PORTER COUNTY COUNCIL
July 23 2002

The Porter County Council met on July 23, 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, Jamie Dziabo and Jan Balcerak.

Ms. Stroud, Our first order of business is the approval of our minutes for June 25, 2002. I take it all of you have had the chance to read through them. Does anyone have any corrections or additions to make?

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the minutes of June 25, 2002 as received. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Hearing none, they are approved. Mrs. Vuko, would you like to do the first reading please.

FIRST READING

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

Ms. Stroud, Thank you very much.

PCADOS 34
Transfer

$84.38 from account 2250 Other Supplies into account 2120 Office Fixtures under $100

Ms. Stroud, First on the agenda is PCADOS. Is there anyone here to represent? Good evening.

Neil Hannon, Good evening.

Ms. Stroud, So you want to transfer $84.38 to Office Fixtures. Is that correct?

Mr. Hannon, Yes.

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

Ms. Stroud, I think that's all we have right now for you on the agenda. Okay?

Mr. Hannon, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, You're quite welcome.

HIGHWAY CUM-BRIDGE 25
Transfer

$74,661.43 from account 25.0268 Sedley Bridge into account 25 Highway Cum-Bridge

Ms. Stroud, Highway wants to transfer $74,661.43 to the Cum-Bridge. Good evening, Jack.

Jack Jarnecke, Good evening. I want to take that money off the Sedley Bridge where we've had it tied up for quite a while and put it back into the cumulative bridge fund for other work.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. I was just going to say that it's coming from account 0268 to 25, which is the Cum-Bridge. Does anybody have any questions for Jack? I need a motion.

Mr. West moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by Highway Cum-Bridge. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.
Ms. Stroud, Thank you, Jack.

CENTER REASSESSMENT 108.10
Transfer

$300 from account 3210 Travel into account 3950 Contractual Services

Ms. Stroud, Center Township Reassessment fund. All of the assessors are absent this evening because they are at a mandated, or I should say, a conference down at French Lick that they have to attend to meet their certifications in the state law. She wants to transfer from account 3210 Travel to 3950 Contractual Services. She did talk to me before this.

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

PROSECUTOR IV-D 182
144 Form

Overtime from $0 up to $40.59/hour

Ms. Stroud, Prosecutor IV-D for the 182 Fund. Good evening. You have overtime up to $40.59 an hour and an additional of $4,831 to Overtime, $421 to FICA and $248 to PERF. This is from the 182 Fund, correct?

Lois Holiday, Correct. If I could just briefly explain.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I was going to ask you to explain.

Ms. Holiday, When I was in here last month I explained to you--to the Council--about all the extra hours that the State was wanting us to put in to try do case cleanup work. We kind of negotiated with them. We received $5,500 from them that we can use for overtime pay to try to help with that work to get it done.
In order for us to get the money, we have to pay it up front then we'll be reimbursed 100%. So what we're requesting is that we be allowed to pay it out of our 182 account; the money will go right back into the 182 account, but that way we don't have to request any more from the County.
As far as the overtime amount, when we made this request we had about two hours from the time we received the letter from the State to get on your agenda because of the timeframe. So they took the maximum of what anybody makes it our office and multiplied that times one and a half and that's how we came up with this $40.59 an hour. That's an attorney slot. There are two attorneys in my office, myself and one other person. Neither one of us are going to request any of that overtime. The most anyone would be paid would be $20 and some-odd cents. It's all clerical people that will be getting the time and a half.

Ms. Stroud, Are there any other questions or does anyone have any questions?

Mrs. Conover, I just wanted to say it's just refreshing to see the State impose a mandate and offer the funding to pay for it.

Mrs. Conover moved to approve the 144 Form as submitted by Prosecutor IV-D Fund 182. Mr. West seconded.

Ms. Stroud, It is a 144 Form.

Mr. Carmichael, We have a question from John.

Ms. Stroud, I'm sorry.

Mr. Ruge, Is this an increase in the overtime pay? Is it an increase in the rate of the overtime pay?

Ms. Holiday, No, it's not an increase in the rate. We took individual people within our office that make different amounts and I took each one of those times, you know, one and a half times. So it's not any increase, everybody just makes different amounts.

Mr. Ruge, Okay.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, since it is a 144, we have to do a roll call.

Motion carried unanimously.

Additional Appropriation

$4,831 into account 1130 Overtime
$421 into account 1210 FICA
$248 into account 1230 PERF

Ms. Stroud, The additional would be $4,831 to Overtime, $421 to FICA and $248 to PERF. Does anyone have any questions on this?

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

Ms. Stroud, The motion passed. Thank you very much.

Ms. Holiday, Thank you.

PARKS OPERATING 127
Transfer

$2,000 from account 3950 Contractual Services into account 3710 Equipment Rental

Ms. Stroud, Parks, without his cell phone. Isn't that nice.

Ed Melendez, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, this is talking about the 127 Fund, so you want to transfer $2,000 from Contractual Services to Equipment, which is fund 3710. Does anyone have any questions? This will be used mainly in the Fall, isn't it?

Mr. Melendez, That's correct.

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

Additional Appropriation

$3,000 into account 1110 Salaries
$400 into account 1220 Medical/Life Insurance
$400 into account 1230 PERF

Ms. Stroud, Now the additional that you are asking for again--is in Fund 127.85--is for salaries; $3,000 to Salaries, $400 Medical/LifeInsurance and $400 to PERF. Correct?

Mr. Melendez, That's correct.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Does anyone have any questions?

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

DRUG FREE COMMUNITY FUND 73
Additional Appropriation

$25,301 into account 0001 Education
$31,700 into account 0001 Treatment
$31,506.50 into account 0001 Justice
$24,868.72 into account 0001 Porter County Substance Abuse Council Office

Ms. Stroud, Porter County Drug Free Community Fund. I should say Substance Abuse Council. I kind of looked down here.

Mr. Carmichael, This is their fund.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, this is from Fund 73.999. As a reminder, these are not general fund monies that we are talking about here.

Sharon Cawood, Good evening.

Ms. Stroud, Good evening.

Ms. Cawood, To refresh your memory, I'm Sharon Cawood and I'm the director of the Governor's Commission for a Drug Free Indiana for Porter County and in Porter County we call it the Substance Abuse Council.
We've been in existence for 14 years and there is a coalition in all 92 counties in the state of Indiana. As far as spending these dollars it's on DUI convictions and we have about $240,000 worth of requests. In front of you are the dollars that we allocated for this year. To my right is my chairperson this year, Fred Lintner and he will go through the request.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Fred Lintner, Yes, in the area of Prevention/Education, the allocation was $25,301. In Treatment/Intervention, the total was $31,700. In the area of Justice, it's $31,506.50 and for the Substance Abuse Council Office, the allocation is $24,868.72. The total is $113,376.22 for the total allocation.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you. Does anyone have any questions or comments?

Mr. Carmichael, Yes. What do you spend a year for the council office and what is that used for?

Ms. Cawood, For the year for the council office it's $24,868. Part of it is my salary and then to buy all these office paper and office supplies and mileage and countless stuff.

Mr. Carmichael, Is that office manned on a regular basis?

Ms. Cawood, I'm here about 30 hours a weeks.

Mr. Carmichael, 30?

Ms. Cawood, Yes.

Mr. Carmichael, Okay. Good. Thank you. I was wondering how you operated, I didn't know. Do you have a web page or do you have a…

Ms. Cawood, We don't have a web page.

Mr. Carmichael, Email?

Ms. Cawood, We have email.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, does anyone else have any questions?

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for additional appropriations as submitted by the Drug Free Community Fund. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you very much.

Ms. Cawood, Thank you.

DATA PROCESSING 01.50
Transfer

$30.00 from account 3610 Maintenance Agreements into account 3930 Dues & Subscriptions

Sharon Lippens, You can't hear in the back.

Ms. Stroud, Is the microphone not hooked up? Where is the microphone? Is it on the floor?

Mr. Carmichael, It's underneath.

Ms. Stroud, No wonder. The commissioners will fix it. Sorry about that, I didn't know.

Mr. Carmichael, Is there a union electrician in the house.

Ms. Stroud, I mean, I can hear them here--and no one said anything--because they're facing me. Somebody should have raised their hand back there. Okay. We have a big transfer for Data Processing of $30 in fund 01.50, from account 3610 to account 3930.

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

Ms. Stroud, That was short. We didn't even give you a chance to explain it, did we.

Revision of PC Support Technician Job Description

Ms. Stroud, The next one is the revision of the PC Support Technician job description. Would you like to go into this and explain what's happened and why you need to do this?

Mrs. Lippens, Sure. A lot of things that we find that we do revolve around networking now that the County is completely networked now. Having a network administrator and a network engineer is very helpful, but we also find that a lot of times we end up pushing some of these duties on the PC technician as well. So we felt that in that they are doing these duties already that we should probably incorporate some of those into the job description.
What we anticipate doing is just changing this one job description and leaving the other one as it stands. That way we would kind of have a stepping-stone that if you have a PC technician, well, rather the other way around. You could have a PC technician move up into this position even though they are equal salaries, this position would likely be the next position to move up to the full network administrator position. So you could kind of get someone in on a junior network administrator type position and then they would learn all the networking that we do and they would be the next logical person to move up.
We did remove some of the duties and then included some in the networking administrator position in that we feel that this position and the original PC tech position are equal in responsibility and duties and it would not require any change in salary, up or down, that they are just two different types of duties that would be done.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, so in other words, there's not going to be a change in the salary at all. It has to do with the type of job that each of the individuals are doing?

Mrs. Lippens, Right, just changing the types of duties that they would have, but there's still the same level of responsibility.

Mrs. Conover, Is the pay for this one that you're revisiting the description lower than the other pay for the other slot?

Mrs. Lippens, No, it's the same.

Mrs. Conover, They're both the same?

Mrs. Lippens, They're both the same, right. They were both set the same when they were both reviewed in June of 1997. For some reason I thought those were reviewed in 2000.

Ms. Stroud, Does this have to do also with, I mean, the department had what, three technicians at one time and we're down to what?

Mrs. Lippens, Right, we had three at one time. I reduction in forced one and then I had one leave, so that left me with one out of three. We do find that with the networking in the County that we have more tasks involving networking, therefore we wanted to incorporate that in more job descriptions.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, what is the desire of the Council here? Is this just for us to look at or do we need to, let me ask you this. You're still operating with one, correct?

Mrs. Lippens, Correct.

Ms. Stroud, We have not changed that situation as far as filling the second position.

Mrs. Lippens, Well I received a waiver last meeting to be able to fill the position and that's when I noted that I wanted to revise the job description. The Council asked me to revise it, submit it and come back tonight.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. So in other words, before you get that new person hired you wanted to have the new job description. That's what I wanted you to explain.

Mr. Carmichael, I have a question, Barb.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, go ahead.

Mr. Carmichael, Jan, have you had a chance to review this? Have you reviewed this application?

Ms. Balcerak, Yes, I have.

Mr. Carmichael, Does it meet with our guidelines?

Ms. Balcerak, Yes, it looks exactly the way it should. Sharon always does a good job.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the job description change for Data Processing's PC Support Technician to PC/Network Support Technician. Mr. Ruge seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Motion passes. I wanted you to explain. That's what I wanted you to do.

Mrs. Lippens, Sure. I wasn't sure what action would need to be taken, if any, with the Personnel Committee not being and all that stuff.

Ms. Stroud, Well I knew you were in the process of interviewing for the second position.

Mrs. Lippens, Right, I have not done any posting or anything, so I figured I would post it internal starting tomorrow. Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, You're quite welcome.

ELECTION BOARD 01.21
Transfer

$500 from account 2120 Office Fixtures under $100 into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100

Ms. Stroud, The Election Board needs to transfer some money, $500 to Equipment.

Jane Pecor, Over $100.

Ms. Stroud, So you want to take from account number 2120 to account 4410. Is that correct?

Mrs. Pecor, Correct.

Ms. Stroud, I like your reason for the transfer. The description for the time stamp under Reason for Transfer: 'The old one died'.

Mrs. Pecor, It did. It went crazy and it died.

Ms. Stroud, So we can't resurrect that one, right.

Mrs. Pecor, No, well, they said we could for $340.

Ms. Stroud, And a new one for?

Mrs. Pecor, For $347.

Ms. Stroud, Well it's going to stay in the grave, I think.

Mrs. Pecor, And this one does have a warranty. Even repairing it, it only had a 30-day warranty, so.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, what's the pleasure of the Council?

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

Mrs. Pecor, Thank you very much.

JUVENILE DETENTION 01.80
144 Form

Detention Officer III (2) from $0 to $23,307 each

Additional Appropriation

$19,722 into account 1110 Salaries

Ms. Stroud, Good evening, ladies and gentleman; Judge and Mr. Perkins. Would you like to explain. They are asking on the 144 Form, Detention Officer III, two at $23,307 each, which also means they would have to put an additional in of $19,722. That's for the remainder of 2002. Would you like to explain the need and so on?

Ken Perkins, Yes. Back earlier in the year when the Council was requesting everyone to reduce their budgets, we had two positions that were vacant. One was vacant and the other became vacant right after. Those are the positions we're talking about. We went, I believe, as long as we could continue to operate at that level, but it's at the point that it's severely affected services and safety to the point where I'm not sure how we'll do on complying with standards next year, because frequently, access to services and programs for the kids is not happening right now just due to staffing levels.
This has been made worse by a couple of factors. One is a tremendous increase in the number of intakes we're getting this year. The other is, we have two staff that are on extended medical leave. One that's on a shorter term medical leave and one that resigned, so right now we just barely have enough people to function and certainly not to function well at this point.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Members of the Council?

Mr. Carmichael, Ken, what's your income this year from the county contract with Marshall County and wherever else you are contracting with the out-of-county kids that you are taking in?

Mr. Perkins, Yes, the total we've taken in so far this year for out-of-county kids is $181,000.

Mr. Carmichael, Okay.

Mrs. Conover, Do you know if that number is up or down from last year?

Mr. Perkins, I know our out-of-county population is up from last year. I didn't actually calculate the dollar's difference, but our out-of-county population has increased. Marshall County's use has increased. Jasper County's use has increased. Those are the two that contract with us and Starke County is using us quite a bit now too.

Ms. Stroud, Do you have a contract with them?

Mr. Perkins, No, we do not.

Ms. Stroud, So you do it on a individual, I mean, a one-to-one per diem?

Mr. Perkins, On a per diem basis.

Mr. Carmichael, What do you charge them on a daily basis?

Mr. Perkins, $100 right now.

Judge Mary Harper, We really are in a position where you probably know--because we send you an annual report--that we are certified by the Department of Corrections as meeting the appropriate standards. With the alterations we've had to make because of the short staffing, I do think that our certification issue is in question for next year. You know, we need to offer certain programming; this is a juvenile facility. Right now our ability to do that is significantly lessened and we really want that accreditation. We were a provisional accreditation when I came in and we are now at fault and that's important.

Mr. Ruge, You have income from other counties?

Judge Harper, Yes, sir. We rent out beds.

Ms. Stroud, How many juveniles do you have out there at a time or does it vary day-to-day or month-to-month?

Judge Harper, It varies.

Ms. Stroud, But what's the average, is what I am asking?

Judge Harper, In fact it can vary on a given day greatly. But last year we had the highest ever amount of intakes. Is that correct?

Mr. Perkins, Yes, it was at least at a five-year high and we're above that this year, so.

Ms. Stroud, So we are up then.

Mr. Perkins, Yes.

Judge Harper, We are continuously, because I get a call everyday, what's the population in detention, I want to know that. We are continuously right at our limit. Some of the other counties have asked us why don't we go to 24 beds, and I told them that I didn't think this is the time that that is going to happen, but we do need to stay certified.

Ms. Stroud, What's the average on a daily basis? What number are you giving them?

Mr. Perkins, Right now the average is between 14 and 15 a day, but that's a pretty misleading figure. In the past we've always said whatever our daily population is, it gives you an idea. What's happening now is, we're getting more intakes than we ever have before, but their stays are shorter. So our average daily population doesn't hit the high numbers it used to, but the actual workload involved may actually be increased because of the number of intakes, releases, transports. A lot of things that take one staff person tied up with one kid for an extended period of time.

Mrs. Vuko, Barb, if I may. They are already up like $42,000 from last year at this time.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. So you're up about $40,000 this year from last year.

Mrs. Vuko, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, does anyone else have any questions to ask or comments?

Mrs. Conover, I wanted to ask, when you see more intakes does that mean our own troubled youth or the youth we're receiving from the other counties that we are taking children from?

Mr. Perkins, Both. Our own county and the other counties are all increased.

Mrs. Conover, When it causes, I mean, is part of the solution here maybe not taking in as many from out-of-county or not at the present time?

Judge Harper, We've actually had to refuse some from other counties when our population was too high to accept them.

Mr. Perkins, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, Because our population is high?

Judge Harper, You know, and that's Marshall County who we have the contract with; sorry, no can do.

Mr. Perkins, We have been limiting it. Even though we're up it's a matter of when we have space available for the non-contracted counties. For the contracting counties, they're even limited as to how many they can send us, so if they want to send us more than that per day it's a matter of whether or not we have the space.

Mrs. Conover, What concerns me is, well, it's multi-concerns. We might finish, if we're lucky, finish with $56,000 this year. Auditor Vuko, does that take into consideration the extra $40,000 that we are up in revenues from last year's contracts to this year?

Mrs. Vuko, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, It does. Yet we've sat here and had to make our cuts and basically balanced the budget on the back of the county employees. Here is an area that we have not only statutory but moral obligations to fulfill some very serious duty with our troubled youth. This is really a tough, tough situation. We've done nothing to enhance our revenue and here we are. When this gentleman came to us to cut his budget he told us that he would cut it, but that he would be back depending on how things go and here we sit.

Judge Harper, If I could just make a comment. We utilize a great deal of alternative sentencing.

Mrs. Conover, I know.

Judge Harper, And alternative dispositions. We have a grant for keeping weekenders out of there and get them out working in the community and doing constructive things. We utilize PACT a great deal. We do everything that we can to minimize the population in a way that's accountable and addresses the safety of the community.

Mrs. Conover, Judge Harper, when you sit before us with any request I know that you've done your homework and your research and you're best utilizing the tax dollars. I know that. It's just such a difficult, difficult time right now. This is a responsibility that can't be pushed away. It can't be pushed aside. It's not a copy machine. It's not a contract. It's children and their lives and the safety of those officers who are taking care of those children.

Ms. Stroud, Anyone else? Thank you, Karen. It is a difficult situation and as Karen said, to reiterate, we know that when you come before us that you've done everything you could possible do. So far the income is up from last year, so what I have to say now is, what is the wishes of the Council here?

Mrs. Conover, Is it at all possible to get by, I know you have staff on medical leave and when they return that will alleviate some of your situation. Could you make it with maybe one more person for now? I mean, or is that, do you have to have two? Is it detrimental to the operation of your department?

Mr. Perkins, At some point we will need both. Will one person help us right now? Anything will help us right now.

Mrs. Conover, I'm not trying to compromise the department at all. I'm just looking at a cash-flow statement and it's just…

Mr. Perkins, I understand.

Mrs. Conover, Its just a very, very, tough, tough situation.

Mr. Perkins, I think that by next year we will certainly need both. We discussed this and it would be tough, but if that's what we need to do, we can get by with one of those positions for the remainder of the year.

Mrs. Conover, There's something else that I wanted to bring forward to the public. Do you utilize a contract to call nursing staff to evaluate illness?

Mr. Perkins, Yes. By state standards our staff cannot decide that a juvenile needs or does not need medical treatment. It has to be a medically trained person making that call. We have a nurse that comes in and sees the kids almost daily. But it's the after hours and weekends and holidays--that sort of thing--that's the problem and we have to actually contract for someone to provide telephone consultation just to tell us, yes, take him to the emergency room.
It's certainly not a done-deal yet, but I've had preliminary discussions with Dave Lain from the Sheriff's Department since they have nurses 24/7, if there is a possibility that we could utilize them for the telephone consultation on whether or not to transport someone for medical treatment.
Like I said, it's not a done-deal. It's something we are discussing, but he certainly seemed to think that might be possible. That would reduce in what we pay in our contract for nurses by, it was a little under $6,000. Here it is. It's $5,200 that could be reduced. So we certainly are going to pursue talks with the Sheriff's Department on that to see if that is possible.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, does anyone else have any questions?

Mr. West, You know that comes under public safety and I don't think we have any choice. The Judge said to keep her accreditation she needs these two people and if you don't get the intakes from Starke and Jasper, what happens then?

Judge Harper, Marshall.

Mr. West, Marshall. What happens?

Mr. Perkins, Certainly that would affect revenues. At times it would keep our population lower, but we have to staff for the maximum that we have. If we staff the minimum we're in trouble, so even without the others we would need staffing pretty close to this level.

Mr. West, If you don't have the accreditation you couldn't take those others?

Mr. Perkins, It's not for certain, but if we didn't have the accreditation they would probably start looking for another county to contract with.

Ms. Stroud, Let me ask you this. The people who come in from Starke, no, which one do you have the contract with?

Judge Harper, Marshall and Jasper.

Ms. Stroud, You have a contract that's $100 a day, but when they come in from Starke, do they pay the same amount as the people you have a contract with?

Mr. Perkins, They do. We have discussed adjusting the price of the non-contracting that they would actually pay higher, but that's not done yet.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Mr. West, Last year was a five-year high and this year is higher yet?

Mr. Perkins, Yes.
Mr. Ruge, I understand you're in a bind performing these services, is that because of the increased workload or because of the people on leave?

Mr. Perkins, Mostly I would say the increased workload, but the people on medical leave and people leaving has certainly added to that. So it's a little bit of both.

Mr. Ruge, A combination?

Mr. Perkins, Yes.

Mr. Ruge, I see.

Mr. Carmichael, Ken, those people that are absent whether it be on medical leave or whatever, which ones are not being paid and how much is being saved?

Mr. Perkins, At this point they're all being paid.

Mr. Carmichael, On medical leave they have so many sick days built up and so forth, but their pay goes right on just the same.

Mr. Perkins, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, So there's no savings there.

Mr. Perkins, There's no savings there.

Mr. Carmichael, It's just a matter of fact that you're short employees.

Mr. Perkins, Yes, the two extended medical leaves there's a possibility that later on part of that may be unpaid. But at this point they are all paid.

Ms. Stroud, And you had one resign, you said.

Mr. Perkins, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, And one is on a short-term medical.

Mr. Perkins, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, When is that one expected back?

Mr. Perkins, Hopefully next week.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, but you still have one opening?

Mr. Perkins, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, For the same position that you're asking for here? I mean…

Mr. Perkins, Well, no it's not one…

Ms. Stroud, It's not a detention officer?

Mr. Perkins, I mean, yes. Its an equal position.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, what's the wishes of the Council here?

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the 144 Form as submitted by Juvenile Detention. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, that's for the 144 for the two Detention Officer III. We have to do the additional.

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

Ms. Stroud, Thank you.

Mr. Perkins, Thank you very much.

COMMISSIONERS 01.30
Transfer

$150 from account 3210 Travel into account 3410 Official Bonds
$225.12 from account 2350 Building Maintenance into account 2310 Tires & Tubes

Ms. Stroud, The first part is a transfer of $150 to Official Bonds and $225.12 to Tires & Tubes. For the first one you want to take from fund 3210 Travel and you want to put it in 3410. Is that correct?

Com. Dave Burrus, I believe so.

Ms. Stroud, And the second transfer has to do with transferring from line item 2350 to line item 2310 Tires & Tubes. We can take care of that in one. Any questions?

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

Additional Appropriation

$96,000 into account 3440 Unemployment
Amended to $44,000

Ms. Stroud, The second one is Fund 01.30, in the amount of $96,000, account number 3440 or line item Unemployment. It's to cover the unemployment cost for the remainder of the year. As Com. Burrus explained last meeting, we have been independent as far as having our own sort of fund in past years. We've funded it with about $20,000. Of course as we've had people laid off or whatever, they are entitled to unemployment benefits and therefore the amount this year is much higher. Hopefully after the first of the year this will go down again. Now we were in a bind as far as talking about appropriating salaries at $19,000+ for two people here and now we are faced with this $96,000 additional. Questions or comments?

Mr. Carmichael, From the Auditor's office, what's outstanding right now? Are the bills paid and outstanding claims?

Mrs. Vuko, Right and you want to know the balance in this account?

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Mrs. Vuko, It's $12.26.

Ms. Stroud, What was it, $12.26?

Com. Burrus, I should probably comment, Bill, up until this date, we transferred from various accounts in the excess of $15,000.

Mr. Ruge, You save money by handling this from the County instead of the State?

Com. Burrus, Yes.

Mr. Ruge, You saved money over the years?

Com. Burrus, Yes, John. We found that the state rate of insurance, if we were to go back to them it would be approximately $90,000 per quarter. So this is still a better way to go even though it's uncomfortable right now.

Mr. Carmichael, Is this what you are projecting for the fiscal year of 2002?

Com. Burrus, For the remainder of 2002, yes.

Ms. Stroud, And maybe I was going to follow that up with, would we have to do the whole amount this evening or could we break this down a little bit so that we can find out exactly where we are. Would that be possible?

Com. Burrus, I think from our perspective it would be possible. I don't know…

Ms. Stroud, I have to defer to our lawyer to see, because $96,000 right now is a big chunk and if we could, and I don't want to say do it in increments, but that's what came to mind that we wouldn't have to do whole thing. At least try to get us by. What's the feeling? We have to pay it.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Right. There's no reason you can't break this down as much as you want to. I think I have to candidly observe that that doesn't make the problem go away.

Ms. Stroud, I agree.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I mean, as Karen alluded to, with the 10% reductions and holding to that, we've got $56,000 in the back on December 31st and you've already had, you know, this is over $100,000 this evening of requests for additionals, which points out, I think again, the magnitude of the financial problem we're dealing with. Now the advantage to breaking it down would be that the crystal ball gets clearer the closer you get to the end of the year.

Ms. Stroud, That's what I was thinking.

Mr. Hollenbeck, As part of my report tonight, we're now at June 30th and it's clearer than what it was on January 1st and as we approach the end of the year it will get clearer. But I don't think we should kid ourselves.

Ms. Stroud, Correct.

Mr. Hollenbeck, We have significant, we continue to have significant financial problems with the 10% cut budget. It's going to be difficult to make until the end of the year.

Ms. Stroud, Right, and I understand. That was my thinking, as we get closer to the end of the year, you know, if we can break this down, because if you don't have to pay all this out right now, it would give us a little clearer picture between like October and December or whatever.

Com. Burrus, I would go along with that also. What our hope would be is that we could receive enough additional to reimburse the $15,000+ that we have drawn out of other accounts including our power account. Going for two or three more months would clarify the situation a great deal to see what our trend is doing. We're projecting to get back to the fairly normal amount of claims by the end of the year, Barb, as you suggested. But we don't know if that is going to be sooner or later.

Mr. Carmichael, How many weeks can you collect unemployment?

Com. John Evans, 26, and then you can get an extension for another 26.

Mr. Carmichael, 26 weeks of unemployment.

Ms. Stroud, Plus another 26.

Com. Evans, Six months.

Ms. Stroud, Plus they can get another 26 if…

Mr. Carmichael, When they file for an extension. That's a year's pay.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Well it's not paid at your pay rate. It's paid at substantially less.

Com. Evans, Right.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And I think John the second 26 weeks, there's some federal money involved in that. The state program is 26 weeks. There is in certain economic areas of the state and during certain economically tough times and we qualify right now for both of those, there is a second increment of 26 weeks. But I think at least a portion of that is funded through a federal program that it pays for that.

Ms. Stroud, Could you gentlemen…

Com. Burrus, I'm not sure that we are, being self-insured, are able to draw into that.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Qualify for that?

Com. Burrus, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, What do you feel you absolutely have to have right now to comfortably carry us through our obligations for the next couple of months?

Mrs. Vuko, It's like $13,600 a month.

Mrs. Conover, It's $13,600 a month.

Com. Burrus, See that's been our peak to date.

Mrs. Vuko, Right. Last month it was like $10,300.

Com. Burrus, Now those are March and April's. I haven't seen the May figures myself.

Mrs. Vuko, May was $10,334.

Com. Burrus, May is, so we're seeing a little bit of a decline already.

Mrs. Vuko, No, then in June it was $13,600. So we're going up.

Mr. Carmichael, So 13 and 15 would make one month, approximately. The way it's running right now.

Com. Burrus, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, But 15 and 26 would make two months before we have to revisit this.

Ms. Stroud, What did you say, 15 and what?

Mr. Carmichael, 15 and 26 is 41. Isn't that 41?

Ms. Stroud, Okay. You've already paid May and June?

Mrs. Conover, And there's $12.26 left.

Ms. Stroud, With $12.26 in the account.

Mrs. Conover, And he has money owed to other accounts that you've transferred.

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Com. Burrus, The money that's owed to other accounts, I'll give you that exact figure, is $15,755.

Mr. Hollenbeck, It's not owed to other accounts. It's what you've transferred out.

Com. Burrus, Well it's what we transferred out, but those accounts were being used to supplement.

Com. Evans, To pay this price that we've got.

Ms. Stroud, Yes. Okay.
Mrs. Conover, And $13,600 a month in unemployment claims, correct?

Com. Burrus, The most current, yes.

Mr. Carmichael, So $42,000 would take us through approximately two months.

Ms. Stroud, July and August.

Com. Burrus, Well now.

Ms. Stroud, She hasn't paid June.

Com. Burrus, Look at it as two months, Barb.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I am.

Com. Burrus, According to my numbers that $13,600, Sandy that you had, that was paying the April claims.

Mrs. Vuko, Okay, yes.

Com. Burrus, We've got eight months outstanding yet.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, I didn't understand that. That's the April claim.

Mrs. Conover, So $35,000 is what is comfortably needed right now?

Com. Burrus, For a couple of months now. Is that the number you came up with, Bill?

Mr. Carmichael, No.

Ms. Stroud, He came up with 42.

Com. Evans, But you were putting the $15,000 back in.

Mrs. Conover, Yes, I've got $16,000, then rounding up, $14,000 and $14,000.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I did $13,600 for two months. I didn't realize that you were behind.

Com. Burrus, I would say in the range of…

Mrs. Conover, $44,000.

Com. Burrus, $44,000 maybe, yes.

Mr. Ruge, There isn't any possibility of this being a transfer in your budget?

Ms. Stroud, No, they've already transferred.

Com. Burrus, We've already done that.

Com. Evans, From the councilmen's salaries.

Mrs. Conover, We've already cut ours.

Ms. Stroud, Yes. They did transfer, John. They've already transferred $15,000 out.

Mr. Carmichael, You don't want me to answer that, do you John?

Com. Evans, No, I don't think so.

Ms. Stroud, And if we vote to put $44,000 back in that's covering the $15,000 they've already transferred out of another fund that they would have to come back to later.

Mr. Carmichael, The power fund.

Ms. Stroud, Like the power fund. Okay? Does anyone else have any comments? Any questions for these gentlemen?

Mrs. Conover, I just wanted to say that I appreciate, you know, you letting us know in advance. It doesn't make tonight's situation any more exciting, however, if we could maybe drop that number currently from $96,000 to $44,000. Is that a comfortable number?

Com. Burrus, I would say that would be a good way to go from our perspective until we see…

Ms. Stroud, They'll have claims come in, you know, in the next couple of months. Okay.

Mrs. Conover moved to amend the request for additional appropriations, submitted by the Commissioners from $96,000 to $44,000. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Com. Burrus, One bit of good news. Last month also I reported that our health insurance claim history has been somewhat less than projected and that we felt that we were going to able to save as much as what we had cut in our 10% budget. That trend is continuing. We have deviated from that, so we're looking good there.

Ms. Stroud, Good, we need some good news and that was good news last month. Thank you, Com. Burrus.

Com. Burrus, The bad news is we're still going to be down a large amount of what we had before us.

Ms. Stroud, I know.

Com. Burrus, Thank you very much.

Com. Evans, And for the $19,000 that you did for Judge Harper, you didn't address the benefits.

Ms. Stroud, I didn't do the benefits.

Com. Evans, They're not in there.

Ms. Stroud, Oh, they're not in there. Well, hopefully they'll get it through another fund. I don't know. Sorry about that.

Com. Evans, That's okay.

PLAN COMMISSION 01.24
Transfer

$200 from account 3330 Photo & Blueprint into account 4410 Office Equipment over $100

Ms. Stroud, Plan Commission. Good evening.

Steve Nigro, Good evening. We're requesting a transfer of funds from account number 3330, which is Photo & Blueprint, which has currently $500 in there. We are asking to transfer $200 to account number 4410 for Office Equipment over $100, the reason is our fax is broke. We do have three bids. The high end, $245. At the low end, $161.49.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, does anyone have any questions? We need a motion here to transfer.

Mr. West, Did anybody ever use Corporate Express? I've never heard of them.

Ms. Balcerak, That's who we have our bid thorough.

Mr. Nigro, That is our low bid.

Mr. West, I know it, but has anyone ever used them though?

Ms. Stroud, I don't know. Corporate Express, I don't know. Has anyone ever used them in the departments?

Ms. Balcerak, We all use them.

Ms. Stroud, They all use them back here.

Mr. West, All of them use it?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, all of them.

Mr. West, Okay, if that's the low bid let's go with it.

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

Mr. Nigro, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you.

SUPERIOR COURT 6 - THODE 01.39
Transfer

$137 from account 3130 Training & Education into account 3610 Maintenance Agreements
$12.83 from account 3130 Training & Education into account 3110 Legal

Ms. Stroud, Superior Court 6, Fund 01.39, transfer to Maintenance Agreements.

Mr. Carmichael, Of $49?

Ms. Stroud, No, this one is a transfer of $137.06 to Maintenance Agreements and $12.83 to Legal.

Mr. Carmichael moved to grant the request for transfer of funds as submitted by Superior Court 6. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

ADULT PROBATION 01.43
Neil Hannon to address the Council concerning the hiring freeze

Ms. Stroud, Next on the agenda is Mr. Hannon, with the Adult Probation Department.

Mr. Hannon, Good evening again. I had written a letter to each of you. I don't know if you have had a chance to read it. We have a support staff person that had actually worked at the County Clerk's office in 1986 that's leaving us and before I proceeded to do anything further to replace that position I wanted to talk with you regarding the hiring freeze and whether or not that person could be replaced.
Jan Proctor, who is leaving us has been with Adult Probation for about 10 years and I didn't want to do any interviewing for that position. I knew about the probation officer position and we have not had an occasion yet, the need to address a staff person.

Ms. Stroud, Does anyone have any questions? I mean, first of all with the hiring freeze, we are not hiring positions unless it involves public safety and so on. This is for a, she functions as a legal secretary and is this out of general fund money or out of your own fund money?

Mr. Hannon, It's out of the general fund. What this person does is, when the pre-sentence investigation report is done prior to sentencing for the courts, that individual then is really close to the attorneys, to the judges and copies are made for the institutions. There's a time period, from the time that the individual enters a plea of guilty or is found guilty by the court, that this has to be done by. They also field approximately 60 phone calls a day and make about 30,000 copies a month. So I know that's an understatement of what they really do; they do a whole lot more than that. But we had a need to hire a part-time hourly person as a data entry secretary doing both last year and the year before last to keep up the workload. So that's another one of those where our support staff has not expanded in anyway for--if we go back--probably more than three years.
The probation officers have actually tightened the pre-sentence investigation reports, the revocations of probation. These are all proofread, copies are made, distribution of facts, those things to the appropriate people. So that's one of the functions it pertains to.

Ms. Stroud, What's the wish of the Council here?

Mr. Carmichael, John, did you have a question?

Mr. Ruge, Don't we have a rule, no additional deputies or additional help beginning this year we're not going to hire any additional employees?

Ms. Stroud, Well, agreed. This is not an additional, but a replacement. I understand what you are saying. It is a replacement of someone that is leaving.

Mr. Ruge, Oh, this is a replacement. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know this was a replacement.

Ms. Stroud, Well it's a replacement, but we had said also we were going to leave positions vacant, you know, if we could.

Mr. Ruge, This is a replacement?

Mr. Hannon, Yes.

Mr. Ruge, I'm sorry.

Ms. Stroud, Do you have any funds available that you could take over paying the salary of this person?

Mr. Hannon, We do not, because we've already put in our 10% cuts from the user fees. That's already on target right now, to be depleted in about 18 months, the user fee account.

Ms. Stroud, It's going to be depleted?

Mr. Hannon, We're spending it faster than we're collecting. We used to have a reserve in there and that's where we offset our budget just to continue to operate.

Ms. Stroud, But you are spending faster than you are collecting?

Mr. Hannon, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, Are your user fees down for this year? The total amount?

Mr. Hannon, No.

Ms. Stroud, Are they higher?

Mr. Hannon, They're just right on, about the same. We had 9,000 people through our office last year and that's up in the number that always came through by about 250. Our transfers from out-of-county, both interstate and intrastate are up, so those individuals also have to pay fees. So we're collecting actually more or just as much as what we did last year.

Ms. Stroud, Do we collect more on inter, than we do on intra?

Mr. Hannon, No, it's the same amount. The felons have to pay us their fees and they pay for whatever the court has ordered. So in other words, if there's Antabuse, they pay a monthly fee for that. If they have additional requirements that they have those services as well. We try to get everybody to pay everything that are able to. Not all of them can, but when it comes to collection of user fees we try to make them pay that as well.

Mr. Carmichael, Where do you log that in, the jail fund?

Mr. Hannon, Account 48, a special fund.

Mr. Carmichael, Into the user fees?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, the user fees.

Mr. Carmichael, Okay, and out of that user fee what do you pay?

Mr. Hannon, We pay all of our operating expenses in Adult Probation. We also pay the staff part of a salary. Currently, in February, we took additional payment for staff; taking the 10% out of the county general and paying it from user fees.

Mr. Carmichael moved to allow Adult Probation to replace the Probation Secretary. Mr. Ruge seconded.

Mrs. Conover, Jan Proctor, I don't think you can replace her. She's a one-of-a-kind gal and I know she kind of grew into your department. Is there anyway at this point in time, at least through the balance of the year that you could maybe get by with a couple of part-time people?

Mr. Hannon, Well, I think that would be nice. We only have one physical office space to occupy, then you're looking at training a person to do the kind of work that she needs to be trained in. I think it will probably take somewhere between six and eight months to train that person to do what's expected today, which there are some many things that have to be done that are repetitious. However, until you know what you have to do from A to C, you can't get to Z. So it's important to have someone that comes in.
We had some people express an interest and that's another situation. I know we would need to, if you are generous and allow us to replace this person then we need to bring somebody in at an $18,000 level or entry-level. And then if a person is actually working in another department that applies who has the experience, what do you do in that regard? In other words, if they are currently working in the Clerk's Office, then that takes an employee away from the clerk and they have a hiring freeze the same way. Then you run into, well do you give them the experience and say that they got the training experience to come in because we don't want to hire somebody that doesn't have a background in this, because they are not going to pick it up. Plus they need to have typing that's got to be at least 60 to 70 word a minute with accuracy and have tremendous spelling and a lot of other abilities.
So it's one of those situations where to bring somebody in, we have some high standards and to bring somebody in with no experience, that's the output we are going to get and we can't function. With what's required of us, we cannot bring somebody in off the street to do this. It's not possible.

Mrs. Conover, So you do have interested people right now at the salary level offered?

Mr. Hannon, I have not advertised it, I haven't talked with anyone.

Mrs. Conover, I mean internally?

Mr. Hannon, People have said, 'I'm interested in it if this happens.' Each one of our support staff has a minimum of a two-year degree in secretarial training from Ball State University, Sawyer Business College and those places. Then all of them have another eight to ten years experience in the legal field, so we would not even consider interviewing somebody who didn't have that kind of preparation and background. So that's what I am saying is if we start them out at $18,000 that may attract them, however, we may not get anybody at that rate either to do the kind of work that's there. I don't know.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I was going to ask the question before we even voted on this as to what this job was classified as, as far as the pay and so on, you know, before we vote on this, because we have to know this.

Mr. Hannon, Sure.

Ms. Stroud, Because we have been saying where we did allow them to fill that you need to take them back down, you know. But if they have to have special training then that's a different situation. What is the person making now?

Mr. Hannon, They are making approximately $20,800 and we have not, other than our initial, we have not ever been factored before the Personnel Committee and we were told to go back but we did not. Because at the time the county employees separated from the court employees, then we were no longer able to come back and appear before that group to be re-evaluated for the work. Therefore that's never been revised.

Mrs. Conover, Is Jan retiring or is she moving to something else?

Mr. Hannon, No, she's going to be doing something else.

Ms. Stroud, Her salary is at $20,000?

Ms. Balcerak, A 305 COMOT is what her factors are. The low is $18,699. The mid is $20,527. The high is $22,355.

Ms. Stroud, So she's making the mid then?

Mrs. Conover, Will you be needing her to train someone new or is she going to be gone and then you're going to be training or have various staff train.

Mr. Hannon, She is going to be gone.

Ms. Stroud, When does she plan on leaving?

Mr. Hannon, She's actually, today was her last day. That's why we had this emergency situation to get on the agenda, because I wasn't knowledgeable of that.

Mrs. Conover, Well, we're not asking for additional money here.

Ms. Stroud, But we have asked in the past that they be brought in at a lower level as far as salary.

Mr. Carmichael, But they are required to have that additional training, then he's going to have to pay that in order to get somebody.

Ms. Balcerak, And she will come in at 95% for the first three months.

Mrs. Vuko, Yes.

Ms. Balcerak, So there is some savings there.

Mr. Carmichael, Did you hear that, Neil?

Mr. Hannon, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, For the first three months.

Mr. Carmichael, The motion has been made and seconded.

Ms. Stroud, Yes. Okay, the motion has been made and seconded to allow them to fill the position, with the understanding that they will be paid 95% of the existing salary for the first three months. Then I think we have to do an evaluation and go from there, you know, but that's the way it is.

Clarification of Motion: To allow Adult Probation to fill the Probation Secretary position at the existing salary of $20,856; Salary to be paid at 95% for the first three months.

Motion carried unanimously.

Mr. Hannon, For a point of clarification then, if they come from another department and they have that same experience, what do you do?

Mr. Carmichael, At this point I would suggest that you go outside.

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Mr. Hannon, So you discriminate against somebody that has qualifications. I mean I'll do that, but I don't want to, you know, tell them that.

Ms. Stroud, Have we run into that?

Mr. Carmichael, Well that's a pretty high rate of accuracy on typing. The accuracy that you are requesting, most county employees don't have to have that 70 words per minute.

Mr. Hannon, They have to in our department.

Mr. Carmichael, My wife does, but she's retired after 30 years with the school system.

Mr. Hannon, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, I retired after 37, she should be back working.

JAIL 01.32
Revision of Medical Staff job descriptions

Nurse
Medical Services Director
LPN/Medical Assistant

Ms. Stroud, The Jail, revision of Medical Staff job descriptions. Good evening, gentlemen.

Chief Deputy Dave Lain, Good evening.

Ms. Stroud, Do you want to explain what you would like to do or what we have to do?

Chief Deputy Lain, Well because of the suspension of the Personnel Committee, we did have some revisions on some job descriptions. We need to bring it before this board, regarding our medical director and the staff within that section of the jail.
These are basically clerical, we're not, these are not related here, not to money issues, but it is an update of titles. It's a modernization of what is exactly happening in the jail and we are hoping the possibility of the assistance now, instead of strictly the LPN's, we are hoping that as well to, qualified medical assistants. We checked with the sheriff's attorney and he saw no problems there.

Mr. Carmichael, How many LPN positions does that leave? Does that leave any?

Sgt. Mike Krawczyk, What we did is, we're having a hard time with the salary schedule. We have four LPN positions and all we did was change it to a qualified, excuse me, we asked for four, but we only got three, that's correct. We have three. We were going to have four, but we ended up with three because of the financial situation. But we're having a hard time hiring them with what we can pay at the county level. So we were suggested by Dr. Johnson from the ER to look at qualified medical assistants, because they can do a lot of the same things if they have the right qualifications. So we, there was no job description for an LPN, somehow that slipped through the cracks, so we did a job description for LPN/Medical Assistant and just, at the same pay scale. And then we described the Nurse/Assistant Medical Director and instead of strictly an RN, changed that to an RN/LPN and, you know, delineated the requirements for that.

Mr. Carmichael, To be flexible with it.

Sgt. Krawczyk, Right.

Mr. Carmichael, So you can go either way.

Sgt. Krawczyk, And then our medical director under our jail physician we changed that to medical director and that is specified as an RN position. It's all clerical, there's no financial issues involved.

Mrs. Conover, I guess a real quick question, and I don't know if Mike or Dave can answer this, but. Ken Perkins is having talks with you on, talking about a nurse, concerning our juvenile detainees. If we are going to qualified medical assistants does that also, I mean, they are supposed to be talking to a nurse for the nurse to decide whether or not a juvenile person needs medical attention.

Chief Deputy Lain, Well, this is a, Mr. Perkins and our, my conversation is very preliminary, but even at a, at current workings, we've got our nursing staff, is unpaid, and they are consulted at home on a regular basis now for our needs. So it would be a slight additional burden, we feel, if we are able to get something worked out with the Juvenile Center, it really won't change or substitute the operation of what those nurses are doing. So it would still be a nurse that they would be consulting.

Mrs. Conover, So these people that you are wanting, that we are clarifying the job description for now, will be staffed 24 hours a day?

Chief Deputy Lain, Hopefully we'll have staff available, either on duty or on call. When we are on full staff we would certainly like to have someone there through weekends, holidays, through at least two to three shifts.

Sgt. Krawczyk, I think the schedule that they have worked out now due to, we went with three instead of four LPN's, slash, Medical Assistants now. I believe the schedule was if we had these people from 2:00 a.m. until I think it's 6:00 a.m., we have a four-hour window there where we didn't have somebody actually in the building. If we get that fourth person if the financial situation straightens out, we have that fourth LPN we can go 24/7.

Ms. Stroud, I have a question but I just lost my place because I was looking at something else here. Under your description, let me find it.

Sgt. Krawczyk, Which one are you looking at?

Ms. Stroud, It had to do with the nurse. Where it says about the nurse, the department and so on, but where you have the job requirements, you've titled in nurse at the top and I understand that, but. Collectively the title would apply, but isn't there a difference as far as a registered nurse and a licensed practical nurse, as far as schooling and so on?

Sgt. Krawczyk, Yes there is.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Sgt. Krawczyk, I'm not totally familiar with the difference.

Ms. Stroud, Well an RN--somebody correct this--is a four-year degree and a licensed practical nurse is usually a two-year degree. So probably what I am asking you is you've titled it nurse up here, do you mean RN or do you mean the term collectively RN practical and then when it gets to the pay, you've got the status exempt and so on, but a licensed practical nurse would not be on the same pay scale with a registered nurse--an RN.

Chief Deputy Lain, Well for the position itself, the position would be at the pay scale for the position whether or not that position is filled by an RN or an LPN.

Ms. Stroud, There should be a difference in pay.

Sgt. Krawczyk, We've discussed this with our jail doctor and our current medical director who is the RN and they feel that the assistant with the right, apparently there are LPN's that have a higher degree, you know.

Ms. Stroud, Some can have three years, but if they are a registered nurse, then they have a four-year degree and there is a difference. Maybe what I am saying to you is, I don't have any problem with changing the descriptions, I just want to make sure all the bases are covered. If you are paying a registered nurse with a four-year degree one salary, one classification, I would think that the classification for the licensed practical nurse would be different. It would not be the same pay, just because of the educational background is what I am saying.

Sgt. Krawczyk, Well we based this based on our needs in that position and it was the feeling of our nurse/medical director and our physician that either an LPN or an RN could fill this. You may have an RN that's got, you know, some years on and is just looking for this type of job and would work for that sub-style pay, then you have an LPN that has greater qualifications and can do our duties and would work for, you know, obviously work for that pay.

Chief Deputy Lain, Ms. Stroud, I understand what you're argument is.

Ms. Stroud, Like do you understand where I am coming from?

Chief Deputy Lain, But what do you, the whole basis for the reason of these changes is, in the real world we are finding it more and more difficult to find people to fill the positions. This gives us added flexibility, nothing more.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, just so that down the road if you find that you have all registered nurses applying for these positions and you decide that you want them re-evaluated so they will get more money to keep them, that's what I am getting at. Okay?

Sgt. Krawczyk, That's why we didn't want to do any financial changes here to try to get the LPN's up to a different pay scale, because we knew that would be impossible. We wanted to specify the job requirements and try to get qualified people to fill those at that pay.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Just so you understand and you know there is a difference.

Chief Deputy Lain, Well, absolutely, but.

Mr. Carmichael, Jan, have you had a chance to review these papers?

Ms. Balcerak, Yes, I finally got the job postings.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, she did get them.

Mr. Carmichael, They are okay?

Ms. Balcerak, Yes. The only question that I would have and it's the same as what Barb said. On the medical assistant that is only a certification, isn't it?

Sgt. Krawczyk, QMA?

Ms. Balcerak, Isn't it only a certification?

Sgt. Krawczyk, Yes, right.

Ms. Balcerak, With an LPN though, isn't it testing. I mean, don't they have to actually take a state test?

Ms. Stroud, State Board.

Sgt. Krawczyk, The only knowledge I have on this is from talking to Dr. Johnson and this is where the idea came from in a brief conversation there, that they have done a lot of that because these QMA's how you can get them certified to a point where they can do almost as much as an LPN. So what we are going to be looking for is a QMA that has the certifications, you know, that can do the job that we require.

Chief Deputy Lain, If it will help clarify any, that position is essentially for the distribution and the cataloging of the pharmaceuticals.

Ms. Stroud, That's what I was looking at.

Sgt. Krawczyk, The first aid and the preliminary triage to determine if they need to go to the ER, you know, call the nurse, call the doctor.

Ms. Stroud, So you've checked them out. I mean, those were the questions I came up with. I know they are with the format that we have used and so and I don't have a problem with that. Maybe my other question would be, have you found that most of the people that you have or in these positions are licensed practical nurses rather than RN's?

Sgt. Krawczyk, We have one person.
Ms. Stroud, One person?

Sgt. Krawczyk, One person, that's all we've been able to keep. She seems happy in the work right now and is doing a good job. But we need to advertise to fill our three vacancies.

Mr. Carmichael moved to approve the job descriptions submitted by the Jail for the Nurse, Medical Services Director and LPN/Medical Assistant. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you, gentleman.

Sgt. Krawczyk, Thank you.

SUPERIOR COURT 3 - JENT 01.38
Judge Julia Jent to address the Council concerning the hiring freeze

Ms. Stroud, Next on the agenda is Judge Jent.

Judge Julia Jent, I want what he got.

Ms. Stroud, You want what he got; why do you want the nurse; do you want to be a nurse. I don't know about the salaries. We can't even hire them at that salary.

Judge Jent, Seriously, I appreciate being able to come at the last minute. I called Barbara Stroud yesterday and she arranged it so I could get here tonight. I'm losing a secretary/assistant bailiff/everything else. I mean, I have a wonderful staff and she's leaving me for more money--needless to say--and I need to replace her. What I am asking is that I can replace her at the same salary as is shown for the new person, which Edna is leaving.
You know, it's hard to find qualified people as you well know. I have someone interested that's coming from another department and they will probably be here looking for the same thing. But you know, we do what we have to do. She's well qualified, I won't have to train her, so she can come right in to the position. I have $23,113 already in my budget so I'm not asking for anything more.
You know I have cut my budget every time you guys have asked. One of my full-time staff is on part-time and I can't cut anymore. I need this position. I need qualified people. I mean we have one of the best court systems in the state of Indiana. We work with our people well and we have well-qualified people, but to get someone with a lower salary is more and more difficult.

Ms. Stroud, I think we appreciate it. You know every one has had to make cuts and we appreciate that you've been able to do that. I know in talking to you, you did say that you had someone that was trained. The person at this time is making $23,113. Is that correct?

Judge Jent, Correct.

Ms. Stroud, I don't know what the factoring is here. Is it a COMOT?

Ms. Balcerak, It's a COMOT 370.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. If we grant this I think the same thing holds true that what we told Neil, they have to come in with 5% reduction for three months. They come in at 95%.

Mr. West, For three months only.

Judge Jent, Three months at 95%?

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Judge Jent, Then she would go up to the regular salary?

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Judge Jent, I think I can talk her into coming in at that salary.

Ms. Stroud, Well we haven't voted on it yet, but I wanted those things pointed out before we take any action on it. Questions, comments that you would like to ask the judge?

Mrs. Conover, Is your air conditioning working fine?

Judge Jent, Yes, all three were working until yesterday afternoon and when the storm came, so went those air conditioners, but I believe it did kick back on. One day, all of you, I invite you to come to North County and see what we really need, but that's for another time.

Mrs. Conover moved to allow Judge Jent to fill the Secretary/Assistant Bailiff's position at the current salary of $23,113, with the position to pay 95% for the first three months. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Judge Jent, Thank you very much.

TAX ABATEMENT GUIDELINE DISCUSSION - CUSTOM MACHINING SERVICES

Ms. Stroud, The tax abatement and Custom Machining Services.

Mr. Hollenbeck, You all should have a letter in front of you.

Ms. Stroud, Correct.

Mr. Hollenbeck, This matter is on the agenda because of discussions that occurred at the end of the last meeting. As you'll remember, Todd Leeth was before us requesting the tax abatement on the manufacturing equipment for his client Custom Manufacturing Services. The request was for a 10-year abatement on the equipment and you granted that. Then a question arose that I couldn't answer about what happened. It used to be five and when I went back and checked, Todd was right that the Legislature in its wisdom amended the abatement statute as it relates to manufacturing equipment.
As my letter indicates, the amendatory language creates two different groupings. We would fit the first, and that's our economic revitalization areas in their entirety were created before July 1, 2000. Which means that your option is for five or ten. If you are in the second category, which is the economic revitalization areas that were designated after June 30, 2000--we don't have any of those--then you can do it for any number of years, but not more than 10.

Mr. Carmichael, How does the motion have to be worded to correct this?

Mr. Hollenbeck, Well at this point if you are comfortable with what you did last time, my research reveals that it was in fact legal what you did and you would have to do nothing.

Mr. Carmichael, Okay.

Mr. Hollenbeck, The issue that was raised…

Ms. Balcerak, The guidelines.

Mr. Carmichael, The motion is to do nothing.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Well yes, the other thing that we have to do is, now that we've discovered this change in the statute, the guidelines that we operate under, that we give people, talk about a limit of five years. So I guess it would be appropriate to have a motion to entertain an amendment to your guidelines to reflect the current statutory language, which would mean that you can grant tax abatement on new manufacturing equipment for five or ten years.

Mr. Carmichael moved to amend Porter County's Tax Abatement Guidelines to include a ten-year abatement on new manufacturing equipment. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Alright, so we will change that on the applications that are made in the future to read either five or ten years, in accordance with the law.

Mrs. Conover, Not have to, could.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Can. And I don't have the faintest idea why the Legislature would make that distinction, alright, but we're now five or ten. If you do it after June of 2002, it can be one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten. That's a question you can ask Ralph.

Ms. Stroud, I will ask him.

STATEMENT OF BENEFITS - GREAT LAKES PACKAGING
Resolution 02-7-23

Ms. Stroud, Next on the agenda is the statement of benefits for Great Lakes Packaging. Will you please introduce yourselves. You are applying for a new abatement. Is that correct? Would you introduce yourselves, please.

Attorney David Woodward, Sure, David Woodward, legal counsel for the petitioner.

Joseph Glusak, Joseph Glusak, president of Great Lakes Packaging.

Kriste Eriksen, I'm Kriste Eriksen, I'm with the law firm.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. Gentlemen, would you like to explain your statement of benefits and give us some background and so on and so forth and what you are asking for.

Atty. Woodward, Mr. Glusak, we'll have him give a background history. This deals with the old Orville Redenbacher plant out on US 30, which most people here are familiar with. Joe, why don't you explain what has transpired out there at the facility in the last couple of years.

Mr. Glusak, As well as you know, in 1991 Con-Agra moved the facility to Marion, Ohio so there was a large loss of jobs for the community. I was the plant manager there. I worked for Con-Agra for 12 years. We turned the present facility to a warehouse and distribution for food and we are currently working on starting to put the microwave production line back into production. There is a good market for it out there and we want to bring jobs back to the community.

Atty. Woodward, As a little bit of background, I think, Joe, there was 400 jobs there?

Mr. Glusak, Yes, at the peak there was 400 jobs and when we closed down in 1999 there was 265.

Atty. Woodward, After they closed down, Great Lakes Packaging began co-packaging popcorn for Con-Agra, for how long?

Mr. Glusak, We did it for about 18 months.

Atty. Woodward, Then they removed all the machinery and lines out of there as recently as a couple of weeks ago.

Mr. Glusak, Yes.

Atty. Woodward, So what Great Lakes Packaging is doing is, they are building their own line in order to co-pack for other popcorn facilities and manufacturers throughout the country. By doing this, they expect to get, you know, within the next six months, maybe as many as 35 to 45 new jobs in there.

Mr. Glusak, Yes, we have a couple of large contracts in the works with large popcorn manufacturers.

Ms. Stroud, That was going to be my question. How many people do you employ out there now? That was one of my questions.

Mr. Glusak, Currently we have ten, but in the next three to five months we should have 45.

Atty. Woodward, And when Great Lakes Packaging was co-packing for Con-Agra during this last year and a half, there was as many as 30.

Mr. Glusak, 30 and with 25 temporary, we utilized the temporary services in Porter County.

Ms. Stroud, So you had temps?

Mr. Glusak, Yes, we had 20, so at the peak of the fall we had 55.

Mr. Carmichael, Does any of those employees come from Workforce Development? Is that where they come from?

Mr. Glusak, We were using Express Services. We utilize the unemployment office if they fit the position, but a lot of them we use from the employees of Con-Agra. We're retaining some ex-employees.

Mr. Carmichael, How long of a tax abatement are you asking for?

Atty. Woodward, Well, we were a little unclear about that also. It looks like either five or ten years.

Mr. Hollenbeck, The resolution proposed says ten years.

Atty. Woodward, There's a lot of experienced people in this community especially in popcorn, believe it or not, the word 'popcorn capital' of the United States is right here in Valparaiso and we need to utilize that. We've been buying all of our raw materials from local marketing, contracted with Chester's to grow about 4,000 acres of popcorn, which equates to about $2,000,000, so. We're going to try to help stimulate the local economy.

Mrs. Conover, Family Time popcorn?

Mr. Glusak, That is a company that's out there that Great Lakes Packaging is trying to work out a contract to co-pack their popcorn also.

Atty. Woodward, They're on our facility. They are leasing some of the property on our facility and they are utilizing our expertise and they're bringing more jobs back.

Mrs. Conover, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael, Have you filled out the necessary application and do you have a copy of that, Barb?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I do.

Mr. Carmichael, How many jobs are they contending? What are they guaranteeing there and what's the length of time and the salaries?

Atty. Woodward, I will say that there's one typographical error on that. If I may?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, go ahead.

Atty. Woodward, Within the next three months we expect to have at least 35 additional jobs, maybe as many as 45. The calculation that we put on the application says 960 in one place, $960,000 additional salaries plus benefits, but there was a calculation mistake. In the other part of the application, in the real calculation after speaking with the controller out at Great Lakes, it should be 1.667 million dollars.

Ms. Stroud, Under salaries and plus benefits?

Atty. Woodward, Yes.

Ms. Stroud, What was it, 1.6?

Mr. Glusak, 1.667.

Atty. Woodward, The average employee last year made around $36,000 plus benefits.

Mr. Carmichael, So you're saying by approximately November or December sometime you will have most of those positions filled if everything works out.
Atty. Woodward, Well we have a contract already to do how many bags a month once we get it lined up?

Mr. Glusak, A million bags a week, about 30,000,000 bags. That will be about nine month's worth of work. Then we're working on three or four more contracts right now, plus working with Family Time.

Mr. Carmichael, Under our requirements, when are they to report back? Isn't that an annual requirement?

Ms. Stroud, It's an annual requirement, yes.

Atty. Woodward, And we have negotiated a contract with this major popcorn manufacturer, so it's just getting the line in place and up and running.

Mr. Carmichael, How much equipment do you intend to buy in order to have or receive the abatement, approximately?

Atty. Woodward, It's 1.7 million.

Mr. Carmichael, In equipment?

Atty. Woodward, Yes.

Mr. Glusak, And if things go right, I think that there may be in the next year additional equipment.

Atty. Woodward, It takes a little understanding, they will be number five out there, which is one of the largest buildings and when Con-Agra occupied the facility they had roughly, Joe, 11 lines?

Mr. Glusak, Yes, we had 11 lines.

Atty. Woodward, And this would be considered a dual-line that you are putting in?

Mr. Glusak, Yes.

Atty. Woodward, And if we get additional contracts within the next nine to 12 months, you expect to put additional lines in.

Mr. Glusak, A second and a third line.

Ms. Stroud, In the application they had for a total 1,700,000 and of that, they had purchase of equipment 1,685,000 and the 15,000 for buildings and structures. What they are telling us tonight is that they will probably be over that.

Atty. Woodward, Yes, we didn't know, they are probably low.

Ms. Stroud, Okay.

Mr. Carmichael, David, in the event the tax abatement is granted, for what reason would there be for the tax abatement to be denied or cancelled?

Mr. Hollenbeck, Well as has been alluded to, Bill, they have an annual reporting requirement back to us and we measure then on our guidelines, we measure their performance against their statement of benefits, what they told us they were going to do. As you'll remember, a good example, when Con-Agra pulled out we pulled their tax abatement, Con-Agra's, because they weren't performing as they said they would. So you have the ability annually to revisit what these folks are telling you they are going to do and if in your opinion they've substantially failed to do that, you have a right then to take back their tax abatement or modify it in some way.

Mr. Carmichael, Is failure to report, is that considered to be a breaking of the marriage?

Mr. Hollenbeck, We have never had one that failed to report, but I suppose if someone failed to report, it would be my opinion that we don't do that without first contacting them and saying that they need to report. Then if they just blatantly refused to do that, I wouldn't have any problem having one of the penalties for that the refusal to grant the abatement.

Mr. Carmichael, I'm just asking these questions for the clarification of the individuals so that the responsibility lies within your law firm if you are representing them.

Atty. Woodward, Yes.

Mr. Carmichael, To be here on an annual basis to make that report.

Atty. Woodward, Just to give you a little background, Mr. Carmichael. I'm a resident of Valparaiso and I've lived in this community now for seven years. I'm originally from Lake County. My law firm is in Lake County and has been there for many years and I will make sure that I put it on my calendar that there is a report to be filed annually. All the shareholders of Great Lakes Packaging are either Porter or Lake County residents. They are all local people. None of the shareholders of this company live outside of Lake or Porter counties. Do you live in Jasper now?

Mr. Glusak, Yes, but I'm moving to town.

Atty. Woodward, We do have one shareholder in Jasper County, so we're dealing with local individuals who have other businesses in Portage, Indiana.

Ms. Stroud, Also, just as a point of reference, looking at their statement as far as your tax abatement, which is issued March 1, 2002, the total sales for this location during the prior fiscal accounting year in quarters is $257,000. So they are getting close to a million there if you multiply it out for the year. I mean, I'm just looking at what you have here. Okay, what are the wishes of the Council here?

Mr. Carmichael, Is this 10% due the first year, Sandy? Is that what it requires? Maybe somebody can answer that.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Yes, if you do it for 10 years, the first year they pay 10%, the second year they pay 20, then 30, 40 and on up to 100.

Mr. Carmichael moved to adopt Resolution 02-7-23, granting a ten-year abatement on manufacturing equipment and approve the Statement of Benefits as submitted by Great Lakes Packaging. Mr. West seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, Your abatement has been granted and we also have your resolution here, which we will have to sign and get back to you.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Properly so, on the first page of the resolution a reference is made to your action that created this area as an economic revitalization area and its referenced by number. I don't have that number with me so I'm going to take those back with me and fill it in tomorrow and David I will send you one and I'll get the Auditor one as well and Jan I'll get you one.

Ms. Balcerak, Dave, do you just want me to fill it in?

Mr. Hollenbeck, Do you have that number?

Ms. Balcerak, Yes, all I have to do is pull it out of the resolution book.

Mr. Hollenbeck, I'll leave it with Jan and she can fill in the number in the morning.

Atty. Woodward, Do you need my business card so you know where to send it?

Ms. Balcerak, Sure, I need to know who I need to send it to. I thought I was dealing with Kriste.

Atty. Woodward, Is that who you dealt with?

Ms. Eriksen, That's who I dealt with.

Atty. Woodward, Okay.
Ms. Balcerak, I'm the one; don't ask me any questions, go talk to those auditors.

Atty. Woodward, Kriste had a lot of good things to say about you.

Ms. Balcerak, Well good.

Atty. Woodward, Thank you.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you very much. Just remember in a year's time we need you to report back and I'm sure you won't forget that.

Mr. Glusak, Thank you very much.

Ms. Stroud, You're quite welcome and hopefully we'll get some more jobs out there.

Mr. Glusak, You'll smell the butter out there.

Ms. Stroud, And I'll smell the butter in the popcorn.

2003 BUDGET HEARING SCHEDULE

Ms. Stroud, Next is our 2003 budget hearing schedule. I think all of you were given copies of the schedules. One for a longer schedule than the other. One in which, first of all, the public hearing for the budgets will be Monday, August 12th at 7:00 p.m., here. Then…

Mr. Carmichael, That's the public hearing.

Ms. Stroud, That's the public hearing.

Mr. Carmichael, What time?

Ms. Stroud, At 7:00.

Mr. Carmichael, At 7:00; are you going to be here?

Ms. Stroud, Yes. Are you going to be here?

Mr. Carmichael, Yes, I'll be here.

Ms. Stroud, Am I getting senile or what?

Mr. West, He's got you going.

Ms. Stroud, Yes, I know. Okay on the 19th, let's see. Jan.

Ms. Balcerak, What do you need?

Ms. Stroud, The 12th is the first one, then Monday the 19th.

Ms. Balcerak, Then Monday is the next one.

Ms. Stroud, That would be the second reading for the short schedule, then Tuesday and Thursday. That following week would take in the one schedule. The other schedule would be a longer schedule.

Mr. West, Let's go with the short one.

Ms. Stroud, Okay. On the longer one, the 12th would stay the same, then we would go the 19th, the 20th, the 22nd, the 26th, the 27th and the 29th. What's your pleasure?

Mr. Carmichael, So moved.

Ms. Stroud, So moved for what?

Ms. Balcerak, Which one?

Ms. Stroud, Which one, the short one or the long one?

Mr. Carmichael, The short one.

Mr. West, The short one.

Ms. Stroud, I agree.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Barb, I'm sorry, but down at this end of the table, we're confused.

Ms. Stroud, Well I have two down here that I think are totally confused and can't hear and they're getting Leon and I in the middle as confused as they are.

Mr. Hollenbeck, You were the only one that does understand.

Ms. Stroud, We had two proposals, okay.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Alright.

Ms. Stroud, The first reading would be on Monday, August the 12th at 7:00.

Mrs. Conover, That's the public hearing, right?

Mr. Hollenbeck, Wait a minute, I see. The public hearing and first readings is on the 12th.

Ms. Balcerak, They would be on the 12th.

Mr. Hollenbeck, So the game plan is we're going to have the public hearing and do all of the first readings on one night?

Ms. Stroud, Right, on one night, then the following week, on the 19th, 20th and 22nd do the second readings.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Which would be kind of a change in our methodology because we usually have spent most of the time on the first readings.

Ms. Stroud, Correct, but there should not be any changes in the budgets, basically.

Mr. Hollenbeck, So this proposal would be that we whip through the first readings and leave them where they are and then go back and change it on second reading.

Ms. Stroud, Correct. The other schedule, you would have the public hearing on the 12th, then the following Monday start and have the first readings on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday the 22nd, then the following week do the second readings.

Mr. Hollenbeck, One of the disadvantages, I mean, I'm not against doing things quickly, but one of the disadvantages of that approach is we traditionally, between first and second reading, given the department heads an opportunity to revisit their budget and make their own corrections. Under this approach they're not going to have that opportunity because you are going to be right into the second reading and you're going to make those decisions then.

Ms. Stroud, But if there's not any changes. Now because of being out, I did not sit in on any of the workshops. The rest of you handled the workshops this year and I read through what Jan sent me on all of the workshops. From what I read there's not many changes to be made from what we adopted in February and what they've presented for their budgets for this next year. So I mean, I don't know.

Mr. Hollenbeck, It may work and it may be a fine way to do it.

Ms. Balcerak, It worked for 1998.
Ms. Vuko, There's about six changes.

Ms. Stroud, Six changes total in all the budgets?

Ms. Vuko, Right, without the commissioners.

Ms. Stroud, Without the commissioners, bingo. I understand where you are coming from, Dave. I thought of that too, but then I thought about it more and when I went through the stacks that Jan sent me of the different ones I didn't see that many changes in any of the budgets. Some of the ones where there was going to be a change, the people who were doing the workshops were saying to go back and make transfers rather than no additionals. So I don't have a problem with that. I'm not trying to ramrod anything, but I don't know that we need to spread it out for two weeks if we are not going to make any changes basically in the budget.

Mrs. Conover, Could I ask? These two ladies have been attending all of our council meetings here for the last several months. What do you feel? What do you think the public would feel?

Shirley Patrick, How the public would feel?

Mrs. Conover, Yes.

Ms. Patrick, I would say if there weren't a lot of changes, just go ahead as you planned. I don't think…

Ms. Stroud, With the shortened schedule?

Ms. Patrick, I would say so. Why make it more involved than it really is.

Mrs. Conover, Department heads?

Ms. Stroud, I think most of them are gone. Neil's here.

Mrs. Conover, Ken, Neil?

Mrs. Vuko, I agree, the short one.

Mrs. Conover, I might have a scheduling problem if we are going to be doing second readings, because I have one that I have to get to college the week of the 19th.

Ms. Stroud, The whole week? Are you going to be gone the whole week?

Mrs. Conover, I will be gone several nights that week.

Ms. Stroud, Well, we'll just have to handle it, Karen. I mean…

Mrs. Conover, Unless we'd do that and put the final readings on the week of the 26th.

Ms. Stroud, In other words, just have the…

Ms. Balcerak, Whatever you guys want. If you wanted to, you could have your public hearing on the 19th and your first readings.

Ms. Stroud, That's the week she is going to be gone.

Mrs. Conover, But I would just miss the public hearing, then I would be here for the second readings and the finalization of the budget.

Ms. Balcerak, Right. The second readings could be held on the dates on the second page of the long schedule. Or you could have your public on the 12th if you wanted to.

Ms. Stroud, Well that's when we're having it and the first reading.

Ms. Balcerak, I just need to know what dates you guys want and what schedule you want.
Ms. Stroud, How many nights do you think you're going to be gone, Karen? You'll be here for the 12th, right?
Mrs. Conover, Yes, not a problem. I'll probably be gone the 19th and the 20th anyway. I'm not sure.

Ms. Patrick, I have one question. With the Process Committee, if there are any introductions that need to be made towards the budget or to be considered with the budget, would that be brought up at the public meeting or would that be brought up at any other time?

Mr. Hollenbeck, That's a good point, because a couple of the working groups that are working through the process committee have indicated in their meetings that they felt strongly enough and urgently enough about some issues that they want to communicate those to you before this budget process. We've kind of picked that between Thanksgiving and Christmas timeframe to have a final report back, but in that context when we pick that time frame there were a couple committee chairs that said, 'Oh well, we've really got into some things we feel very strongly about that we would like to communicate to the county council before they go in their budget process.' Candidly, I think one of them is, thoughts on health insurance and how we are funding or not funding that, so. You know, that might gravitate doing the public hearing either on the 12th or the 19th, but waiting to do the second readings until the 26th, 27th and the 29th, to give them more time to get what they want to give. Karen, will that accommodate you?

Mrs. Conover, Absolutely.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, so what you are saying, do the first reading on the 12th.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Well, yes.

Ms. Stroud, Have the public hearing…

Mr. Hollenbeck, And the first reading on either the 12th or the 19th.

Ms. Stroud, Well Karen is not going to be here on the 19th, so.

Mrs. Conover, Well first readings…

Mr. Hollenbeck, The public hearing and the first reading the way you are talking about doing it is not a big deal. But the second reading, we're reversing the process.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Usually our first readings is the most important. Now we're going to the methodology with the second readings.

Ms. Stroud, So we're saying to do the public hearing and the first reading on August 19.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Or the 12th or the 19th, then wait a week and go into the second readings on the 26th, 27th and the 29th.

Ms. Stroud, So if we have the first on the 12th, that would be two weeks.

Mr. Hollenbeck, That would be two weeks before you did…

Ms. Stroud, The second reading.

Mr. Hollenbeck, The second reading, which would become August 26th, 27th and the 29th.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, what's the pleasure of the Council here?

Mr. Carmichael, What day is Labor Day, the 1st?

Mr. Hollenbeck, Labor Day is really early.

Ms. Stroud, Yes it is.

Mr. Carmichael, It's that weekend, isn't it?

Ms. Stroud, It's the 1st, well it's the 2nd actually.

Mr. Hollenbeck, You would be finishing up the Thursday before Labor Day.

Ms. Balcerak, Right.

Ms. Stroud, If we stick with the public hearing and the first reading on the 12th, then shift the second readings to the 26th, 27th and 29th.

Mr. Ruge, Two weeks?

Ms. Stroud, Yes, we have to give public notice you know. Karen can't be here on the 19th and the 20th. Now what you could do is you could have some of them, not wait the two weeks, we could have one of them on the 22nd and finish up before the end of the following week if you wanted to do that, so it wasn't spread out so much. I don't know, it's up to you.

Mr. Hollenbeck, Are you going to be back by the 22nd, Thursday of that week?

Mrs. Conover, I'll be back. Okay.

Mr. Hollenbeck, You know, Bill's comment is well taken. We're getting pretty close to Labor Day and Karen is going to be back by Thursday the 22nd.

Ms. Stroud, Why don't we have…

Mr. Hollenbeck, The first day of second reading would be on the 22nd, then finish up on the 26th and the 27th. Then you'd be done a week before Labor Day.

Ms. Stroud, Right.

Mr. Hollenbeck, So you want to stick with the 12th.

Ms. Stroud, Okay, stick with the 12th for the first reading, I mean, for the public hearing.

Mr. Hollenbeck, And the first reading.

Mrs. Conover, And the first reading?

Ms. Stroud, Yes.

Mrs. Conover, So are we making that at 5:00 or 7:00? 7:00 is kind of late.

Ms. Stroud, I think before we did it at 5:00.

Mrs. Conover, Yes, we should do it at 5:00.

Ms. Stroud, So we want to change that to 5:00 and start the second reading on August 22nd, which is a Thursday, then the second group on Monday, the 26th and the next group on Tuesday, the 27th. Is that agreeable to everyone? Okay, just to reiterate, the public hearing and first reading will be on Monday, August 12th, starting at 5:00 p.m. The second readings will start on Thursday, August 22nd at 5:00 p.m., then Monday, August 26th at 5:00 and on Tuesday at 5:00 on the 27th.

Mr. Carmichael, Hey, Leon.

Ms. Stroud, Is that okay?

Mr. Carmichael, Old teachers never die, they just keep on…

Mr. West, They just keep going.

Ms. Stroud, That's right.
Mr. West, They never stop.

Mr. Carmichael, I got you, Barb.
Ms. Stroud, I'm going to get you.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT
Resolution 02-7-23A

Ms. Stroud, I have a couple of other things. I contacted Dave to come up with a resolution. As we all know, we have a problem with the toll plaza and so on--the toll road toll plaza--where they did announce that they were taking out of Portage and moving it over to the Jackson Township area, but another in Porter County. Of course the whole issue is one. First of all, we are a county that is a non-attainment county, where we have all the ozone and so on. I know that this did come up before the commissioners and the commissioners have also spoken and addressed this issue. But I asked Dave to come up with a resolution opposing the relocation of the Indiana Toll Road toll plaza altogether. So I am presenting it to the Council and I would like support on this if possible.

At this time, Ms. Stroud read the proposed resolution.

Ms. Stroud, I am asking for your support on this.

Mrs. Conover, They used to do it that way.

Ms. Stroud, I know. So I need a motion to adopt this resolution.

Mrs. Conover moved to adopt Resolution 02-7-23A.

Mr. West, The only thing is, you're asking for it to be taken out of Portage also.

Ms. Stroud, Right, take it out of Portage, take it out of Porter County, get rid of it.

Mr. West, That subdivision was there before that toll road was.

Ms. Stroud, I know. Okay, a motion has been made by Mrs. Conover. I need a second.

Mr. Ruge seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Ms. Stroud, A couple of other things that have come to my attention.

Mr. West, Is this going to take very long?

Ms. Stroud, No, it's not going to take very long, but Dave still needs to make his report. You guys have lost all my papers; I don't even know where I am.

Mr. Carmichael, You got her papers, John.

Ms. Stroud, Yeah, right. A couple of things and I'm not trying to be negative, but I wanted to point out that in many of our offices, our people, we are understaffed in a lot of the offices and we have had people call in for requests and so on. The people calling in, if they didn't get the information that they needed, sometimes were not very nice, unprofessional, whatever term you wanted to use towards our employees.
I think we as the elected officials, understandably, verbal abuse comes with the job, but it does not come with the job of our employees and I would ask the public to respect our employees. If you can't get what you have requested, to be patient. If it's something that you requested and they don't have, then unfortunately you may have to do some of the seeking and finding yourself. We cannot put our employees on a five-hour search or a six-hour search for information that you might need. So I just wanted that publicly known that some people have come to me, being very upset because they were not treated in a manner that they should have been.
So I'm going to let it drop at that, but I would appreciate anyone that has any calls that they need to make or information that they want to please be patient. We will try and get it, if we can't, then we'll turn you to the person that can get it for you. Does anyone else have anything? Okay, we need to do our attorney's report, then I'll turn it over to the public.

ATTORNEY'S REPORT
Loan Document with Reduced Interest Rate

Mr. Hollenbeck, Hopefully I can expedite this; a number of matters to bring to your attention which needs your action. As I have written to you, through the efforts of Representative Ayres and Representative Cheney and their continuing discussions with the State Budget Agency, they have succeeded in convincing the State Budget Agency that the interest contained on the Porter County bailout loan of 1.98 on the original documents was inappropriately calculated and has been recalculated by the State Budget Agency and approved at the June meeting of the State Board of Finance and has been reduced to 1.33.
As such, we need you to authorize your president to resign the loan documents at the reduced interest rate. If it becomes necessary to borrow the entire 5.5 million that we are authorized to borrow, this would mean an annual savings between $25,000 and $30,000 a year in interest. I know I for one appreciate the efforts that Ralph and Duane made on our behalf. In that regard, they were ceaseless in their discussions with the State Budget Agency and we are grateful for that. But I do need a motion in the record to authorize Barb to re-execute the loan documents for the reduced interest rate.

Mr. Carmichael moved to authorize President Stroud to sign the loan document, reducing the interest rate from 1.98% to 1.33%. Mrs. Conover seconded, motion carried unanimously.

Cash Flow Report

Mr. Hollenbeck, Secondly, a cash flow report. The June settlement is completed. I've provided you with a memorandum. The bottom line is, the property tax collections were somewhat higher than we projected. The property tax replacement credit was somewhat lower than we projected and the miscellaneous income came in right very close to what we anticipated. When everything gets balanced out, we are to the good about $980,000.
Now I will emphasize that all that means is, we're in a little better cash situation right now than we thought we were going to be. That doesn't mean we're going to get $980,000 more than we had anticipated. As my memorandum indicates, there's a couple of possible explanations. One of which is, the taxpayers responded to our request to pay both property tax installments in May. That's good for cash flow, but it's bad in December because we've already gotten their money. It may also be attributable to some of the machinations we went through in establishing the assessed valuation.
But for cash-flow purposes, we're in a little better situation than we thought we would be in. We have a little over $3,000,000 in the bank. Madam Auditor, is that right? We have a little over $3,000,000 in the bank. We thought we would have about $2,000,000 in the bank right now. So that one million to the good on cash flow is continuing to hold. But again, I will emphasize, the cash-flow statement from June to December and holding at your 90% spending level, which is something you learned this evening, you're not going to be able to do, you have $56,000 in the bank on December 31st, with no other revenue sources identified.
So we still have significant financial issues that need to be addressed in this county as we go forward through the end of the year. And even to have a $56,000 balance on December 31st, this necessitates you continuing to borrow money. We need another 1.25 million from the bridge fund. You'll have to go back and borrow and you're also going to have to access more money from the bailout bill and from the tax anticipation warrants that you authorized. So you stay afloat as the result of borrowing and again, I'd emphasize that's not spending any more money, $100,000 of which we already spent this evening more than is in the budget.

Ms. Stroud, I don't know what to do. I think we better get a fundraiser going.

Bethlehem Steel Bankruptcy

Mr. Hollenbeck, An update on the Bethlehem Steel Bankruptcy. As anticipated, they have filed pleadings with the bankruptcy court as of last week asking for another extension of their plan. The submittal date, our bankruptcy lawyers at Ice Miller lead me to believe that that will be granted again, which means that their plan won't even be submitted until January 31st of next year.
I will remind you that once the plan is submitted and approved, it can take up to six years for them to have to pay us any money. So that time frame continues to be put down the road farther before we'll see any revenue from the bankruptcy proceedings. That is it on my report, unless there are any questions.

Ms. Stroud, Thank you very much. Does anyone from the public have anything that they want to say?

SECOND READING

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

There being no further business, meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m.


PORTER COUNTY COUNCIL
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA

William Carmichael
Karen Conover
Carole Knoblock
Karen Martin
John Ruge
Barbara Stroud
Leon West

Attest: Sandra Vuko, Auditor