"Commissioners Roles and Responsibilities"

21-May-2008

Same Ole’, Same Ole’

2^nd Commissioner meeting with Mr. Bill Sipes and we are right back in the midst of the same good ole boy GC politics. Mr. Sipes believes that I should not ask in a public meeting what the claims are about – he thinks it’s a “show”. Why would a commissioner not want to ask these questions of a public official (the Auditor) in a public meeting? Mr. Sipes believes that a one-on-one with the auditor is good enough. Well, he ought to know – he is always in the Auditors office – even over the last 4 years when he was nothing but a vendor to the county.

Did you know that Mr. Sipes is still employed by WTH Technology? Told me himself yesterday. Unlike previously leading the public and the news media to believe that he was already retired. WTH holds-at the minimum- two large contracts with this county.

Let’s talk claims – I questioned a $6,250.00 payment at the last meeting which was the exact same amount, to the same vendor, out of the Recorders office just two weeks previous. $12,500.00 in one months claim cycle. Of course, the best explanation received from the Auditor was “it’s okay…..it has to do with software”.

That is along the same lines as this request from the Clerk for $9,500.00 to “reconcile” a 1999 data conversion. The contract includes a statement “The parties acknowledge…..may hinder the Consultant’s ability to bring the Project to a successful conclusion.”

Two weeks ago, the Clerk asked for $9,500.00 and admitted that she had not seen, nor reviewed neither the License Agreement nor the Support Agreement with the providing vendor. These documents were provided yesterday. The county paid $5,000 for the License and $5,000 for the conversion and we have been paying $3,200 annually since on the support agreement. Two weeks ago, the Clerk stated that the vendor had been non-responsive. She also made it clear that she had not previously discussed this with anyone including the County Attorney. Why not?

By the way, this $9,500 includes “training” 2 employees in the Clerks office to utilize Excel spreadsheets to continually maintain the reconciliation correctly.

In February, I questioned a large claim for “emergency” support of the failure of the security system software. I requested that it be held and I be allowed to research the exorbitant charges. This was granted and after numerous phone calls and an understanding of the events that took place, the vendor reduced the bill by $1700.00- acknowledging that the manager who drove up from Evansville contributed nothing to the solution of the embarrassingly minor problem.

Now – let’s talk about the Auditor’s office. Your elected Council Members are also fully aware of these issues. For 2 years, the Council approved a budget and sent it to the State that did not include the $12,000 annual cost to “rent” the parking lot north of town. That budget was approved by the State. The Auditor’s office “found” this $24,000 somewhere, and continued to pay the rental fees. For 2 years now, the Council has also approved a budget excluding the $1,000 mileage account in the Commissioner’s budget. The money is there – the Auditor “found” it and placed it back into the mileage account. I was not aware of this until I was in the Auditors office in December researching the Tax Sale information – preparing to go out to the public and advise them of the special circumstances of a Tax Certificate Sale. I made numerous trips and spoke with many taxpayers regarding tax sale properties in their vicinity – this resulted in the sale of numerous properties which are now back on the productive tax-base.

If this concerns you, contact your favorite Council Member.

And there is more coming. I was approached (independently) approximately a month ago by the County Attorney and two members of the Economic Development Corp. regarding funding an $800,000.00 road improvement to a two mile section of 800S in the vicinity of the Tech Park. Members of the Council wish to spend road funds (and there must be other money) on this project – with an engineered solution (more $$) for 4 lanes, drainage and land acquisition. Now – I am really struggling with this one. I am all for economic development but under normal circumstances large developers come in and do all of this on a project of this magnitude. What is wrong with this picture? I do believe that the Tech Park will be a boon to GC – but I have seen the “build it and they will come” theory fail in even the richest and fastest growing county in Indiana. The struggle is – do we spend road money on the horribly deteriorated and ignored road you live on, or do we spend $800K on a road to nowhere? Also curious to note is that Commissioner Beard told me yesterday “that’s the Council’s deal – they want to do that project”. Well, the Commissioner’s control the road funds – not the council. The council grants requests for appropriations from all office holders – not the other way around.

I need feedback from you, the taxpayer regarding this potential project. Spend $800K at the Tech Park or spend it on our existing roads and bridges? This item has yet to be publicly discussed in a Commissioner’s meeting.

If this concerns you – feel free to contact your favorite Council Member.

Now for the illegal meeting between newly appointed Commissioner Sipes, Commissioner Beard, the Superintendent and foremen. The county employee handbook states that highway employees work a 4- 10 hour/day work week from April 1 to September 30. Any change to this should have occurred in a public meeting with an official vote taken. This is what I know of the scenario: 7 men total are working on Fridays. County-wide. On Mondays, those 7 do not work. On Mondays, a normal employee is the “acting foreman” and on Fridays, another normal employee is the “acting foreman”. It is widely known, that the highway department for numerous years, changes the pay scale of employees based upon what duties they perform on any actual work day.

The commissioners know this, the Council knows this. This means, that unless special accommodations have been made, we are spending more dollars hourly in “foreman’s pay” for these two days. If this change had occurred correctly and legally, I would have voted to abolish the 4-10 hour days and kept the entire workforce on 5 days. More bang for the buck, in my opinion. We get nothing more out of the 4 10’s. I have filed a formal complaint with the Indiana Public Access Counselor regarding this meeting. Decisions were made and this is a violation.

One last note of interest to some of you – last fall the Board of Commissioners was approached in our public meeting by Center Township Trustee, Mr. Holtsclaw. He made a request for reimbursement to his Volunteer Fire Department Fund for the calls (tone-outs) for downed tree clean-up on the county roads. Commissioners Beard and Hasler both stated that they understood that Volunteer Firefighters were “paid”. It took myself and the Sheriff to explain to the commissioners that VFD members do not get paid. Volunteer firefighters are just that – Volunteer. These men and women perform this invaluable service to their fellow citizens out of the kindness of their hearts – and do so sometimes at the expense of their normal employment and their personal time. Wow. At this meeting, the Board of Commissioners instructed the Sheriff to kindly tone-out the County Highway for trees down after he confirmed that other Trustees and Fire Chiefs concurred. The commissioners also denied the request for reimbursement to the Center Township Trustee.

Many of the other, quirky issues have been reported on and off in the last number of months by the news media. I shall briefly mention a few:

• The “loose” vacation policy that allows a 1 year employee to have 3 weeks paid leave in his second year.
• The gas for the highway department being moved to the Switz City location and all east-side trucks making multiple trips to fill up.
• The highway department not utilizing the approved low-bid for stone.
• The highway department not utilizing the approved low-bid for oil and other road treatments.

In 3.5 years of service, I have fought to do what is right for the taxpayer and your hard-earned dollar. I have helped many of you when you told me that you were getting no help anywhere else in GC government. You know who you are. I have done my very best and made my decisions after heavy consideration. This is all that I have to offer you – the public. Thank you for your support.

Feel free to contact me anytime.