Emergency management gets $100,000+ in grants
The Brown County Emergency Management Association has received $121,000 in grant funding to pay for three projects in the county.
Director Susan Armstrong told the Brown County Commissioners on Oct. 4 that EMA submitted $162,000 in grant requests to Homeland Security this year to fund five projects.
The $121,000 it received was used to buy swift-water-rescue equipment and sonar equipment. Indiana Department of Natural Resources officers have already used the equipment, and they found a crane that was left at the bottom of Lake Monroe after it was flooded, she said. They also found a car in the bottom of the lake that had been stolen in 2009.
Armstrong said the equipment also could be used to help find victims or cars that were swept away in case a dam broke or a flood happened; and police could use it to find evidence or people in bodies of water.
The grant also funded vests and throw bags that can be used to rescue people who get swept away in water, Armstrong said.
The rest of the grant was used to buy radios for first responders.
The grant request was a collaboration among the DNR, the Brown County Sheriff’s Department, the Nashville Police Department and local fire departments.
“Everybody went in on these projects and wrote them for equipment that they all felt they needed,” Armstrong said.
One project that didn’t get funded was for the purchase of “buddy packs” for all law enforcement officers. “It is to save themselves if they get shot in the field,” Armstrong said. They include gauze, a tourniquet, a wrap, a powder pouch that can be used to clot blood and other emergency medical supplies.
Commissioner Diana Biddle said money may be available in other county funds to buy the packs. Armstrong said it would cost $3,500 to $4,000 to supply them to all officers.
“The reason we felt it was such a high priority for our law enforcement is that with the ambulances we have, if they are on one side of the county and the ambulances are coming from Nashville, that 10- to 15-minute drive could be the end,” Armstrong said. “Having a pouch like that would definitely make a major difference.”
Commissioner Dave Anderson, a former sheriff and conservation officer, said it’s important to help protect officers out in the field.
“You don’t have backup. You don’t have a partner with you. Sometimes, at three o’clock in the morning, you don’t have anybody out there to even call,” he said.
Health department requests credit card
The Brown County Health Department has requested a county credit card to help cover expenses when employees go to conferences and stay in hotels.
Currently, the department borrows the county commissioners’ credit card to pay those bills. Recently, an employee went to a conference and had to use her own credit card to pay for the room because the hotel required a letter of endorsement to use the commissioners’ credit card.
Judy Hess, with the health department, made the request for a credit card with a $2,500 limit at the Oct. 4 commissioners meeting.
Commissioner Diana Biddle said this would be a good time to look at all of the credit cards the county currently has to see if one could be used for the health department before issuing a new one. Auditor Beth Mulry said the county is currently at its total credit limit.
Mulry said the maximum limit she is aware of on a county credit card is $1,500.
