Council wrangles over new road money and performance-based pay raises

Update: The county has decided to postpone the construction of the access road to the Dubois County Park and 4-H Fairgrounds until next year.

The county council had agreed to allocate $30,000 for the engineering of the new road at the April 29 meeting. The year delay will allow County Engineer Jason Heile to complete the plans for the access road.

The council has not agreed on the budget for the construction of the new road but had advertised for $375,000 to be allocated to its construction.

Original story: The Dubois County Council wrangled over the $375,000 price tag for an emergency access road to the Dubois County Park and 4-H Fairgrounds at last night’s meeting.

The road is the second step in a plan to create an alternative access point for emergency medical personnel, fire departments, and law enforcement to enter the park and fairgrounds when there are large events scheduled.

The process began in 2011 when the council approved the purchase of 50 acres from Dorothy Blessinger; 40 acres of woodland and 10 acres with a home, outbuildings, a pond and farmland on it.

At that time the council appropriated $500,000 for the purchase of the two parcels. The vote was split 5 to 1 with Councilman Shane Lindauer the lone dissenter. Lindauer expressed concerns from his constituents about the purchase price of the property at the time.

Council President Greg Kendall explained the purchase was necessary due to the property’s location adjacent to the park and the plan to create an emergency access road. Kendall also stated the council could sell the property containing the home and other structures to potentially offset the half million dollar purchase.

According to records, the county proceeded to purchase the 40 acres of woodland adjacent to the campgrounds for $300,000.

The ten remaining acres was split into two properties; one at 3.6 acres that encompassed the home and all the outbuildings including a pond, and the second at 6.4 acres of farmland and a finger along the edge of the 3.6 acres to be used to create the emergency access road.

The county then purchased the 6.4 acres for $115,000 —or $17,968.75 per acre— in December of 2011. Dorothy Blessinger, the owner of both properties, then sold the remaining 3.6 acres to another party for $88,500 in February of 2012.

The county began the process to acquire the land necessary to build a road in November of 2012 when they held a meeting with property owners along the private drive the county wanted to use for the new road. The county is asking the property owners for a 60 foot right of way needed to build the ¾ mile road from County Road 50 S to the county property.

Property owners at that meeting expressed concerns about the road becoming highly trafficked and the location of the newly constructed road in reference to their property lines.

County Engineer Jason Heile began the process of planning the road construction to appease the property owners’ concerns and then requested $375,000 for its construction from the commissioners last month.

He was in front of the county council Monday night to request approval for the $375,000 appropriation to build an asphalt road where a private gravel road currently exists.

Councilmen Mark Brescher and Shane Lindauer both expressed concerns about building an asphalt road that would only be used by the local residents and in the case of an emergency in the park during high traffic events.

According to Dubois County Park Board president Jason Schmitt, a gate will be put in place to block any other access to the new road on park property. Only emergency personnel and park employees would have the key to access the gate.

Brescher stated a locked gate could be a problem for emergency personnel. “What if they don’t have the key?” Brescher asked. “Are they just gonna ram it?”

“And do we really need that good of a road to go back there?” Brescher queried. “I am all in favor of putting the road back there but what about chip and seal.”

A rock road appears to be out of the question according to Heile. The residents are already not satisfied with the quality of the current private drive and won’t approve the right-of-way for the county to create the new road if it is going to continue to be a rock road, but Heile stated he felt they would approve a chip and seal road. “Our minimum requirements for a subdivision is a 24 foot wide road at the minimum chip and seal,” Heile explained. “If we do anything less than that then we aren’t following our own requirements.”

Heile stated the chip and seal may, he emphasized this was a rough estimate, save the county between $60,000 and $70,000 off the $375,000 price tag.

Councilman Lindauer said he didn’t want to spend $375,000 for a road that may potentially never be used except by the property owners on the private drive. He also stated he would like to talk to emergency personnel to determine if they feel the road is necessary.

Kendall told the council that future plans for the expansion of the park include a roadway that would loop through the additional property and would be accessible from the new road. No timeline on those improvements was given during the meeting.

The discussion was heated between Lindauer, who opposed the purchase of the property originally, and Kendall, who pushed for the purchase of the 50 acres.

“It’s not something we just came up with today,” Kendall told Lindauer, “You should have known what you were voting on when we approved the purchase of the land.”

“I didn’t approve the purchase,” Lindauer stated. “That is a separate issue to building a $375,000 road.”

The decision on the road was postponed to the next council meeting to be held on May 20 at 4:30 p.m. at the County Annex building.

They did approve $30,000 for engineering and design of the road.

“I suggest that everyone here go out and see what you guys are actually talking about,” Kendall told the council. [hr]

This tension bled over into the next agenda item. Lindauer had invited Ferdinand Town Manager Marc Steczyk to present the council with the town’s merit-based method of awarding raises to town employees.

Although the 2013 county budget passed, Lindauer (R) and Councilwoman Barb Mathies (D), voted against it as proposed due to the $1,000 pay raise for full-time salaried employees, an hourly raise of 50 cents for full-time hourly employees and 25 cents for part-time employees. These are maximum amounts the supervisors can give to employees in their respective departments; however, typically the raises are given across the board at the rate the council approves.

Lindauer and Mathies argued at that time they would like to see the county approve raises based on the employee performance, but this met with resistance from other council members.

Kendall did state he would be interested in gathering information about merit-based raises and based on that, Lindauer met with Steczyk and invited him to speak.

The discussion again turned heated between Kendall and Lindauer, with most of the council remaining silent during what became a debate. Kendall pointed out that the system Ferdinand adopted has only been in place for one budget cycle and was unproven and stated he would rather review merit-based pay systems that had been in place for awhile.

Additionally, he stated that the size of Ferdinand might make their system impractical for the county since it employs between 275 to 280 full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees compared to 20 employees in the Town of Ferdinand.

“The state uses a pay-for-performance system,” Lindaurer pointed out.

The State of Indiana uses a merit-based pay system and has done so since previous governor Mitch Daniels instituted the pay-for-performance system in 2006.

Councilman Brescher noted county employees all know each other and this could create issues between them, but Councilman Nick Hostetter pointed out Ferdinand is a much smaller and tighter-knit community.

Kendall asked Steczyk if the town had a lot of nepotism in the departments. Steczyk said other than the occasional nephew working as summer help, the town did not have family members on staff.

“We have to see your system implemented for longer than four months before we made any changes,” Kendall stated.

Steczyk told Kendall they haven’t had a complaint about the new system that allows supervisors to split the budgeted hourly increase among the department employees based on their performance. “We are a little forward thinking,” Steczyk said about the Town of Ferdinand, “and I am sure you can find examples of larger corporations that use a similar system.”

Brescher and Councilwoman Martha Wehr agreed that the town’s system seems to be very fair if the supervisors actually did give the raises based on the performance of the employees.