County using cellphone emergency alert system
The Brown County Emergency Management Agency has partnered with Nixle to alert residents to localized emergency situations and community advisories.
Alerts are targeted geographically, allowing residents to receive messages from all Brown County public safety agencies. Alerts can be sent via text, email, voice, web, social media and the Nixle Mobile App.
To register, text your ZIP code to 888777 from a cellphone, or go to browncounty-in.us, find “Emergency Management Department” and sign up via the Nixle Widget.
Health department’s legal expenses increasing
The Brown County Health Department is asking for a 250 percent increase in its legal budget for 2018.
The department had $12,000 in its 2017 budget, but has spent “well over that” already this year, said Dr. Norman Oestrike, the department’s health officer. Last week, the county council increased the budget to $24,000 for this year, and for 2018, the department will be asking for $30,000.
In 2016, the legal budget for the health department was $10,000, said health board member Cynthia Rose.
Oestrike said the reason for the increase over the past three years was that the department was trying to use the county prosecutor for legal services, but he wasn’t able to do that anymore because of personal liability. Then the department worked with a lawyer with limited experience in civil ordinance enforcement, and finally hired an attorney from Greenwood, he said.
The $30,000 budget is “probably more realistic,” Oestrike said. If cases are successfully prosecuted — like illegal dumping or health and safety hazards on private property — he hopes the fines they collect will be able to pay for some of those expenses.
The department also has insurance to cover expenses related to litigation, he said.
Council approves loan for Hamblen fire district truck
The Brown County Council is allowing the Hamblen Fire Protection District to borrow about $400,000 to buy a new fire engine.
The fire district board has $250,000 in its cumulative fund which it will put toward the new engine, which will cost about $620,000.
“We are currently talking with the DLGF (Department of Local Government Finance) and the State Board of Accounts on ways to transfer some funds that we have into the account in order to bring that (loan) total down. We haven’t heard back from them yet,” said fire district board member Roy Shea.
The loan will be for six years.
The new engine will replace a 30-year-old engine and a 22-year-old rescue truck.
At the May 15 meeting, Shea told the council that the engine had broken down again since he spoke to the council in April.
The last time the district took out a loan, it was for $240,000. That debt was for a different fire truck and will be paid off this year, district board member Tom Williams said in April.
Auditor Beth Mulry estimated the impact on the tax rate could be an additional 1 cent per $100 of assessed value after the district acquires the new debt at a 3 percent interest rate for a $400,000 loan.
Calculations on how this new loan will affect the tax rate in the fire district won’t be final until the loan and interest rates are finalized with a bank.
