Notes -- September 2014 Council Meeting

NOTES – September 2014 BOONE COUNTY COUNCIL MEETING

All council members present except Debby Shubert; Secretaries Crystal Raub and Chelsea Young.

Meeting was called to order at 8:30 a.m.

Council approved the meeting minutes from its August meeting without amendment.

RE-APPROPRIATIONS:

Community Corrections (Kari Ragsdale):

Requested moving $7580 from PRI to Personal Service & $3850 from Thinking for a Change to Personal Services. This is at the instruction of the State Board of Accounts to switch from paying these personnel as contractors to paying through regular payroll process.  Approved.

Council also created a new salary fund line and a new salary ordinance line to accommodate these changes.

Clerk (Penny Bogan):

Requested $6300 from Deputy line to Part-Time Clerical. A deputy has been out on leave and the position is being covered by a part-time employee.  Approved.

ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATIONS:

EMA (no one present):

Requested just under $5200 for a grant reimbursement. Approved.

Superior I (no one present):

Requested $3000 into Med/Psych for evaluations.  These are always budgeted as a low estimate, as there is no way to know how much the services will be required in a given year.  The funds are currently running low.  Approved.

Superior II (no one present):

Requested $1000 in Med/Psych. Same rationale as above.  Approved.

Highway (Rick Carney):

Requested a negative additional of $850,000 from the bridge 300/400S line back into the Cum Bridge fund. Funding in other lines had become misaligned due to scheduling differences. This will cover budgeted expenses in other lines. Approved.

Council (Steve Jacob):

Requested $2990 for Consulting Services to cover overage for Umbaugh’s financial analysis. Approved.

Area Plan (Carla Hedrick):
Requested  $6200 to cover Litigation. A major ongoing case which was recently decided in the county’s favor ran beyond the line. The case is currently within the time limit for appeal, but should the ruling stand and all penalties assessed be paid, the county will receive over $500,000 in fines, penalties and reimbursement into the General Fund.  Approved.

Surveyor (Ken Hedge):

Requested $24,000 for Engineering Services for fees charged.  These should be recovered from developers and reimbursed to the General Fund. Approved.

CCD/Jail (Mike Miller):

Requested $50,800 to cover a variety of major repairs, including a $26,000 replacement of a chiller in the Jail cooling system which has already taken place. Once paid, these repairs will take the fund essentially to zero, so the request is for sufficient funds to cover the remainder of the year. This had been discussed at last month’s meeting but held off due to some discrepancies in the amounts budgeted from the fund for the remainder of the year. Those discrepancies have been resolved, and the fund has sufficient resources to support the request. Approved.

NEW BUSINESS:

The Council discussed approval of a new contract for Sheriff Mike Nielsen. This contract by statute must be approved by both the county commissioners and county council. One new provision of note is that any activities conducted by the sheriff bringing in revenue via use of county property must be pre-approved by the county commissioners. Approved.

The Council moved to transfer $300,000 from the Health Department Fund to the Rainy Day Fund, as suggested by Umbaugh in their financial analysis earlier this summer and discussed at the council’s budget workshops last week. The excess funds have built up due to a previous increase in the Health Levy in order to cover health insurance payments for the department’s employees. After having made that increase, however, the county decided not to use the funds for that purpose, thus creating the excess.  The council adjusted the levy back down during its budget workshops. Once in the Rainy Day Fund, the monies can be used for virtually any purpose, thus giving the county more flexibility.  Approved.

The Council discussed some concerns about balances in the county health employee fund (within the General Fund), including the lack of a substantial reserve. The Council is expecting an additional appropriation request from the commissioners next month to cover the cost of the remainder of the year, likely in the range of $1.25M. That should leave the operating balance in the fund at around $400,000, its current balance. Marcia Wilhoite and Gene Thompson suggested the county needed to establish a reserve fund, separating from the health insurance claims fund currently being used, in order to support our self-funded insurance program appropriately. The Council asked that Commissioner Marc Applegate and a representative from the county’s health insurance brokerage company be present next month to discuss these issues in more detail.

The county briefly discussed the recent budget hearings held last week, and the timeline for completion of the budget adoption. The deadline for adoption is November 1, so the council plans to take action at its next regular meeting in October. The council did not finalize one line in the CCD fund, for buildings, pending further information from the commissioners regarding a possible bond issue that will support several major projects, including replacement of the jail’s heating and cooling system and renovations to the 220 Washington St. building. Commissioner Jeff Wolfe stated that he hopes to have clearer numbers in the next couple of weeks and will share them with the council as soon as available to facilitate action at the October meeting.

OLD BUSINESS:

None.

PUBLIC COMMENT:

County Attorney Bob Clutter presented the new sheriff’s contract for signature, as approved earlier.

Sheriff Mike Nielsen updated the council on the progress toward a deputy serving as a school resource officer for Western Boone Schools. Tentatively, the school will pay $60,000 annually for a deputy to serve in that capacity. Outside the school year, the deputy will serve as a standard road deputy.

Sheriff Nielsen also updated the council on a reimbursement for radio re-banding from Motorola in the amount of roughly $32,000. The original expenditure came from a maintenance contract out of the General Fund. Nielsen asked if the reimbursement monies should go into the 911 fund or into the General Fund.  Though the 911 fund continues to be under-funded (revenues do not meet mandated expenditures), the council consensus was to deposit the monies into the General Fund and deal with the 911 funding issues separately.

Gene Thompson asked county attorney Bob Clutter to discuss the process of adoption of any new local option taxes, including the “Wheel Tax” user fees. Under recent changes to state law, such new levies can be adopted either by the County Council acting along OR by the County Income Tax Board, which is comprised of the Council and any incorporated municipality in the county. Any of those municipalities or the county council may start the process of adoption through a resolution adopting a new tax. At that point a timeline would start during which each of the other entities must take action on the adoption resolution, with the results dependent upon the proportion of the county’s population represented by each voting member. A simple majority of those votes – not bodies – would be needed for adoption. Clutter answered several questions about the process. Clutter shared some of the entities’ population percentages as of 2013:

Unincorporated (County Council): 36.6%

Lebanon: 28%

Zionsville: 25%

Molly Whitehead, new Executive Director of the Boone County Economic Development Corporation, introduced herself formally to the council.

John Hume, candidate for Council District 2, thanked the council for including himself and other candidates as much as possible in the budget hearing process to facilitate their learning in the process.  Hume also spoke regarding the extensive discussion of the 27^th pay issue, which took up several hours of the council’s time.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 9:45.

Next regularly scheduled meeting will be Tuesday, October 11^th, at 8:30 a.m.