Council adopts significantly reduced budget
By Debbie Lowe Staff writer

It did not take long for the Carroll County Council to adopt the 2008 budget at last week's Wednesday morning meeting. The group met several times between the end of August through September to discuss monetary requests from department heads. They proposed budgets for each department and handed them back for review. They gave department heads the opportunity to appear before them to make suggestions about how allocations could be more advantageously distributed among line items. And then they met again to review their decisions and finetune the process. All of this was with the understanding that they spent more than $2 million than was earned in 2006 and knowing that the county's general fund was currently depleted.

Requests totaling $8,042,498 were presented by department heads to the council in July. They unanimously adopted a budget totaling $6,812,217 on Sept. 26.

Overall, every department suffered reductions in their requests. Some took a harder hit than others. One example not previously emphasized was township deputy assessors were appropriated salaries at the 1984 level. The total amount for all deputy assessors requested was $17,463, and $7,885 was appropriated.

For a complete list of department requests and appropriations, contact the Carroll County Auditor's office on the second floor of the courthouse.

The adopted 2008 spending plan must now go to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance for approval.

Regular session

Council members met in regular session after the budget adoption. The first order of business was to address a request by county commissioners to appropriate up to $50,000 of Riverboat gambling money for a lawsuit against the Twin Lakes Regional Sewer District.

Council president Rob Baker set a structure for presentations. He said the council would allow two to speak in support and two against.

Commissioner Bill Brown was the first to speak in support of the request. He said he was disappointed not everyone was going to be allowed to voice their opinion at the public meeting.

Brown called the sewer district "a threat to every property owner in Tippecanoe, Jefferson and Adams townships." He referred to the district as a "monster."

"As Carroll County elected officials, we cannot sit this one out," he said. "It is immoral to be neutral."

He said the commissioners intended to fight the sewer district and urged the council to give them the "ammunition."

Jefferson Township resident Terry Dill likened the manner in which the sewer district came into the county to the vacuum cleaner salesperson. He said it looked good when the door was opened, but now the county is having trouble ridding itself of the intruder.

Carroll County resident Jim Tarnowski advised against the request.

"You're taking on IDEM (Indiana Department of Environmental Management)," he said. "Once they approve something, they will defend their decision. We can't take on every issue just because a group is involved."

"I think we're going to get involved later on down the road whether we want to be or not," council member Ron Slavens said. "We need to challenge this in court sometime - now or later."

Steve Ashby said he shared many of Slavens' thoughts, but would not vote to fund a lawsuit now.

"I think the Riverboat money is going to pay salaries later on," he said.

Ann Brown called the request "deficit spending" and said she was not in favor of the request.

The request failed to be funded in a five-to-one vote.

Income tax increase

Council members failed to act in a timely manner to be able to enact an increase in the county economic development income tax. The tax would have needed to be changed from the present amount of .1 percent, the minimum amount allowed, by Sept. 30. However, the matter was not discussed until the Sept. 26 meeting.

Council members discussed the need to increase the tax and voted to follow through. After the vote, it was determined the increase would have to be advertised before adoption to allow taxpayers to comment on the increase in a public hearing. Not enough time remained in the month for that to happen. The tax rate will remain the same for 2008.

Additional appropriations

Approved were:

• Children's Psychiatric RTS - $2,609 for psychiatric residential treatment services; and

• Highway - $2,550 for other road equipment.

Transfers

Approved were:

• EMS - $6,500 from administrative assistant to Dyna Linc and $1,296 from computer upgrade to ambulance repairs;

• Highway - $700 from advertising and printing to telephone, $5,700 from weed spray, group insurance and contractual services to uniforms, $4,244 from grader blades to trucks, $165.40 from drainage to safety supplies, $2,000 from grader blades to bridge structural steel, $2,327.41 from grader blades to repair parts, and $38,285.76 from truck drivers, equipment operators and group insurance to bituminous.

• Special tobacco settlement - $4,696.51 from office supplies, educational supplies and rental fees to personal health; and

• Health Dept. - $500 from mileage to personal health and $600 from per diem and office maintenance contracts to telephones.

Joint meeting

"We have to be pulling the rope in the same direction," Jerry Hendress said to emphasize the need for council members and commissioners to meet in joint session soon. "We cannot continue to sit here and not be prepared."

"We need a plan. We need to sit down with the commissioners," Ashby added. "We've got a lot of things going against us."

It was decided to request a joint meeting with commissioners in October or November. Three dates were proposed to commissioners' president Loren Hylton who was in the audience.

The next council meeting will be Oct. 23 at 8 a.m.