Dubois County Council meeting August 26

The Dubois County Council met on Monday night and took the following actions.

-Approved $245 from the pretrial diversion fund to purchase equipment for the sheriff’s department.

-Suzan Henke, the director of Ambulance Services, announced the Memorial Hospital Paramedic Program was awarded Paramedic Provider of the Year and Paramedic Marty Jones  received Paramedic of the Year at the recent Indiana Emergency Response Conference. This is significant as the paramedic program is only 18 months old. “I think that proves that we are doing a pretty good job out there and being recognized for it,” Henke told the council

-Directed Henke to present her budget at the budget hearing on September 11. She was unable to attend the county budget meetings so she explained the increase in budget for the ambulance services. She stated the program cost had increased from $800,283 in 2012 to $930,322 in 2013 due to higher wages being paid for the trained paramedics, overtime, benefits, and other expenses. She stated the service in the midst of expanding its paramedic services and the higher level of training and care demands a higher pay rate

County Council president Greg Kendall told Henke the council had budgeted $900,000 for ambulance services. The cost is shared between the county and Memorial Hospital.

The council asked Henke to attempt to get closer to the $900,000 budget the council proposed. Henke identified the four ambulance stations as the source of the increase in labor costs as well as the pay for the paramedics.

-Directed Dan Collignon, president of the 4-H Council, to gather more information on the replacement or repair of the grandstand seating at the fairgrounds. The grandstand is over 30 years old and Collignon stated they were in need of about $100,000 in repairs. He stated the council was considering purchasing new temporary bleachers that could be rented to other organizations in the county or permanent aluminum and concrete bleachers. Collignon didn’t have any hard costs on the two options so the council directed him to return with harder numbers. The temporary bleachers cost about $40,000 and seat 250 people, they would need ten sets of temporary bleachers to replace the current seating.

The 4-H Council is also working on pouring a concrete parking area for handicapped parking that would make the concrete paths betweent the fair buildings accessible from a parking area. The county bridge crew will pour a 6-inch pad for the parking lot.

-Heard from Dubois County Park president Jason Schmitt about the progress on the emergency access road.

Schmitt reported on the results of a public meeting held in July with residents along the proposed route for an emergency access road. Read that story here.

Sentiment among the council is still divided as councilman Mark Brescher stated he didn’t like the current plan of adding the emergency road and how emergency responders would use the road. Councilman Shane Lindauer echoed Brescher’s concerns about the necessity of the road.

“I spoke to several emergency personnel, the only one the made a public statement was the sheriff, but no one was in favor of this road,” Lindauer stated. “I haven’t heard anything that compels me to give taxpayer money to this project. To me there is a lot of unanswered questions.”

Brescher stated he felt the landowners should go to the county commissioners to petition for their road to be incorporated into the county road inventory rather than the county pushing forward with the emergency road.

Councilman Jerry Hunefeld stated the road was not accepted into the county inventory since it wasn’t built up to county standards. He felt if the council approves the money to bring the road up to standards then they will be fielding more requests from around the county for similar situations. He specifically mentioned portions of Lake Helmerich within the borders of Dubois County.

Greg Kendall stated the circumstances were different in the case for this road being upgraded since it could be located next to a county road to create the emergency entrance to the park.

-Approved adding another court reporter for the Dubois County Circuit Court.

-Approved an additional appropriation for $45,000 for the Dubois County Sheriff’s Department. The appropriation covers the continued cost of computer upgrades, the Interact Criminal Records system, overtime pay for the officers that occurred due to increased transports of inmates and the 4-H Fair duties as well as increased fuel costs associated with the inmate transports.