Dubois County Council: Councilman wants to attack budget issues head-on

Dubois County Councilman Craig Greulich is unsatisfied with the council’s lack of action to address the ever-widening budget shortfall.

Greulich referred to the five years of records in which the county was required to pull money from the Economic Development Income Tax fund to cover the loss of income from property taxes. The most recent budget required an injection of $1.685 million from EDIT; five years ago, that amount was about $500,000.

Council president Greg Kendall has stated the budget issue is related to property tax caps. He also admitted the push from the state is for the county to diversify their tax income to sources other than property taxes.

At the recent State of the County address, he mentioned that the county’s income tax rate could be increased. It currently stands at one percent, which is lower than Daviess and Perry counties’ rates which stand at 1.75 percent and 1.81 percent respectively.

Kendall back pedaled a bit during Monday’s meeting though. “I hope I didn’t give the feeling that I was in favor of raising income taxes because I’m not,” Kendall said. “Raising taxes is only is a last resort and we are not in any situation close to a last resort.”

Greulich, however, pushed for more aggressive action to stop or slow down the encroaching deficit. Despite a series of special meetings held in March that included a list of potential actionable items like freezing parts of the budget and cutting hours or services, the subject did not make it back on the council agenda without his prompting. (Story here)

An exasperated Greulich told the council Monday they needed to determine the next step to address the situation.

“We met with all the department heads in March (for budget meetings) and we’ve had no discussion since then,” Greulich said. “I don’t like where that’s going. I think we’ve got to continue this process to find ways to cut money.”

He asked the four newest members of the council, Nick Hostetter, Charmian Klem and Becky Beckman, to assist in pushing for some changes.

Klem agreed and added she knew that external factors were playing a role in the budget issues but pointed out that the council needed to be more proactive. “We haven’t adjusted our spending down with that and I don’t want to get in the position where we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve spent down all of our reserves and now we have to do something drastic,'” she added.

Greulich said he felt like the council was flying by the seat of their pants at times and he asked for some considerations to slow down the decision making process. To do this, he suggested the council make it policy for departments with funding requests to have to submit their request a month in advance or give the council more information prior to the meetings.

Typically, the department will make the request at the meeting with a department head available to answer questions but at times, the department head will be unavailable to attend and the council is left with unanswered questions.

Councilman Hostetter pointed out the council doesn’t have to take an action on any extra appropriation requests from department heads; they can table it until the next meeting, giving the council time to question the department heads directly before making the final decision.

Concerning appropriation requests, the county has to advertise the appropriation before making the final decision anyway. As was the case for a request for $10,000 to go to reprogramming law enforcement and fire department radios, the full amount was advertised but the council only appropriated $4,500 for the expenditure (see below in other action items by the council)

Greulich added that he would like to see a broader picture of the budget requests from departments. He explained the budget spreadsheet County Clerk Bridgette Jarboe presented last month during the special department head meetings allowed him to see that her budget regularly had an excess that was returned to the county or rolled over.

He said a historic picture of the budget spending by departments would give the council better insight when reviewing and approving the county budget in July and August.

“I want us to be more prepared, more engaged, more coming together and I don’t know that we’re doing that,” Greulich said while chastising himself on what he felt was his own complacency during his first year in office.

During the discussion, the council tacitly approved freezing 2017’s budget but no official action was taken to confirm that action.

The council also took the following actions:

-Approved paying $4,500 to reprogram radios and the county-operated sirens. The commissioners had asked for $10,000 to assist the local fire departments in reprogramming their radios, but the council decided to have those departments pay for the reprogramming out of their own budgets.

-Approved advertising for $8,000 to add a booster at Memorial Hospital to allow for first responders to be able to receive pages in that area.

-Approved advertising for $120,000 to update the seven county ambulances with piston-driven mechanical CPR devices. According to Ambulance Services Director Susan Henke, paramedics are unable to perform CPR adequately while riding in an ambulance to the hospital. These devices allow CPR to be performed consistently during that time.

-Approved advertising for $18,000 for a manual CPR device to assist local firefighters with administering CPR until an ambulance arrives.

-Approved working with a Indiana University Kelley School of Business class in the upcoming fall semester to create job descriptions for county employees. The approval allowed the council to file a project description with the school so the students can consider whether or not they wish to work with the county for their class project. If the class decides to take on the project, the county won’t be charged for the work but according to Councilwoman Charmian Klem, they could be charged with incidentals like travel expenses if students are required to travel to the area.