City department heads told to cut ’09 budget

By Howard Greninger
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE August 19, 2008 10:34 pm

— Scissors are needed for Vigo County’s 2009 budget, and it is now in the hands of department leaders to determine where cuts can be made.
Last week, the budget committee of the County Council sent a written notice to all county departments that budget submissions for next year must be cut by 7.5 percent of the approved 2008 budget.
“We had a meeting in June and told department heads and elected officials we were looking at less revenues and we asked them to take their 2008 budgets and reduce them by 5 percent for next year. Some of them did reduce their budgets, but a lot of them did not,” said Councilman Mark Bird, chairman of the council’s budget committee.
“Our committee spent 28 to 30 hours working on the budget, then we decided that the numbers are not there,” he said.
Bird said the council must trim about $2.2 million in budget requests from the proposed 2009 budget.
The county’s budget will have about $819,000 less revenue from property taxes in 2009 because of cuts from the Indiana General Assembly.
“We have asked to have the budgets with the 7.5 percent cuts returned to us by Aug. 25,” Bird said.
Budgets not submitted with the reduction will be cut by the council, he said.
“A storm is getting ready to hit us. The council will not raise taxes, that is one thing we will not do to the people of Vigo County. We just need to learn how to run county government more efficiently by reducing our work force,” Bird said.
Because many counties and cities will face budget concerns, the Department of Local Government Finance has moved the due date to Dec. 1, from the end of September, for budgets to be submitted to the state for final approval.
One way county and city officials are looking to reduce costs is combine Terre Haute’s and Vigo County’s weights and measures department. Yet the savings would be minimal, as the county’s department budget is only $39,000.
“We have been talking about doing that for the past year, since we knew our man, Bill Wolford, would retire this month. About 60 percent of the weights and measure duties are in the county, so given that, it would become a county office and the city can eliminate a vehicle and that department,” said David Decker, president of the county Board of Commissioners.
Bird serves as the city’s weights and measure person. Bird would become the city/county weights and measure person if combined, Decker said.
Decker said he would like the county also to look at fee schedules, such as building or culvert permits, which could be increased to cover actual expenses.
In a side issue, the salary of county Sheriff Jon Marvel came into question in a May review by the State Board of Accounts. The agency stated a sheriff cannot make a profit from meal allowances and if a sheriff makes a profit on meals in 2009, the state would charge for the sheriff.
Bruce Hartman, state examiner of the SBOA, said the state is reminding sheriffs that state laws have said sheriffs cannot make a profit from meals to jail inmates. At least one county that has a sheriff under a salary contract has taken legal action, he said.
“We basically said we are going to look at this closer than we have in the past,” Hartman said. “Citizens pay taxes to support services in counties and these meal moneys do come from the county general fund and to protect sheriffs from a potential criminal lawsuit filed against them.”
After talking with the Indiana Sheriff’s Association and legal council, Marvel said state law applies to the five largest counties preventing sheriffs from making a profit from meal allowance. Marvel does not have a salary contract, but earns a county salary, as well as money from the serving of state tax warrants and profits from a food allowance to feed jail inmates.
Marvel said he is paid a salary to run a cafeteria that provides 900 meals daily in the jail.
“I total all the bills for a month, then put down my food allowance, and there is money remaining. The county auditor takes that and takes out my pension, Social Security and state tax. He then sends a check back to me as a salary to run the [jail] cafeteria,” the sheriff said.
“The county is agreeing to pay me a salary to do that,” he said.
Marvel said state law will change when a new sheriff is elected in 2010, and must be paid a salary equal to a full-time prosecutor.
Hartman said there are several ways to pay a sheriff and the profit from meals applies to all counties and “doesn’t necessarily exempt everybody else from making a profit.”
Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.