Mr. Jarnecke, This is all MVH money, fuel tax money.

Mr. Carmichael, Money that's returned from the state back to the county?

Mr. Jarnecke, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Excuse me, Jack. My question was, in like moving them up, I'm just questioning the amounts because they have been factored and how you arrived at the numbers. That's my question. I couldn't carry a briefcase so I don't have my stuff with me tonight. When we did the factoring for the various departments and the positions and so on, in other words, how did you arrived from 21 to 25?

Mr. Jarnecke, Well, I think we took a look at the factors of all the county employees and kind of thought that's where they should come into.

Mr. Carmichael, That job was factored before.

Mr. Jarnecke, Yes.

Mr. Carmichael, For the employee that retired.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, So the factors are still the same. The points are still the same.

Ms. Stroud, Right, but I don't have that in front of me so that's why I was asking the question.

Mr. Jarnecke, I don't have it in front of me either.

Ms. Riley, It's a COMOT 290.

Ms. Stroud, It's a COMOT 290. And what is the low?

Mr. Carmichael, Is that in line?

Ms. Riley, The low of a COMOT 290 is $18,213.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Ms. Riley, The midrange is $19,987.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Ms. Riley, And the high is $21,761.

Ms. Stroud, But now that's without taking on any extra duties. That's how it was originally factored.

Ms. Riley, The factors, that's how it was originally factored.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. I just, that's what I wanted to know.

Mr. Jarnecke, Sue's wage was $22,110.

Ms. Stroud, Right. The $22,110 was her range, but what I was asking was for the assistant secretary. I knew that that had been factored and obviously at $21,000 in that particular range just based on what was originally done is at $21,761, so she's a little under. So I just wanted to get an idea of where she fell.

Mrs. Conover, Jack, would this be--because of the combination of the two positions into one--more of an administrative assistant position?

Mr. Jarnecke, That's correct.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, so that would up it.

Mrs. Conover, Well it's not as high as $25,000, but. Jan, what is an administrative position?

Ms. Balcerak, They vary. They can range anywhere from $22,000 all the way up to $30,000.

Mrs. Vuko, $38,000 to $39,000.

Ms. Stroud, That would be way at the top though.

Mrs. Conover, That would be an executive administrative assistant.

Ms. Balcerak, Right.

Mrs. Conover, I'm saying an administrative assistant.

Ms. Balcerak, They range from $22,000 to $25,000.

Ms. Riley, Juvenile Probation's administrative assistant makes $27,002.

Ms. Balcerak, But she's a SAM.

Mrs. Conover, What about ours?

Ms. Balcerak, Look up a 425 COMOT.

Ms. Riley, A 425 COMOT, the low is $22,593. The midrange is $25,853. The high is $27,113.

Ms. Stroud, So this would fall in that range. That's all I wanted to know. I didn't know where about it would be. How about the part-time clerical, from $8 to $9.25? Does that fall within the range? What did we say when we went through budget hearings? Do you remember what we approved as far as with the clerical, the hourly, up to $10? Was it up to $10?

Ms. Riley, Hang on.

Ms. Stroud, I just want to make sure we're in the right range.

Mr. Ruge, How long will this additional last? Will it last the rest of the year or will you need more?

Mr. Jarnecke, We don't know, John.

Mr. Ruge, What?

Mr. Jarnecke, We don't know.

Mr. Carmichael, They don't know. Right now they are working on the first item.

Ms. Stroud, We're on the first one and I just wanted to make sure that they were within the range so that we're not out. We're pretty close and I just wanted to make sure that that was okay.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the full-time salary portion of the Highway 02 144 Form, secretary from $22,110 to $0 and assistant secretary (administrative assistant) from $21,000 to $25,000. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, thanks, Jack. I just wanted to make sure that it was correct.

Mr. Jarnecke, Thank you.

Com. Dave Burrus, Just a comment or a reminder, that in addition to the salary savings that Jack proposed and you approved it, thankfully, we are looking at probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $9,000 worth of fringe benefits saved every year too.

Ms. Stroud, Oh yes. I just wanted to make sure that the numbers were within what everybody in the other departments had. That's all I was saying, Jack.

Mr. Carmichael, What about the part-time clerical.

Ms. Stroud, We need to do the part-time clerical, Jack.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the hourly portion of the Highway 02 144 Form, part-time clerical from $8 to $9.25 an hour. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Mrs. Conover, Is it too late mention, we did bring it up before. This is not considered an assistant secretary any longer. It's considered an administrative assistant. Is that alright with the first and the second with the motion?

Ms. Stroud, I don't have a problem with it.

Mr. Carmichael, Is that what you wanted, Jack?

Mr. Jarnecke, Yes.

Mr. Carmichael, We agree. Who seconded? You Leon?

Mr. West, Yes, I seconded it and I agree.

Ms. Balcerak, What factors did you want to use?

Mrs. Conover, 425 COMOT, Barb, the factors?

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, Thank you.

Additional Appropriation

$25,000 into account 360.191 Stone-District 1
$50,000 into account 360.391 Stone-District 3
$75,000 into account 2362.191 Bituminous-District 1
$100,000 into account 2362.291 Bituminous-District 2
$50,000 to into account 2362.391 Bituminous-District 3

Mr. Carmichael, Is this out of the MVH, Jack?

Mr. Jarnecke, This is all out of the MVH.

Mr. Carmichael, Is this money that you have in hand?

Mr. Jarnecke, Yes.

Mr. Carmichael, $25,000 to District 1, $50,000 to District 3, $75,000 to District 1-Bituminous, $100,000 to Bituminous-District 2 and $50,000 to Bituminous-District 3. That's your summertime paving projects?

Mr. Jarnecke, Yes.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by Highway 02. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

JUVENILE PROBATION USER FEES 47
Additional Appropriation

$5,500 into account 1120 Hourly

Ms. Stroud, Okay, Juvenile Probation User Fees, which come out of the 47. They are asking for an additional of $5,500. Good evening. How are you tonight, Amy?

Amy Beier, I'm fine, how are you?

Ms. Stroud, Well, we're hanging in here.

Ms. Beier, We're asking for $5,500 out of our probation user fees to be transferred into our part-time hourly line item. We currently have $8,117 in there. We have two part-time probation officers that get paid out of that. So we don't have enough to take them through the end of the year and so we're asking for the additional $5,500 in order to get through the end of the year.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael, What's the source of these funds?

Ms. Beier, This is the probation user fees, it's not general fund. Currently there's a balance in there of $71,644.

Ms. Stroud, I noticed that it's for the remainder of the school year. I just wanted to ask one question. You don't use these officers during the summertime? Is that correct? Is it during the regular school year or is it used for all year?
Ms. Beier, This is for all year, yes.

Ms. Stroud, Again, this is an additional so we'll a motion first all, then we need a roll call.

Mrs. Conover moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by Juvenile Probation User Fees. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you very much.

Mike Golub, Thank you.

PARKS OPERATING 127
Transfer
$1,500 from account 3950 Contractual Services into account 3340 Advertising
$2,000 from account 3950 Contractual Services into account 3980 Event Expenses
$1,500 from account 3939 Grants into account 3130 Training & Education

Ms. Stroud, Parks Operating. Was that your cell phone I heard?

Ed Melendez, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, I'm going to ask the commissioners to please post 'no cell phones in meetings, please'. That goes for anyone. I'm sorry, but it is a distraction with cell phones going off. Thank you very much, Mr. Hollenbeck.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I was turning it off, Madam Chair.

Ms. Stroud, Oh, okay. Well I think most people would agree that it is a distraction when you're trying to…

Mr. Hollenbeck, Yes, I saw a guy get thrown out of a restaurant in Chicago because his cell phone went off.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, they are a distraction. I think they're a distraction. I didn't mean to pick on you, Ed, because a couple of others, I've heard a couple of others, I just happened to see you go out and I knew that was you. I haven't seen them for months, so you know.

Mr. Melendez, I've turned it to vibrating.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, thank you. I'm glad. Okay, with Parks & Recreation, I see that you want to transfer from Fund 127. Is that correct?

Mr. Melendez, That's correct. That is the fund that is not a general fund. That is the funds that we receive for tourism grants as well as donations go into that fund.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. So, you want to transfer $1,500 from Contractual Services into your Advertising. You want to transfer $2,000 to your Event Expenses and you want to transfer $1,500 to your Training & Education. Is that correct?

Mr. Melendez, That's correct.

Ms. Stroud, Alright, we'll do that one first.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitting by Parks Operating. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Additional Appropriation

$3,100 into account 1110 Salaries
$300 into account 1210 FICA
$200 into account 1220 Medical/Life Insurance
$200 into account 1230 PERF

Ms. Stroud, The next one that you want to do is an additional.
Mr. Melendez, And that's still in the 127 account.

Ms. Stroud, Fund 127, you want to have an additional of $3,100 to your Salaries. You need $300 in FICA. You need $200 in Medical/Life Insurance and you need $200 in your PERF. Is that correct?

Mr. Melendez, That's correct.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, I need a motion.

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

Ms. Stroud, Okay, it's approved. Thank you, Ed.

Mr. Melendez, Thank you. I'll go back and shut my phone off.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I would certainly hope so.

CIRCUIT COURT 01.81
Transfer

$500 from account 3130 Other Legal into account 3170 Interpreters

Ms. Stroud, Okay, Circuit Court. Judge Webber. I see yours is an 01. This a general fund, is that correct?

Judge Tom Webber, This is a transfer for the Circuit Court. I'm doing Circuit Court's.

Ms. Stroud, You want to transfer $500 to Interpreters. Is that correct?

Judge Webber, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Judge Webber, The fund is nearly depleted. We have outstanding invoices for the Circuit Court of $472 to cover interpreter expenses.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by Circuit Court. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, that takes care of that one.

SUPERIOR COURT 2 01.83
Transfer

$300 from account 1320 Medical Services into account 1330 Psychiatric Services
$600 from account 3630 Equipment Repair other than Vehicles into account 3610 Maintenance Agreements

Judge Webber, As far as Superior Court 2, we are short in the psychiatric. We have insufficient funds to pay a psychiatric bill. As you will recall, when we cut our budget we cut $2,500 out of Psychiatric Services. As it turns out now, we had to pay for a psychiatrist examination of a man who--that chicken case.

Ms. Stroud, I think we all remember that one.

Judge Webber, Anyway, we're short $300 in Psychiatric Services.

Ms. Stroud, Which we, generally, I mean, we all think that he generally needs that so we're not going to deny that.

Judge Webber, As a matter of fact, both psychiatrists said he's sane.

Ms. Stroud, He's sane?

Judge Webber, He's sane.

Ms. Stroud, We paid those psychiatrists too much money.

Judge Webber, Well, there's a difference between medical and psychiatry, so.

Ms. Stroud, Whatever.

Judge Webber, Then the other transfer we need is for our maintenance agreement. I think I mentioned last time at budget time, we expected a budget expense of the maintenance on the new sound system. The bill finally came in and I have enough to transfer to cover that expense on the transfer.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, do I have a motion to approve?

Mr. West moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by Superior Court 2. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Judge Webber, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you very much.

Judge Webber, I would mention too, I also have another case where a man might be insane, so I'll probably be back on another case because I'm out of funds in the psychiatric expenses. It's a roll of the dice when we reduce our budget. This is a case where we roll the dice and now I've got the second case this year who claimed being insane at the time of the crime, so I'll be back to talk to you again about that one.

Ms. Stroud, Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. But I hope we get a little better return for our money than this one.

Judge Webber, Well the thing is too with these psychiatric cases, formally we had Porter-Starke doing some of these examinations and they would not charge us. Now, because of their budget difficulties they put us on a reduced fee. We met with Porter-Starke's board and we are getting a reduced fee from one of the psychiatrists, but we can't get both from the same facility so we have to go outside the facility for one. So we get a reduced cost on one. Before we didn't have to pay at all, but we had to pay for the second one. Now we're getting a psychiatrist and a half of the expense on these cases.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, thank you.

COMMISSIONERS 01.30
Commissioner David Burrus to address the Council concerning unemployment issues
Transfer

$18 from account 3973 Change of Venue into account 3976 County Property Assessed Benefits
$50 from account 3340 Advertising into account 3410 Official Bonds
$100 from account 3710 Equipment Rentals into account 3630 Equipment other than Vehicles
$618 from account 3970 Memorial Day Expenses into account 3750 Other Rentals
$100 from account 3970 Memorial Day Expenses into account 3410 Official Bonds
$300 from account 3970 Memorial Day Expenses into account 3530 Equipment other than Vehicles
$13,620 from account 3510 Power into account 3440 Unemployment

Ms. Stroud, Good evening.
Com. Burrus, Good evening again. We have seven requests for transfers. The first six are relatively small requests and the seventh is somewhat larger and I want to discuss that one with you in a little more detail. I believe you have the request forms in front of you. I will be glad to go down the list if you care to or how would you like me to do this?

Ms. Stroud, Why don't we look at see. The first one is $18 to County Property Assessed Benefits, I don't think that's anything. Then $50 to Bonds, you're transferring them from one to another, like Change of Venue and so on, the Advertising, Equipment Rental to Equipment Repair. I don't think that there's a problem with that one. I think the problem would be the one that you just said that you're going to explain.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfers of funds as submitted by the Commissioners, the amounts of $18, $50, $100, $618, $100 and $300. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, We'll go to biggest one here and that's $13,620 to Unemployment. Dave, do you want to explain that?

Com. Burrus, Yes. Last week I prepared a letter and I believe Jan placed a copy in each of your boxes. But it has to do with the unemployment benefits that the County pays. The situation is somewhat interesting, but yet somewhat difficult right now.
Sometime ago, Porter County Government elected to separate from the Indiana Unemployment Insurance Program. At that time they chose to become self-insured for these unemployment benefits. That responsibility that we assume for paying these claims directly have been addressed through an annual appropriation of approximately $20,000, as line item 3440 in the commissioners' budget.
In the letter--and I don't know if you have it with you--but I had shown a recap of the claims that we experienced in 2001, just last year. Those totaled $18,951 and that represented an average of about $1,580 per month. So as recently as last year the $20,000 appropriation that we had been in the habit of taking care of was sufficient.
Beginning in January of this year however, with the reduction in force that we had to go through and some other personnel changes, we're showing a significantly different pattern. For the first four months of this year our claims have totaled $32,096 and this represents an average now of $8,025 per month. So we're operating at a significant deficit.
Prior to this meeting, I believe it was in March or there about, we had transferred a little over $2,000 from a number of other commissioner line items and we were able to pay these claims through March. Several weeks ago, maybe even a couple of months now, I had a conversation Barb with you and Dave Hollenbeck about this situation and at that time we agreed that we should go ahead and continue to transfer to the extent that we were able.
Tonight we are at a point where the April bill is due and payable at $13,611. One of the only few line items that I have that has that kind of balance in it is Power. That is one of our utility accounts and I'm suggesting that we do that tonight to be able to maintain our current status on that bill. However, it's obvious too that we're going to be taking money from an account that's already operating at somewhat of a deficit as we approach the end of the year because of the cuts we experienced earlier.
One of the questions that we have to obviously ask on this is would it be important or beneficial to us to re-affiliated with the state unemployment insurance program? Sheila and some of the folks that work with her there have inquired and they have found that with our level of employees--that is the number of employees--and with the payroll amount that we have on a bi-weekly basis, our quarterly contribution to that account in the form of a premium would be $90,000.
So this simply reaffirms the wisdom of the program that was established several years ago. We're still considerably below that. But in view of this information, I am recommending or I will be at a later date that we look at an additional appropriation of approximately $64,000 representing an average of about $8,000 per month for the unpaid months of this year.
I talked to Councilman Carmichael and he indicated, or he asked if there was a cycle that this might be affected by. These benefits, people are eligible for benefits for six months and if they haven't found employment and if they still qualify they can request an extension. So my own feeling is that this cycle should probably return back to a fairly normal, typical level by the end of this year, if we don't have to have any more reductions in force.
So tonight then, I want to request to transfer the figure of 13-thousand and some odd dollars from our power account so that we can pay the April unemployment. Then at the next opportunity I will be back to ask for an additional appropriation to cover the remainder of the year.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by the Commissioners, the amount of $13,620. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you, Dave. I think a couple of things so that the people in the audience know. These are benefits that the employees are entitled to. If we were not to pay these you would leave yourself open for lawsuits. I mean, that has happened in areas and fortunately our predecessors did have the wisdom to make a line item of putting $20,000 aside whereby we could pay the benefits in the past. We've just exceeded that because of the cutbacks and so on that we have had to have. To pay $90,000 per quarter every year to the state just to get into their program, you can see that we have saved quite a bit of money over the last few years or however many years it's been into effect. So at this point in time, I think that this is the way that we have to go, then we'll have to address it down the road. The claims, hopefully, will be less and will--I don't want to say die out, but--end by the end of the year.

Com. Burrus, They should return to normal.

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Com. Burrus, If I could have a moment, I'd like to give you an update too, quickly, on the health insurance program.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Com. Burrus, We've got some good news, some very good news and some not so good, as always is the case. As you'll remember, last year, from what we had requested on our budget, the Council had initially cut that by $500,000. Then in addition to that, with the 10% cut requirement, we had taken it down another 400 and some odd thousand. Almost $500,000.
The good news is, that through the efforts of the employees and also some of the re-configurations that we had gone through, our current monthly claims are running at about 80% of normal. If that continues, and that's a real big if, then that should represent a savings of what we anticipated at the $450,000 to $500,000 level.
So if everything continues as it has and hopefully everyone can help us do that, then that portion of the changes that we asked for are paying off. We still though have the issue of approximately $500,000 that was cut from the budget initially and we're probably going to have to address that kind of a figure before the year is out. So again, good news and bad news, but we still have a large figure ahead of us yet.

Ms. Stroud, And I think we have to thank our employees for being a little more prudent in using the insurance and hopefully that will continue through this year and continue into the future. Thank you.

Com. Burrus, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Does anybody else have any questions? Karen, did you have a question?

Mrs. Conover, No, I guess I just wanted to echo that prior to the reduction in workforce, we did have a meeting and we knew that unemployment was going to have to be paid, one outweighing the other. I just wish those folks well and hopefully they can find some good employment.

Com. Burrus, From what we see in the records they are doing relatively well, so.

Ms. Stroud, Oh good. Thank you.

PUBLIC DEFENDER 01.84
Transfer

$1,501 from account 3950 Contractual Services into account 3420 Liability Insurance

Ms. Stroud, Next on the agenda is the Public Defender. Good evening.

Jim Tsoutsouris, This is erroneously labeled an additional. It should have been a transfer.

Ms. Stroud, On here it says transfer.
Mr. Tsoutsouris, Right.

Ms. Stroud, What I have here, to transfer $1,501 to Liability Insurance. Is that correct?

Mr. Tsoutsouris, That is correct.

Ms. Stroud, You're going to take it from Contractual Services? Is that correct?

Mr. Tsoutsouris, Correct.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by the Public Defender. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, That's approved since it is a transfer.

James Tsoutsouris To Address The Council Concerning The Hiring Freeze

Mr. Tsoutsouris, I did want to address the Council regarding the hiring freeze. I have a deputy who would like to go back into private practice and I have another individual who wants to take his place. I'm not sure, I don't want to run a falter your hiring freeze by doing so, but the money is already appropriated for the balance of this year. I may face this again at the end of the year depending on what happens with Delores Aylesworth and her election.

Ms. Stroud, But you're considered under public safety, so.

Judge Webber, He takes care of two courts.

Ms. Stroud, Right, so I think when you reach the point of knowing what you're going to need, then you'll have to come back and address us on it. But since you're public safety.

Mr. Tsoutsouris, Yes, I will not need any additional monies. It's already appropriated.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. That we are glad to hear.

Mr. West, Like you said, he might have to work forever.

Mr. Tsoutsouris, Right, you can't quit it. Thank you very much.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, thank you.

At this time, there was a five-minute break.

JAIL 01.32 and FED/INT. GOV. CO-OP 198
144 Form

Jailer Probationary from 0 to 4 at $23,630
Captain from 0 to 1 at $31,900
Lieutenant from 0 to 3 at $29,900
Administrative Assistant from $0 to $24,500
Sergeant from 0 to 2 at $28,557

Ms. Stroud, Okay, call this meeting back to order. Next on the agenda is the Jail. You're asking from 01.32 and the Federal Incentive Government money, am I correct? The 198?

Sheriff Dave Reynolds, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, For additionals. Jailer Probationary from 0 to 4 at $23,3,630. Captain from 0 to 1 at $31,900. Lieutenant from 0 to 3 at $29,900. Administrative Assistant from 0 to 1 at $24,500. Sergeant from 0 to 2 at $28,557.

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Discussion.

Mrs. Conover, I guess I just wanted to say that eight years ago county officials began discussing the need for a new jail. The decision was made to build one. Then the issue became 350 or 450 beds. 450 beds was decided to take us into the future. Then the issue became staffing. Numbers as high as 80 to 60 to 40 then 20. Direct supervision versus indirect. I would like to remind this Council that subsequent meetings were held prior to last year's budget hearings and the majority of this board approved 20. Since that time we lost two major taxpayers, Bethlehem and National Steel filed Chapter 11. All budgets were reduced by 17%. Current jail staff was reduced by two and all 20 additional new jailers were scrapped. Our general fund budget cannot support new staff the jail included because of the insignificant loss of revenue that I previously mentioned.
Another funding source outside of local tax dollars can pay for the additional staff necessary to hire ten new jailers. Questions and concerns have been addressed and readdressed through charts, graphs, memos and phone calls as to the federal funding and housing federal inmates. The timeliness and the payments, the cost per inmate per day, the fixed cost, etc., etc., etc.
We have a unique situation in our county. We have one jail that services all cities and towns and yet this jail is funded by our county tax dollars. Our new jail is state of the art and nearly completed and nearly under budget.
I will move to approve for supervision, number one to open its doors. Number two, for the safety of our jailers. Number three, our inmates and the public in general. A funding mechanism beyond local tax dollars is in place to offset the operating costs that don't go away and will eventually pay for this jail, but operating goes on and on.

Mrs. Conover moved to approve the 144 Form as submitted by the Fed/Int. Government Co-op Fund 198. Mr. West seconded.

Ms. Stroud, Discussion. Does anybody have any discussion on this?

Mr. Carmichael, That jail has to be opened, period.

Ms. Stroud, I think everyone agrees with that situation.

Mr. Carmichael, We've been fooling around with it long enough.

Mr. West, I agree.

Mr. Carmichael, It's time for a decision.

Ms. Stroud, Let me ask you this. How much from the general fund and how much from the federal fund are we talking about here?

Sheriff Reynolds, We are talking absolutely no money from the general fund.

Ms. Stroud, Then why is it listed 01.32?

Sheriff Reynolds, Well we are transfer, you're moving around, let me see if I can get this straight, that's why I got Debbie behind me. We're moving, we're moving, we're moving six, the ranking positions would be paid by the federal and then the ranks that I had before would go back to 01 and that would be the same, so we're not asking for any additional monies, it's just going to be moved around.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, let me ask you another question. This is, I mean, from now and in the future these positions will be paid out of that money that comes from the federal government? Is that correct?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes, and I will add, and that's why I brought, I want to introduce Paul Downing, he, I'd like to thank him for taking the time from, to come from Indianapolis. He came last time in August when you guys approved at 20 and it went real smooth and we have to, because we had about eight or nine workshops, and many of you, which you participated in and through the direction of my liaison we, we put it all together and presented it to you, you guys approved it.

Ms. Stroud, Well I think that, I'm sorry.

Sheriff Reynolds, But I'm just saying, but I think I would like just to take the time because he drove up here from Indianapolis today, that he'd like to make a comment about, you mentioned something that was really important today as far as liability and I think there's a lot of things that we need to discuss and I know we don't want to talk a lot about it, but I think you understand where we're coming from. But I'd like to, just to have Paul take a few minutes if you will.

Paul Downing, Not a lot to speak.

Sheriff Reynolds, I know, but I want you to.

Mr. Downing, Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Paul Downing, I'm the state jail inspector. I have no authority over the jail or the jail operations. My job is primarily to assist the counties in avoiding litigation as opposed to the sheriff who has a duty to protect and that duty to protect primarily is comprised of four components, policy, training, staffing and training.
When they first contacted us about building a new jail in Porter County, we met, I know as early as August of 1998 with Schenkel & Schultz and we had recommended at that time they do a staffing proposal for the county. That staffing proposal was done in February of 1999 at which point a man by the name of Mike McClellan who was contracted by Schenkel & Schultz recommended 60 staff. This was an increase of 24 as there was currently at that time 36 authorization, authorized.
We then reviewed blueprints, I think, in July 1999 or another schematic in July 1999 at which point we suggested that the staffing proposal done by Mr. McClellan was flawed in the booking area in that he had only allocated one person for the booking area and we felt that it may need two. The booking area being the most intense form of supervision in the entire jail. You have the high-risk inmates, those most susceptible to suicide, all housed in that area.
Since at least June 1998, up until July of 2001, we had recommended six additional jailers for the old jail. It had nothing to do with the new jail. We felt that the old jail was short staffed. Four of those six were authorized, I believe, in 2000. I think in January of 2000 and through a subsequent cut, two of those four positions were lost. Since 1998 the jail has increased in jail population just from the jail inspections from 153 inmates to a peak of 250. The staffing at the current jail did not keep in pace with that. The reason I'm bringing it out is, the staffing is needed, it's not necessarily because you have a new building. It is because your current operation was under staffed with the inmates that were being served.
Some of the problems associated with under staffing, inadequate staffing, generally I see an increase on inmate on inmate violence. That takes the form primarily to what's called cell bosses. That means when staff don't supervise and there's a perception nobody is there to supervise or nobody's in charge, inmates will do it on their own. Typically the strong survive. You have that in your current jail now. I have seen that, visibly seen that, when I've asked and inmate a question and another inmate has intimated to that inmate not responding. So you have cell bosses in your current jail.
Generally you will see an increase in contraband because just the lack of staffing to maintain good controls on it to do the shakedowns as needed and on a periodic basis. Breakdown in grievance system, breakdown, this is a hearing process. The grievance system was designed to help you avoid litigation. Through the prison litigation format an inmate must use that system and, and in their case, in Porter County's case at the jail not only are the inmates grieve a problem--to bring it to the sheriff's attention--but are allowed to appeal a decision rendered as part of the grievance. Generally with a lack of staff that system gets inundated. It gets physically impossible to adequately look at grievances properly.
With the adult disciplinary procedures, when a judge sentences an inmate to ten years to the Porter County jail or five years or I can take two years. When a judge sentences an inmate to the Porter County jail for two years, we all think he only has, that individual only has to serve one year. In actuality the sheriff controls that other year. He could let him out a year early. He can take part of that time. He can change rate at which he earns credit time. Without adequate staffing I tend to see that system breakdown. It's easier to lock an inmate down than to go through the hearing process and do it administratively and do it properly.
I'll usually see inmate retaliation against the building. In an older jail, inadequate staffing, Clarke County, the inmates destroyed the entrance on the door. They took paperback books, staff was not there, staffing was intermittent, whenever staff was available they would go back and check on the inmates. Inmates put books in the door, shut the door so that the hinges were sprung. So at one point a good number of doors at the Clarke County jail could not even be secured.
Parke County was a new jail that was inadequately staffed when they opened. Inmates retaliated in that jail through flushing items down the commode system. They literally had to purchase an $80,000, it's called a muffin monster, but had to install it in the sewer between the jail and the city because the clothing, the items that inmates were flushing down into the system. And a lot of that was just inadequate staffing. In-staff was not available to respond, adequately respond, to the inmates.
Generally with inadequate staffing I usually a higher than normal staff turnover rate, declinage, you know, in training, an increase in community complaints. The staff gets short tempered, it wears on them and pretty soon that will spill over into responding to the public by telephone or in person.
With Mr. McClellan's recommendation for 60 jailers, like I said, we thought there was a flaw that was in the booking area. That's not a significant number; significant, different from what he had recommendation for podular remote supervision--and you mentioned that--the linear style, the podular remote, the podular direct supervision. I will tell you now, I worked five years at a podular direct supervision, I had no lawsuits in five years. I may have had one incident every other month. There's no comparison to any other form of supervision. You, financially, this county cannot afford that at this point. I realize that.
If you open less than the entire jail. If you open two of the three pods, you cannot say that the number of staff will be reduced proportionately. For example, if you open up A and C pod, leave B pod closed, you're actually only reducing a requirement for five staff. So it's not proportional to the number of beds. It's based primarily on design. Anything probably less than 60 is going to generate overtime on a daily basis. I've discussed that with Sheriff Reynolds this morning. At what point do you draw the line and say we pay the overtime or we hire the additional staff. That is something you may have to look at in 60 days or 90 days or down the road.
In 1998 when we recommended the staffing proposal be conducted by Schenkel & Schultz, they recommended to the transition that they too do a staffing analysis in a little more detail, a lot more in depth. Whereas Schenkel & Schultz used a shifter-leave factor of 1.66, that is common for architects to use that number. Their shifter-leave factor was actually slightly higher at 1.7. Very fractional. I've reviewed that staffing proposal. I don't see any fluff in it. I don't know that even with what they're recommending may be adequate. It something that we may need to take a lot at down the road. They've done an analysis. I would recommend if, if you do not believe that analysis to be correct, then I would strongly recommend that a consultant be hired to conduct that analysis for you. Jails are inherently unsafe just by the nature. I strongly recommend you not compound through inadequate staffing here in Porter County and I'll answer any question I possibly can.

Ms. Stroud, I just had a couple of questions, Dave. Going from jailer probationary from zero to four, how many jailers will you have all together?

Sheriff Reynolds, Well, with all staff, we'll have 49.

Ms. Stroud, 49. And my other question, pertaining to monies and so on coming in, I know that with the federal prisoners that you had quoted $40 a day. It is also my understanding, am I correct, that that has to be reviewed at the end of the year?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, And that could be changed either up or down or stay the same?

Sheriff Reynolds, I've got a, that was one of my emails or I think that was addressed by Karen Martin at a council, commissioners' meeting.

Ms. Stroud, I have a copy of the commissioners'.

Sheriff Reynolds, I've been on the phone since Friday trying to get something in writing from Washington. You know, they're a little slow too, you know.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I know.

Sheriff Reynolds, And, what I have somewhere here, I have an email from Washington D.C. indicating that they're granting me an extension until December of 2003 before any reassessment.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, that was okay. So it will remain at that, because I working a little bit with the figures of what the commissioners had figured and what you had figured with the $33.64, I think that was the number that they came up with from the $40 would leave $6.36 difference.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Ms. Stroud, You know, as far as, I don't want to say extra money, it's not extra money, but however you want to phrase it.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Ms. Stroud, Then the other thing that comes into play too is the amount for the state prisoners. Don't you get $35 for them a day?

Sheriff Reynolds, Right, but at the meeting, I think what's so important is what Dave Burrus said. We gave you the initial cost.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Sheriff Reynolds, Of our breakdown by our cost. What he broke it down…

Ms. Stroud, Even more.

Sheriff Reynolds, He, he included everything.

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Sheriff Reynolds, So those are your expenses.

Ms. Stroud, Correct.

Sheriff Reynolds, So what if, if they're paying us less that means it's costing us less. You know, it's, they, the government, the federal government, the state's a little different, but the federal government is not going to, I mean, the whole system wouldn't work. They're not going to pay you less than what it costs.

Ms. Stroud, That, that's my question in the sense of if I use the figures that you came up with for going into the new jail with what the state is giving you, you have a leeway of what, a dollar-something?

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Ms. Stroud, A $1.36.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Ms. Stroud, That's--correct me--really close. I mean, you know…

Sheriff Reynolds, But…

Ms. Stroud, Let's hope that everything has been figured in there because if it's that close, could we be in the negative once we get into the new jail. Maybe that's my question.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right, but my response to that is, what other department is being charged with funding additional staff. You don't, what other options do you have? I mean, you know.

Ms. Stroud, Right, I just wanted to…

Sheriff Reynolds, I'm not being defensive, but.

Ms. Stroud, Right, and I understand that.

Sheriff Reynolds, I'm just saying…

Ms. Stroud, . I just wanted to get it clear.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Ms. Stroud, That we're cutting it pretty close there. Does anybody else have any other questions?

Mr. Carmichael, Yes, I do.

Ms. Stroud, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Bill.

Mr. Carmichael, Dave, when you presented those figures to me, we had already done our own analysis, several of the council members put our heads together. The actual cost incurred without all these fixed costs as the commissioners had figured in, they figured in all the fixed costs.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, Those costs you are going to incur whether you have one federal prisoner, none or 20. Those figures, we didn't figure them in. We figured the net.

Sheriff Reynolds, Exactly.

Mr. Carmichael, After everything, it's about $18 per day per prisoner.

Sheriff Reynolds, That's correct.

Mr. Carmichael, Which is far different than $6 per day, net, after all salaries are paid, all the expenses paid and so forth. So the figure is somewhere between the two of them, okay. But, I would rather with the figures we did--the analysis we did--say they we are gaining about $18 a day per prisoner.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right, from my perspective you are. But what we did was, we went a step farther and took in the County's…

Mr. Carmichael, Well, they figured in all the costs, as they probably should have with their factoring, but those are fixed costs that are there regardless.

Sheriff Reynolds, Exactly.

Mr. Carmichael, They have to pay them anyway if you took in none.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, Okay. But I think it's time to move on with this situation and get this jail open and get things settled down here. Lets show some progress.

Mrs. Conover, I guess I just wanted to add that the cost that the commissioners added into this, their conservative cost, that every conceivable, possible thing to show that we're at least going to make $6. It could be more than that. This costs are going to be spread out amongst the inmates depending on the more people when we also get into the jail. I guess I wanted to mention too, besides the $40 a day per federal inmate, transportation costs will also be in addition to the $40. Overtime costs, if it's running a fellow over shift to pick somebody up from a federal facility to bring him to ours. We've also approved, I believe at our last council meeting, a booking fee of $25 per arrestee that is going to, number one: defer the cost of a full-time drug therapist and our county facility and the balance then would be spent on jailer overtime besides what they already appropriated in their budget for jailer overtime. We were supposed to be looking for additional revenues to make things work and this is a situation that found another big pot of money and taking on the responsibility.

Ms. Stroud, John.

Mr. Ruge, Porter County will be reimbursed for all these additional expenses for ten new people?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes.

Mr. Ruge, And when will they be reimbursed?

Mr. Carmichael, It already is, John.

Mr. Ruge, What?

Mr. Carmichael, It already is. We have the money.
Mr. Ruge, Oh, from the federal government?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes.

Mr. Ruge, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, anybody else?

Mr. Carmichael, Call for the vote.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, since it's an additional, we need a roll call.

Motion carried unanimously

Additional Appropriation

$125,964.63 into account 1110 Salaries
$9,636.29 into account 1210 FICA
$5,668.41 into account 1230 PERF
$28,334.42 into account 1220 Medical/Life Insurance
$319 into account 1220 Medical/Life Insurance


Ms. Stroud, You're not done yet, Mr. Reynolds. You're packing up your papers there. You got so excited.

Sheriff Reynolds, Well I just, I'm just trying to get out of here.

Ms. Stroud, You're trying to get out of here.

Mr. Carmichael, Good move, Sheriff.

Ms. Stroud, You need an additional to go to Salaries.

Mr. Carmichael, This is out of that same fund.

Ms. Stroud, This is out the same fund, 01.32 and 198.30.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right, the Community Corrections fund for last year.

Mr. Carmichael, No, we aren't down there yet.

Ms. Stroud, No, I'm doing the additional for $125,964.63 to Salaries, $8,639.29 to FICA, $5,668.41 to PERF, $28,334.42 to Medical and $319 to Medical/Life.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by the Fed/Int. Government Co-op Fund 198. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

COUNTY CORRECTIONS 07.32
Additional Appropriation

$10,000 into account 1130 Overtime
$20,000 into account 2210 Gas, Fuel & Lubrication

Ms. Stroud, Okay, for the next one, you need for the County Corrections fund. Is this correct, for overtime?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, And it is a different fund, I know that. Fund 07.32. I'll go through this first. $10,000 to Overtime and $20,000 to Gas, Fuel & Lubrication. Questions?

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by County Corrections. Mr. West seconded.
Ms. Stroud, Does anybody have any comments, questions or whatever? I just have a question. Maybe are we trying to cut back a little on the overtime? Has that been possible or not?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes. We've done real well.

Ms. Stroud, Are we behind where we were like this time year or whatever?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes, I think we're doing real well. This money, most of this money went in, is going into, just the cost for the training of our jail and our, our employees. Just in the whole transition process, which took…

Ms. Stroud, This all comes under overtime though?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes. The $10,000 is, yes.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. And the $20,000?

Sheriff Reynolds, Is for gas.

Ms. Stroud, I know that account was cut before.

Sheriff Reynolds, Right.

Ms. Stroud, Have we gotten the thing in place as far as tracking?

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes, I have something here.

Ms. Stroud, I know we talked about it. Is it done?

Sheriff Reynolds, I talked to Bill and I'm going to meet with him in the next couple of days.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael, I'll check it out for you and give you a report on it.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes, you're going to like it.

Ms. Stroud, I'm going to like it, well good.

Sheriff Reynolds, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, the motion has been made and seconded. We need to do a roll call. Sorry about that Mrs. Vuko. The next one we won't have to have a roll call. Just this one.

Motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Sheriff Reynolds, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you.

COUNCIL 01.25
Transfer

$30 from account 2120 Office Fixture into account 2250 Other Supplies

Ms. Stroud, The next one on the agenda is ourselves.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by the Council. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

WESTCHESTER REASSESSMENT 108.12
Transfer

$10,000 from account 1110 Hourly into account 3950 Contractual Services

Ms. Stroud, Okay, Westchester Reassessment.

Mr. Carmichael, Hi, Candy.

Ms. Stroud, Hi, Candy.

Candy Crone, Hi.

Ms. Stroud, This is from your reassessment account, 108.12, to transfer $10,000 to Contractual Services.

Ms. Crone, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, do you want to explain what's happening.

Ms. Crone, We wanted to hire a group called the Nexus Group to help us to, with the Bethlehem Steel personal property appeal at the county level. The commissioners have approved the contract and since I have the money in the reassessment budget.

Ms. Stroud, It's a matter of transferring it from that budget to this.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by Westchester Reassessment. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Candy Crone To Address The Council Concerning The Hiring Freeze

Ms. Stroud, Now you also want to address us according to the hiring freeze. Is that correct?

Ms. Crone, Yes. I gave you a letter going over basically what it is I'd like to do. More than likely in January my second deputy will be going over to another department. I would like to be able to hire someone hourly at this time to get trained and be able to put them into that full-time position in January.

Ms. Stroud, I think that you explained it here. When we asked for reductions in the budget, you cut one person back to part-time. Is that correct?

Ms. Crone, That's correct

Ms. Stroud, And since then that person has left your office.

Ms. Crone, That's right.

Ms. Stroud, So that's open.

Ms. Crone, Yes. I have not replaced her at this time thinking that I might need that hourly to have someone be trained towards, in the next six months.

Ms. Stroud, Well lets see, after the 30th of this month you'll know more. But the other person that is leaving your office, if unopposed and wins in the fall election, will be leaving in January. So that is what you are saying.

Ms. Crone, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, So that would leave you how many full-time people in your office?

Ms. Crone, One and myself.
Ms. Stroud, And with all this that's going on with Bethlehem.

Ms. Crone, Right.
Ms. Stroud, So it this something that you want us to just think about at this point in time or? Right now you don't have your part-time position filled. The money was in there, correct?

Ms. Crone, That's right.

Ms. Stroud, And even though we have a hiring freeze we still have to look at the possibility that you're going to be down two people instead of the one in January. Is that what we are saying?

Ms. Crone, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, And there would only be two of you in there with the Bethlehem appeals.

Ms. Crone, This second deputy's position has been with this office for 30 years. There's always been a second deputy. With the growth in the county, the industrial buildings that we have up north, we really need someone that is trained. I know that there is a need for part-time also, but in this case we need to have someone that can be trained to take over this position.

Ms. Stroud, Let me ask you this. How long could you hold off before you would think that you would need to hire someone part-time to get them trained. How much training time would they need, if we agree to this?

Ms. Crone, Actually, I thought that I should probably get someone as soon as I can. I think six months, they still would not be completely trained but at least we could get a foothold on it. Nancy has been responsible for all the data collection and actually the third deputy also went out with her and did the data collection. Now that we're minus that deputy we're going to be soon in serious trouble if we can't get someone trained. This is not something that somebody can just go out and do.

Mr. Carmichael, Would this be a transfer to part-time?

Ms. Crone, No, I have money in my part-time hourly right now.

Ms. Stroud, She just asked to address us.

Ms. Crone, But I'm asking you to…

Ms. Stroud, Are you asking us tonight to approve this or are you…

Ms. Crone, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Asking us to consider it and then come back for your approval?

Ms. Crone, I would actually like for you to approve it so that if I were to hire someone I could hire them with the idea that they are going to work into full-time. I don't like to hire somebody and kind of keep them up in the air if they know that they are working towards something, a full-time position, it would work out a lot better.

Ms. Stroud, I understand where you are coming from, but I think we have a situation where we are assuming that something is going to happen when it totally hasn't happened. Not that you don't have the part-time, I'm talking about Nancy's position.

Ms. Crone, I understand that and if that…

Ms. Stroud, And I think that the closing is not until after the end of this month, so I really would feel more comfortable in knowing for sure that this is going to happen. I mean, that's my own opinion. I understand where you are coming from. I know that you're going to need a person up there. The size of the Westchester community and so on that you do. I just have a little problem with trying to pass this tonight when knowing that the closing is not until the 30th and the for sure we know that it's not going to be.

Ms. Crone, I contemplated waiting, but you won't have another meeting until the end of July and I'm not sure of the date on that.

Ms. Stroud, The 23rd.
Ms. Crone, But I will be in French Lick at a conference at that time.

Ms. Stroud, Well you could send your chief deputy.

Ms. Crone, She'll be there also. It's an assessors' conference where we will be at.

Mrs. Conover, Could Shirley come for you or is she going to be there also?

Ms. Crone, She'll be there also.

Ms. Stroud, She'll be there also. They'll all be gone.

Ms. Crone, That's why I wanted to get it started anyway, to bring it to you. To at least let you know that I'm going to be asking for this. I wasn't sure how you were going to respond. I wanted to throw this out for discussion, because I just can't see running the office up there with what we've got going on with just myself and a chief deputy.

Ms. Stroud, Oh, I know. It's putting you in a position of with some of the ones who just have the one and a chief deputy. That's about what this is going to have. What's the Council's wishes?

Mr. Carmichael, You've got five votes. You could take a consensus.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, that's what I say.

Mr. Carmichael, Give her some direction.

Mrs. Conover, Well, in lieu of the fact that you're waiting for the filing to end to see if this lady is going to be contested and if she's not contested and we know if she'll be leaving the office at the end of the year, I don't have any problem. She has the money. She just wants to start training somebody and then the promise of full-time then come January, I don't have a problem with that.

Ms. Stroud, So maybe the stipulation would be that she could--I mean, I'm just thinking out loud here--that you could go ahead with this but hold off until after the filing date at the end of the month and therefore you could go ahead. If no one files, then we're sure that that person will be leaving in January.

Ms. Crone, And it may take me that time to actually find someone.

Ms. Stroud, It may take you a few months.

Ms. Crone, To hire.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Ms. Crone, Because I'd have to post the job and look through applications. Actually, something interesting happened, if you have a minute. A gentleman saw the article in the paper and he came into my office and volunteered to be trained for free because he just thought it would be an interesting job and he would like to apply for it. Which I was quite shocked and I of course wouldn't since I do have the money in part-time, if that were the case I would pay him. But I just thought that was really something.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I know the money is there, I just feel a little more comfortable so that we're sure at the end of the month if no one files that we know that that position will need to be filled. So I probably would say that maybe we would, you know, go along with it, but not seek someone for that position until after July 1st.

Mr. Carmichael, Do you have problem with that, Leon?

Ms. Stroud, Do you have a problem with it, Leon?

Mr. Carmichael, Pine Township.

Ms. Stroud, Pine Township, just so we steer you in the right direction. I mean, you're the one.

Mr. West, I'm the one? I know, I'm just one.

Ms. Stroud, Well I'm just saying, you know.

Mr. West, You know, I have a problem with giving someone a job and saying that this going to become a full-time job. I can't, you can't guarantee that. I can't guarantee that.

Ms. Stroud, Watch it here, I've got enough bruises. Wait a minute, her job though, she right now, there's three of them in office, so if Nancy leaves, then they are down to two; Candy and one other. And that office warrants, she can't do it. I mean, I'm being honest, I don't think she can do it with two people.

Ms. Crone, It's the third largest township in the county.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, the third larges in the county and she's going to have two people, so. I've talked to Candy and I think she's talked to other people too and with the predicament she has she's got to get somebody trained. Because I think Nancy is the one that handled a lot with Bethlehem. She's the expert on Bethlehem.

Ms. Crone, She has.

Ms. Stroud, So therefore we've got to have somebody step in and take that over, especially…

Mrs. Conover, You can't just walk in off the street and start doing it.

Ms. Stroud, No and she can't, she's got to be able to train somebody.

Ms. Crone, Most of the data collection in construction is coming up, but that's, you know, that's not something that someone can walk in off the street and do.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Ms. Crone, You know, a lot of the job takes lengthy training. Three of us are Level II certified in our office right now and we've gone through a lot of training and testing to get that certification.

Ms. Stroud, She'll actually, she would be going from four full-time, then she went down to three full-time and one part-time and the part-time has left and she will be down to two within less than a year and with all that and Bethlehem.

Mr. West, I don't know.

Ms. Stroud, I don't have a problem with it.

Mr. Carmichael, He can't get tied into this because if one of his constituents in Pine Township says, 'Hey, Leon, you voted in doing this and here I wanted to run for trustee and here you are voting.'

Ms. Stroud, No, what I'm…

Mr. Carmichael, You know, we can't commit at all. But I would commit the fact that that be the case and if it works out the way you are talking, yes.

Ms. Crone, And I have to think about how my office wants to run right now.

Ms. Stroud, I don't have a problem with it, I just don't want to see us, what I'm saying is it could be open until the end of the month. You know, and then after that, I don't see any problem. I feel better if we say no one files as of the June 30th deadline, then we could go ahead, you could go ahead and hire someone part-time with the understanding that they would step into the full-time position. Because that's what you are training them for. I would assume that's what Nancy is going to do. You're going to turn that over to her as far as with Bethlehem, especially.

Ms. Crone, Yes, it's that and there's a lot of other things.

Ms. Stroud, Oh yes, but I know that right now that's at the top of our brain. What's the Council's wishes here?

Mrs. Conover, I guess I have to agree with Bill and his concern for Council member West, because he's the person who might be filling this slot, so he doesn't have a say so in this. But I guess you would have to consider that this person can't just take the job just walking in off the street.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Mrs. Conover, It's a very, very special detailed job and there's a lot of training that goes along with it and I would be all for, if indeed this lady doesn't have competition and you know then for sure she's going to leave, you have to train someone. Are you going to train someone and then say, 'Well, I'm going to train you and then maybe I can hire you in January'. It's a lot of waste of your time to do that.

Ms. Crone, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, So, yes, I would be in favor of using your part-time monies that you already have in place to start training someone after we know if this race has competition or not and you will be losing that lady for sure.

Ms. Stroud, So do you want to put that in the form of a motion?

Mrs. Conover, I do.

Mrs. Conover moved allow Westchester Township the use of part-time monies to train an employee after the filing deadline of June 30, 2002. Mr. Carmichael seconded.

Ms. Stroud, Okay she already has the money, we just have to have four votes since she already has the money there. All in favor.

Motion carried on the following vote:

Carmichael-YesConover-Yes
Ruge-YesStroud-Yes
West-Abstain

Ms. Stroud, Okay, it passes. So once the deadline is over on the 30th, then you can go out and use your part-time money. Okay?

Ms. Crone, With the understanding that it would be full-time come January?

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Thank you very much.

Carol Linzy To Address The Council Concerning The Hiring Freeze

Ms. Stroud, Carol Linzy. Good evening.

Carol Linzy, I wrote a letter to the Council because when I had my budget hearing with Karen Martin I was confused about something that happened in February when we did the budget cuts. First I was told to do a 144, then I was told not to, because my 10% of my budget came out of my full-time person, my chief deputy.
Since you needed a cut I thought I could get through the year without a full-time person, so I cut that salary back to $15,000. Then I was told that that position is no longer there. I need to know where do I stand? Is that position there? Is it not there? Can I get the position back? Because I can move money around in my budget for next year. I have two ladies who have applied for the job, but they need to know if it's going to be full-time or part-time. In my office it's hard to keep part-time workers because sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not. When I have meetings or I have classes I need someone to cover my office. If I have a full-time person when we have classes we go on alternating days so that the office is covered and when I have meetings there's someone there to cover the office.

Ms. Stroud, So are you asking, do you still have a full-time position within your budget? Is that what you are asking us? And if you do, you're saying that you want to fill that position, that you have the money available by shifting around?

Ms. Linzy, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Who can look at her budget and tell us?

Ms. Linzy, Because first, I mean, the 144 confused me because I was told that the $7,900 that I was giving back, that's all you were taking, I was told the position would still be there. Then I was told, no the position is not there. So this is what I'm trying to clarify.

Ms. Stroud, So you only took $7,900 out of your budget to begin with?

Ms. Linzy, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, But, you still only have one person in your office?

Ms. Linzy, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, So what you would like to do is fill your office and shift some money around to make, so that you have the full-time?

Ms. Linzy, A full-time position again.

Ms. Riley, She didn't do a 144 when you guy did the 10% cuts, so how can we answer that question?

Ms. Stroud, She didn't do a 144.

Mrs. Conover, She did not do a 144?

Ms. Riley, At the time, no. Carol, do you have a 144?

Ms. Linzy, I gave it that night of the meeting and I never got a copy back. That's why it's confusing. I'm not understanding.

Ms. Stroud, We're checking it.

Ms. Linzy, If the position is there or even if it's not there. Lets say it's not there, I have done two different budgets for next year. One is to have that position, which would start at the lower end since it disappeared at $22,063. Do I have to get approval for you to do that or will that be done at the budget hearings?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, because all the budgets were supposed to be on hold and there was to be no raises or nothing.

Ms. Linzy, No, the money still stayed the same, I just moved it around. I took my part-time money and put it back into that position, so I will no longer have part-time people.

Ms. Stroud, Oh, I see. Then that's an adjustment that would have to be made.

Mrs. Vuko, Barb, Sheila went to check on the 144.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, we're going to have to put you on hold while she goes to check. So where are you going to take your money from to fund this?

Ms. Linzy, Part-time.

Ms. Stroud, From your part-time.
Ms. Linzy, Yes, I'll do the work myself, because it will leave $1,125 in my part-time and that would be used for commercial. Anything that I need to have help on commercial work.

Ms. Stroud, So by doing this, then you wouldn't be increasing your budget any from what you already had approved last year?

Ms. Linzy, It would be the same thing. I've haven't increased anything. I'd just be moving money around.

Ms. Riley, There's no revised 144.

Mrs. Vuko, That was the problem with a lot of those budget cuts. When we received the budgets back, the 144's were not included in there because there were no changes on the 144, it was just a revised budget, that part of the budget was brought in. We have quite a few of them, I don't know how many we have. Jan?

Ms. Balcerak, About 20 of them.

Ms. Stroud, So does that mean that the position was taken out then?

Mrs. Vuko, No.

Ms. Stroud, So the position is still in there?

Mrs. Vuko, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Even though she reduced it to part-time?

Mrs. Vuko, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, So what she's saying is it is still in there.

Mrs. Conover, So that solves half of the problem.

Ms. Stroud, That solves half of it, yes. So then what you have to do is show us where you are going to transfer the money from, so you'd have to submit a form for that. Right?

Mrs. Conover, Well, according to this letter, she can find the money for the salary, but she does not have the money for the benefits.

Ms. Linzy, Karen Martin told me to bring the fact up that there's no money there for the benefits. I have the money for the salary, but not the benefits.

Ms. Stroud, But no money for the benefits.

Ms. Linzy, And I didn't have the money there for the benefits before.

Ms. Stroud, It's compounded, you're right. Because we do not have the money for the benefits.

Ms. Linzy, Yes, and that's why I am coming to you for this.

Ms. Stroud, Well at this point in time…

Ms. Riley, It's taken out of the commissioners'.

Mrs. Vuko, Yes, it's take out of a different fund.

Ms. Stroud, Does she pay the benefits out of her budget?

Ms. Riley, No, it comes out of the commissioners.

Ms. Stroud, That comes out of the commissioners, but still.

Ms. Balcerak, During the workshop though, the money wasn't there for the benefits.

Ms. Stroud, Correct, it's not there for the benefits and that's the problem.

Ms. Balcerak, That's why she would have to find it in her lines.

Ms. Linzy, There's no way I could come up with $6,000 in my budget. I've already cut it the most I can.

Ms. Stroud, We do not have the extra money. We have no money to pay. As you know we're transferring around now to pay the benefits. I don't know of anyway that we can approve something like this because the money is not there. You have the money to pay the salary, yes. A lot of departments have the money to pay the salaries, it's the benefits and there's not any money in the commissioners to pay it.

Ms. Linzy, Okay, so $15,000 that I left in there for that deputy's salary, can I take that $15,000 and put it to part-time for my budget next year?

Ms. Stroud, You're budget would still be the same?

Ms. Linzy, It would still be the same.

Ms. Stroud, The money is in there?

Ms. Linzy, It's just the part-time would go from $1,125 to $23,000.

Ms. Stroud, You're just shifting money around.

Ms. Stroud, As long as you're not adding any kind of monies as far as what would be to the general or to the commissioners' budget or whatever, then you would have to present that during budget time to us.

Ms. Linzy, But I could still leave that chief deputy position open? Say if someone comes to my office…

Ms. Stroud, You just leave it open, it hasn't been taken out of there, but at the same time, we cannot afford, we do not have the money to pay a full-time employee, another full-time employee for the benefits. So if you have that money in your budget and that was approved in that budget, then if you want, like some of these people have transferred money around, then you would have to come to us, write it in your budget, you have to come to us for it to be approved. But we cannot approve anything that is going to add at this point in time for benefits. Okay.

Ms. Linzy, Okay, that's what I needed to know.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Ms. Linzy, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, You're quite welcome.

PRINT SHOP 01.86
144 Form

Part-time from $0 to $9/hour

Ms. Stroud, Next is the Print Shop. Sorry about that.

Com. Burrus, Good evening again. About six months ago when we were working with the 10% budget cut requirement, the Print Shop--Lee--and I sat down and worked up our proposal and that came up with the conclusion that to make the 10% he would have to give up one full-time position and our proposal was to put that into part-time.
At an earlier council meeting that was declined and I think there might have been some communication issues there. But in the meantime, the Print Shop then has not been in compliance with the 10% cut and he's also been shorthanded with respect to neither a full-time or a part-time. So our request tonight would be essentially to present the 10% cut proposal again, having to do with the elimination of one full-time position and transferring those funds into part-time hourly, as well as another account that he has indicated on the form.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, what I have in front of me is, you have a 144 Form. You have part-time from $0 to $9 an hour, so that you would be able to get somebody in here part-time. Now I realize you do give up a full-time position and that full-time position at the time, I forget what the salary was, wasn't it $23,000?

Lee Childress, It was $23,258.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. So you gave up that and did not ask…

Com. Burrus, It hasn't been done yet.

Mr. Childress, It would be done tonight.

Ms. Stroud, Oh, okay. So you want to take that one out and you want to transfer $14,000 to the Hourly and $2,354 to Printing other than Office Supplies.

Mr. Childress, Which in turn would return $6,900 to the general fund coffers.

Com. Burrus, Which would be his 10%.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the 144 Form as submitted by the Print Shop. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Transfer

$14,000 from account 1110 Salaries into account 1110 Hourly
$2,354 from account 1110 Salaries into account 3310 Printing other than Office Supplies

Ms. Stroud, Okay, now you have to transfer. We have to approve the transfer of $14,000 to the Hourly and $2,354 to the Printing other than Office Supplies.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by the Print Shop. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Sharon Lippens To Address The Council Concerning The Hiring Freeze

Ms. Stroud, Next on the agenda is Sharon Lippens. Sorry, I got sidetracked here trying to find everything we have. Do you want to explain your situation here like the others have tonight?

Sharon Lippens, Last fall I had three PC Support Technicians to support approximately 450 PC's in the County, not including the Sheriff's Department. And last fall I voluntarily, a reduction in force, one of those, so that left me two staff members. Then I lost a staff member who chose to leave employment as of January 1st, so I have been operating, instead of three, with one to support those computers.
About the first month we didn't do too bad with just one, because of the decrease in monies there weren't really a lot of new PC's being purchased so the number of calls were not as bad and we were able to handle all the day-to-day calls with one person But, in that other departments have money in other accounts we have seen an increase in requests and we are approximately four and a half months, not really behind, but we have four and a half months worth of time committed to those types of projects, which keeps growing as departments make additional request for additional equipment and software.
What I wanted the Council to realize is that what this does is it makes all the other offices have to wait whenever they have something they need to get done, because some of the things that we have to do are on time restrictions with other vendors and things like that and that causes a lot of problems with those departments. So I was asking the Council's consideration to possibly lift the hiring freeze and allow me to refill that one position. I did leave that in my budget and was able to cut the 10% in February as requested, leaving that position fully funded, but it has not been replaced. So the monies that would have been spent on that position from January to now will be reverted, obviously at the end of the year.

Ms. Stroud, Do you find that with being down to one person that it's affecting all the departments in the County overall?

Mrs. Lippens, Yes, he's out of the office quite frequently so messages tend to collect on the board and people's problems don't get resolved for days. They don't get a call back just because we're kind of over logged with other requests and we try any time there's a desperate emergency and some one, you know, really needs something done we try and pull them off, but then that delays what they are working on, so.

Ms. Stroud, Does anybody else have any questions about the whole process? So you have the money in your budget. It was in there when you made the adjustments in February?

Mrs. Lippens, Right, I left it in there but it was unfilled.

Mr. Ruge, This isn't doing away with our policy of the hiring freeze?

Mrs. Lippens, It would either be asking that or for an exception.

Mr. Ruge, I don't know how you can convince me to do away with our policy of a hiring freeze.

Ms. Stroud, It is in the sense that we had said that…

Mr. Ruge, What?

Ms. Stroud, When people left their positions that we were going to leave them open, but at the time, I think what Sharon is saying that when they cut back the one, they had three to begin with. Now they are down to one and they can't service all the computers and the software. So it's putting them so far behind. You've got computers, you've got software sitting there. She can't service them or, am I correct?

Mrs. Lippens, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, To have the programs put in for four and a half to five months because she only has one person.

Mr. Ruge, We're doing away with the?

Ms. Stroud, We're not. They're, yes, they requesting a waiver of the hiring freeze.

Mrs. Conover, She let one of her staff go as part of the reductions when we lost the Bethlehem and National tax money, but then she had another leave too. So it's kind of a case-by-case basis. She's not down just the one that was RIF'ed, she's down another one too. She's down two now.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, does anybody else have any questions? What's the desire here?

Mr. Ruge, They were, you cut and now you want them?

Mr. Carmichael, No, she's not cutting that one back. The one she cut is gone, John. She had three and she was down to two and one of the two quit.

Mr. Ruge, Oh.

Mr. Carmichael, Now she only has one technician to service 450 PC's. You can't do that, John.

Mr. Ruge, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael moved to allow Data Processing to fill the PC Support Technician's unfilled position. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Mrs. Lippens, One other thing I'd like to ask since we don't have a Personnel Committee is, I would like to change the job description of this position, but it would have no affect on the salary. I wasn't sure if there was a committee or anything that you did to review that. We wanted to make that into kind of a junior networking type position. The duties and responsibilities and the level of difficulty of the work would be the same as a PC technician. They would just have a little bit different types of duties and I didn't know if that was something that needed to come before the Council or not. I kind of waited to see if you would entertain it or not.

Mr. Carmichael, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, It should.

Mr. Carmichael, Let her submit the paperwork to the Council and look at it.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I would, because there's a job description and it should be there on file.

Mrs. Lippens, Plus, I would not be requesting a salary adjustment at all, so.

Ms. Stroud, Right, but the job description should be on file.

Mrs. Lippens, So should I bring that to the next council meeting for approval.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I would.

Mr. Carmichael, Would you clear that with Jan so that she has sufficient information on that?

Mrs. Lippens, Great.

Mr. Carmichael, You can really that to us, Jan.

Ms. Balcerak, Sure.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you.

Mrs. Lippens, Thank you very much.

At this time, Mr. Carmichael left the meeting.

A & A MANUFACTURING - COMPLIANCE WITH STATEMENT OF BENEFITS

Ms. Stroud, Okay, next on the agenda is A & A Manufacturing.

Keith Jochims, How are you doing tonight?

Ms. Stroud, We're doing fine. I think.

Mr. Jochims, Long night.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. A compliance with the statement of benefits and so on. Would you like to…

Mr. Jochims, Yes, this is our compliance with our manufacturing tax abatements. We have two tax abatements. One is for real estate and manufacturing equipment and then the second one was for manufacturing equipment. So this one, the compliance here tonight is for both manufacturing equipments. We met all our compliance the first tax abatements and we substantially met the second one, but as you know with the downturn in the economy we had to pare back a little bit on employees, but I wrote a letter and submitted that to Jan. Based on what I wrote we are on pace and we are already back up to where we should be in compliance and we expect to keep on hiring by the end of the year.

Ms. Stroud, How many employees?

Mr. Jochims, Now currently between employees and temps, we're at 72 right now. We were at, when I wrote this letter, we were at 58.

Ms. Stroud, So you've already hired that many more.

Mr. Jochims, Yes, we just lined a new $3,000,000 a year job and we are currently training people on that, so.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Now do you anticipate your employees, the number of employees to go up anymore than the 72?

Mr. Jochims, Yes, absolutely. We expect by the end of the year to have five or seven more. We have an aggressive growth plan for the next three years.

Ms. Stroud, I'm sorry.

Mr. Jochims, We have an aggressive growth plan for the next three years.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Does anyone else have any other questions as far as A & A Manufacturing and their tax abatement? Then we'll need a motion to approve their report.

Mr. West moved to accept the Compliance with Statement of Benefits as submitted by A & A Manufacturing. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

CONTINENTAL MIDLAND - COMPLIANCE WITH STATEMENT OF BENEFITS

Ms. Stroud, Continental Midland, compliance with statement of benefits.

Ms. Balcerak, Barb, could you have these gentlemen give their names. They're not familiar to me.

Ms. Stroud, I'm sorry. She asked me if I would have you introduce yourselves as far as your names.

Scott Reed, My name is Scott Reed.

Gene Anderson, My name is Gene Anderson.

Ms. Balcerak, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, if you would like to go over your report a little bit.

Mr. Reed, I guess the primary topic is the increase of machinery in relation to the number of employees. I have information from the year 2000 calendar year and calendar year 2001. In the year 2000, we went from 88 to 94 employees in that year. I don't have any data for '02, but I can tell you that with the increase in equipment they are going to hiring more people as the year goes on. How many is hard to say.

At this time, Mr. Carmichael returned to the meeting.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. They haven't hired any as of yet as far as this year? New employees?

Mr. Anderson, Actually, we're going through an integration period here. I've put temporaries in at the being. I've requested between 10 and 15 new employees be added to the facility and those people have to be hired.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Does anyone else have any other questions? Okay, we need a motion to approve the acceptance of their report. Your abatement is for ten years, am I correct?

Mr. Anderson, Yes.

Mr. Hollenbeck, But they bring this in annually.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, it has to be approved annually.

Mrs. Conover, What year are you in with this?

Mr. Anderson, 1994, so.

Mr. Reed, The eighth year.

Ms. Stroud, I need a motion to accept the report?

Mr. Carmichael moved to accept the Compliance with Statement of Benefits as submitted by Continental Midland. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mr. Reed, Thank you.

Mr. Anderson, Thank you.

ISK MAGNETICS - COMPLIANCE WITH STATEMENT OF BENEFITS

Ms. Stroud, ISK Magnetics, again also your report.

Sandy Rajsic, Hi, my name is Sandy Rajsic. I'm the controller at ISK Magnetics and I'm here regarding our compliance to our statement of benefits. Everything for us is pretty status quo. We did have a record production last year. We expect our mix, our product mix to change a little bit this year but we're expecting another record year this year. Everything else is pretty much the same, employee count, etc., etc.

Mr. West, The employee count is the same?

Ms. Rajsic, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, So you have not added any this year.

Mrs. Conover, They appear to have added one according to this table.

Ms. Rajsic, Yes, I believe the one.

Mrs. Conover, And the salaries have gone up nearly, well over $2,000 a year too.

Ms. Rajsic, We had, I think it was a 3% raise increase.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, any other questions?

Mrs. Conover, Just what year are you in?

Ms. Rajsic, It started…

Ms. Stroud, What I'm looking at it was 1993. Is that correct?

Ms. Rajsic, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael, You're almost out.

Ms. Rajsic, Yes, we'll miss you guys.

Ms. Stroud, One more year.

Mr. Carmichael moved to accept the Compliance with Statement of Benefits as submitted by ISK Magnetics. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Rajsic, Thank you.

Ms Stroud, You're quite welcome.

COUNCIL 2003 BUDGET

Ms. Stroud, The Council's budget. This is for the budget hearings. Our budget, Jan and I went through and pretty much our budget is down of course, because we took the longevity out of our budget for last year, so that's why the discrepancy at the bottom as far as the numbers. This is what we will be presenting at the budget hearings. So we just need to look it over and if you have any questions, get back to me. But last year we approved $220,777. This year we approved $123,364 and that's because we've taken out the longevity money. Okay?

Mr. West, Okay.

Ms. Stroud, Any questions so we can move on?

PROPOSED 2003 BUDGET HEARING SCHEDULE & PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Ms. Stroud, I put in here for the Council's consideration, since we've asked the departments and have told them there would be no increases, no salary increases and so on in their budgets. I want to express my thanks to all of you for handling the budget workshops when I was not able to that. I know all of you stepped in and did attend to the departments as they came in and I really do appreciate that.
In looking through and going back, since there shouldn't be too many changes from last year or when we finally approved them in February, Jan and I were talking about it, possibly doing a revised schedule where we would not have to have as many nights in the last two weeks of August.
So for your consideration and we can finalize this in July, if you would go over this and come back with your recommendation, then we could go from there. I don't think we need to make a decision on it tonight. Do you? I mean, I think that we can come back with anything that you might decide, but I think we can make that decision in July and decide which one we want to use. But I don't see any reason why we have to have them as many nights as we did before. Okay? That's just something for you to think about. Bill, did you have a question?

Mr. Carmichael, Under the current 5%, this increase that we may be allowed next, $900,000 of that is already eaten up in the commissioners' budget trying to meet that $500,000 that we cut and in trying to make the payments for our health benefits. As reported tonight, there's been a decrease of 20% approximately per month. So we don't know what that figure is going to be, but if you have $900,000 taken out of a million-three increase, that only leaves you $400,000 to work with.

Ms. Stroud, That's correct.

Mr. Carmichael, So that may or may not be the case, but right now that's the scenario.

Mrs. Conover, We also have pending litigation.

Ms. Stroud, We've got some law bills also that we need to pay. That's the other thing I was going to bring up and I'm sure Dave will. But we've got some bills out there and I don't want to scare begeebees out of anybody but downstate the discussion is--and I know it is--that there's a possibility next year when they get into the budget hearings, because the rate of increase for the cost of living has not been 5%, they are considering lowering from five to four or whatever.
I'm not trying to scare anybody, but that's a discussion, that's an ongoing discussion the few months or so. But anyway, I mean, I think we have to keep that in the back of our mind. Yes, everybody's been getting 5%; towns, cities, counties and so on, but with the tight situation being a statewide situation, I think we have to keep it in the back of our minds that there is a distinct possibility that could happen, so. We don't want it to happen, but we're trying to live within our means here and cut back, but it could happen. And I know it's being talked about.

Mrs. Conover, Any validity to the fact or what I've been just reading about in the newspaper, the revenue sharing from the two neighboring counties who have casino boats?

Ms. Stroud, Yes and I gave the article that our reporter back here wrote and I had the information on another and I left it at home. But he's going to give that as part of his report.

Mrs. Conover, Just a question. How many years now will it be that county employees do not get a raise.

Mr. Carmichael, Two years.
Ms. Stroud, This will be into the third year, because we did not give raises before Bethlehem declared bankruptcy, so. We had already put a quote freeze on salaries at that point in time, so we actually did it before they declared their bankruptcy. So we're going into the third year.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And at present spending levels, which is right now with the 10% cuts and with no revenue enhancement, the cash-flow statement shows that your are well into 2005 before you have any significant cash balance. So I think you can reasonably assume that absent some revenue side of this equation being address there will be no additional money other than what you have right now through most of 2005.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, that's about it. And if they cut that percentage and I know you're going to include what they've just done with the gambling thing, but there's restrictions on that money too, so.

Mr. Ruge, The salaries will remain the same?

Ms. Stroud, Salaries, what Dave just said, based on figures that we have with nothing else changing, there will be no salary increase until 2005, if then, without anymore income. Okay. I had a couple more things, then I'll turn it over to Dave in just a second here. Jan, I have a question. In here you had the policy memorandum. Is there anything I need to do with that.

Ms. Balcerak, Yes, last meeting you had two people not show up and a statement was made that if it's under $200 they don't have come before you. This is the memorandum changing it.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, I'm sorry. In the policy memorandum, because of the budget situation, transfers and additional appropriation request required the appearance of a representative of the department before the Council no matter what the amount of money is. That's what we wanted to stress, no matter what the amount of money, so they need to come before us.
A couple of things. Just personal. I wanted to thank everybody for the calls and the flowers and stepping in when I was not available. I really do appreciate it. Also for kind of respecting my time that I was not able to take care of any business, but I'm back on a kind of a part-time situation and doing pretty good. So feel free if you need to call me. I'm at home. I'm not running around the county yet, so I am available. Mr. Hollenbeck, are you going to cover…

Mr. Hollenbeck, It is Dave.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, Dave.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Mr. Hollenbeck is 82 years old and lives in Wheaton, Illinois and I call him dad.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, sorry about that. Are you going to go over what we need to do as far as anything in paying the legal fees for the two? The other thing as a reminder, now that we've cleaned the galleries here, there will be no additionals from the general fund. We are in a very tight, tight budget. Please refrain from that. I know you come in and some of them say, well we have it in our budget and so on and it's hard to overlook that, but please don't ask for any additionals unless the money has already been approved in there. I going to turn it over to Dave.

ATTORNEY REPORT

Mr. Hollenbeck, Given the hour, I will do this as expeditiously and as briefly as I can, a number of matters that I need to bring to your attention and actions that I need you to take. First of all as you are aware of, I attended the State Board of Finance meeting on your behalf where the loan agreement was approved for the bailout legislation. As it turned out they allowed us to do two of the three installments at the same time, which were approved, each of them in the amount of 1.8 million. If you put those two together you get 3.6 million dollars that we were allowed to access and we were approved that amount. We are required then out of that 3.6 million to immediately pay back the Department of Commerce loan that we received in December that kept us afloat and enabled us to pay our bills and I'm rounding this off, but that's 2.1 million. So you have 3.6 minus 2.1, you'll have approximately 1.5 million dollars available out of those first two installments.
I've sent you the versions of the loan agreement. I've presented it at the commissioners' on Tuesday and Com. Burrus has, the commissioners approved it and Com. Burrus has signed it. I need a motion from you this evening to approve the loan agreement and authorize you chairperson to sign it so I can get it back down to the state budget agency and they can start processing it.
There are two issues that remain somewhat problematic and our state legislators are…

Ms. Stroud, Are working on it.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I was just going to say that it was interesting to me that I got the call and both of them--meaning Ralph Ayres and Duane Cheney--were almost giddy having called me the day that they both knew they weren't going to have opposition in the general election and they were obviously excited about that. But in any event the two issues they are working on is there's still a discrepancy in the interest rate calculation. Ralph remains categorically convinced that it ought to be right at 1%. The state thinks it should be at 1.98%. He's still working on that. I have a commitment from Bob Lane at the state budget agency that whoever is right it will be modified. So we can go ahead and sign it this way.
The other thing is the amortization schedule as currently constructed would require us to make a payment of July 2003. That I strongly believe, the interest rate thing I don't know whose right in terms of the calculations, but that will wash out. That clearly is inconsistent with the legislative intent. The legislative intent was that this money would be paid back when one of two things happened, either Bethlehem pays its delinquent taxes or ten years expire, whatever happens first. My agreement with Bob Lane at the state budget agency is on that is like it is with the interest rate that's something we can go back to the Board of Finance on and the logical time to do that would be in November when we go back for the third third of the installment on the loan.
So with that caveat, I've reviewed it from a legal perspective and it's my recommendation that the Council authorize Chairman Stroud to execute the loan agreement on behalf of the County Council.

Mrs. Conover moved to authorize Chairman Stroud to sign the loan agreement on behalf of the County Council. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Am I signing my life away and committing the County to…

Mr. Hollenbeck, Yes, 5.5 million dollars of debt. While Barb is signing it--and there's actually two pages, Barb, there's the top page and if you turn the page there's a second place--I just feel compelled to having watched what went on during the special session of the Legislature, I just have to give all the credit in the world to Duane Cheney and Ralph Ayres and Bill Alexa and Sue Landske and Charlie Brown, our representatives from Northwest Indiana. In hindsight--I don't know what Leon thinks--it's a miracle we got the bailout bill out of the Legislature with all the trouble that they had and all the disagreement. For those guys and ladies to have been able to assist us in shepherding that through that process, really speaks volumes of what can happen for Northwest Indiana when they all get together and stick together and advocate a cause.

Ms. Stroud, And they're still working on it.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Right.

Ms. Stroud, I mean, I know they've called me.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Yes, having been involved in it almost on a daily basis myself, I look back and I'm just amazed that they were able to do that and I think we owe them a debt of gratitude.
I know you're tired of seeing it, but the next thing I need to give you is the cash-flow statement. As you know, we deferred repayment of $2,000,000 to the bridge fund in order to pay our bills the first part of this year by declaring a financial emergency like we did in December we were able to not repay the bridge fund for six months. That six months runs out Monday I guess, July 1st. So by law we can't extent that any longer.
If you look at the cash-flow statement that hopefully you are receiving, I've highlighted in orange where we are. If you look at the June column, you'll see the orange highlight of the $2,000,000. That's the repayment to the bridge fund. I've checked with the Auditor's office and through the austerity program that you've initiated and the cooperation of the commissioners and the department heads and the scrutiny that you've placed on expenditures, we've accomplished our mission of being able to repay the entire $2,000,000 to the bridge fund. We'll have adequate cash by Friday of this week in order to repay that. So that's a hurdle that we've gotten over and the money can be put back into the bridge fund.
What I will alert you to, again if you look at the cash-flow statement in the November column, you see $1,250,000. We run out of money again in November and you don't have to borrow $2,000,000, but you do have to borrow $1,250,000. I've met with the commissioners on your behalf because this is their money. It's the bridge fund money and we want to impede significant bridge projects and candidly we are doing that. But for the sake of the cause they are willing to work around us and that $750,000 that we will be freeing up, because we are giving them back $2,000,000 and only taking $1,250,000, they are willing to work with us and in fact, they've indicated they will make sure that in November there is $1,250,000 left. They won't spend it in the bridge fund. So that's where we are in terms of the bridge fund and that's where we are in terms of the cash-flow situation.
There is other good news in terms of that process. We still although we're at the point where we've only had to borrow $750,000 of that second five million in the tax warrants that we issued locally. So that's been good. The other thing that's good is, the Auditor told me today that the settlement is imminent, so we should know in the next day or two, I'll be able to give you some hard figures in a day or two, exactly how much we collected in property taxes from the May 10th payment and exactly how that relates to the cash-flow statement.
If you look in June at the top of the cash-flow statement, you can see that we are projecting $8,747,700 in property tax collections and a little over 1,900,000 in property tax replacement credit. We've had to match what was collected to that to see how our projections are holding on the income side. We focused a lot on the expenditure side within the last six months and now we have a chance to focus on the revenue side and see how that has occurred.
The next thing I want to talk about a little bit is what did happen in Indianapolis over the weekend. As I think you are aware, at the very end of the legislative special session the Democrats and the Republicans got their head together and came up with a tax package for the state. That has some local implications. What I'm handing you is kind of a chart that breaks down what happened in that special session. Some of it you are aware of because it's been covered heavily in the newspaper, the fact that the sales tax is going up. The cigarette tax is going up, dockside gambling was approved with a significant increase in the wagering taxes that will accompany that.
A couple of things that are relevant on the local level is that the reassessment was not extended. The reassessment will go forward as presently scheduled, which means the impact on, basically what is being predicted is a shifting of real estate property burden from commercial and industrial properties to residential properties is going to happen in 2003. With that in mind, the Legislature did a number of things including taking 60% of the general fund expenditures for schools out of property tax and its going to be paid by the state. Also, as you can see from the chart, it raised the homestead credit and did some other things. The bottom line of which for Porter County, the prediction is that even though the reassessment will raise your property taxes, the adjustments that the Legislature has made will in a sense overcompensate for that. The prediction for Porter County out of the State Budget Agency is that residential property taxes--is the result of what happened in Indianapolis--will go down 16 ½% and business property taxes will go down 22%. So your constituency, because of what happened in Indianapolis is going to see a 16 ½% reduction in their property tax, albeit other taxes have an increase such as the sales tax and a 22% reduction by commercial and industrial property.
Another thing--and Barb alluded to this--is that with the approval of dockside gambling and the subsequent increase in taxation of gambling there was a revenue-sharing program adopted in this bill that will enable counties such as Porter County, which does not have a gambling boat, to receive revenue from gambling taxation. For Porter County, first of all statewide, it's estimated that that money will amount to the distribution of $33,000,000 throughout the state to counties that do not have gambling facilities. It's projected that Porter County units of government, the units of government that will get this are basically the cities, the towns and the county. The schools will not get