County council moves to upgrade AV equipment in public meeting room...
Many thanks to Noah Woods for covering last night's county council meeting. His full report is below.
Important to note: in this meeting the council made an official request that the commissioners look into upgrading and/or replacing the AV equipment in the meeting room to make council meetings and presentations more easily visible for the public. Jennie Capelle raised the issue, she was supported by Donnie Hussung.
1/25/2021 - 7:00pm - Harrison County Government Center
CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO OF THIS MEETING
Boone township fire district
Additional request for the general fund for $233,937.00 to buy a new “tanker” truck
General Fund approx. $246K
Cum fund Approx. $75K
CD: Approx. $100K
Jeanie Cappelle inquired about some financial details, inquired about why requests was rounded up to $235K
Harrison County Highway Dept
Call for Community Crossings
Usually twice a year, January and July, true grant program
Call for Old High 111 from State Road 211 down to Rosewood Road
Want to use the money to supplement the resurfacing efforts
Roads in Districts 1, 2, and 3
Tried to target a value of $1.5 Million
75/25 split (maximum value of $1M received at this rate)
Sweet spot at 1.333M to maximize value, Budgeted $1.5M in case estimates turned out lower to ensure ability to use full $1M amounth
Seeking verbal endorsement from council on resurfacing plan
Application due this Friday
If they get the full amount they are seeking ($1.5M) in additional to the current budgeted $1.5M then this would be one of the largest annual budgets for paving in recent years
Submitting a total of $1.516,038.38 (total for 3 districts), if awarded full amount from grant ($1M) then propose paying the difference from the Riverboat Bituminous Fund - Council all in favor of the proposal
Other Riverboat Infrastructure funds:
Corydon $6501.49
Crandal: $316.92
Elizabeth:$337.74
Laconia: $104.10
Lanesville: $1174
Mauckport: $168.87
Milltown: $777.26
New Amsterdam $56.68
New Middletown:$193.16
Palmyra: $1936.22
Total Infrastructure: $11,566.44
Revenue Sharing - Riverboat:
Crawford: $132,187.74
Washington: $33,046.94
Floyd: $16,523.47
Town of Georgetown: $16,523.47
City of New Albany: $49,570.40
Town of Corydon: $18,484.80
Crandal: $2,985.79
Elizabeth: $3,430.62
Laconia: $1,748.18
Lanesville: $5,158.63
Mauckport $2637.14
Milltown: $4,144.09
New Amsterdam: $1632.52
New Middletown: $2694.98
Palmyra: $7,040.65
Total Revenue Sharing: $297,422.42
$1575 funding for a panic system in the health and ed building - motion passed 7 - 0
$11,825 replace and upgrade panic system at courthouse - motion passed 7 - 0
$75,000 covid related expenses for health department - motion passed 7 - 0
- $40K Personal
- $15K for Supplies
- $20K for Other Services
Transfer request from Planning and Zoning to move $1,200 from training budget to vehicle maintenance, $500 budgeted for vehicle maintenance $7,400 for training - motion passed 7 -0
There was a bit of inquiring regarding the amount for repair due to the vagueness of description for the repairs necessitating the request.
Prosecutor’s Office - Otto Schalk
State has mandated body cams and the sheriff's department already has their body cams, expecting ISP and DNR to have body cams within the next couple months.
Last year and this year there was $25k budgeted for a community outreach coordinator, proposing to eliminate that position and roll the money into an “administrative investigative title”
Motion carried 7 - 0
Motion on amendment to 2021 salary ordinance - motion passed 7 - 0
Jeanie Cappelle inquired about going through invoices prior to passing motion to approve them, this drew some pushback from a couple of the council members.
She then made a motion to table until next meeting to have time to go through, Ross Schulz seconded, but the rest of the council voted against - motion denied 5 - 2
5 minutes given to review invoices prior to vote
Jeanie Capelle again made the case for longer time to review the invoices, explaining how in the past errors had been discovered
Motion was passed - 6 for - 1 against (Capelle)
Some controversy surrounding the appointment to the Regional Sewer District board:
Seeking reappointment for Dan Lee and Gary Davis
Push for 1 year appointments instead of 4 years by council members
Charlie Crawford expressed his belief that it important to have a council member on the board because of incoming housing developments will need sewer lines and older sewage systems are going to need repaired/replaced
Council decided to look further into making appointment 1 year rather than 4
Motion made to table appointments passed 7 - 0
Motion to raise Recorder’s salary from ~$25k to ~$27K
1 of 4 elected official positions that is paid under the “external low” stated in an external salary analysis. (Clerk, Assessor, and Treaurer being the others).
Herb Schneider
Camera system at the courthouse
Proposal to replace the cameras, recorder, and monitor - system replacement but would not require replacing cabling already in place (just might have to extend that)
1st generation system, 10-20 years old, not high res cameras,
Would want to connect the system to the internet
System would likely be able to hold video for at least 2 weeks
Cameras in the clerk's office would be only 2 with audio capabilities
Tabled for further discussion next week
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