Parks board member resigns; new member sought

The Brown County Council is accepting resumes and/or letters of interest from people wanting to serve on the Brown County Parks & Recreation board.

Applicants must submit materials to the Brown County auditor by 4 p.m. Friday, March 15. Applicants also must attend the next council meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 18 in the Salmon Room at the County Office Building.

Applicants will be asked to briefly speak about their interest and qualifications.

With questions, call the auditor at 812-988-5485.

The new appointment will replace Keith Baker, who was the board’s vice president. Baker submitted a letter of resignation to council President Dave Redding on Feb. 28. “Due to personal and health concerns, I do not currently have the ability to fulfill the duties that this appointment demands,” Baker wrote.

Road grant money announcement expected this month

Whether or not Brown County will get $1 million in grant money from the state to do road repairs will be decided by the end of this month.

Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner explained the time frame to the Brown County Commissioners Feb. 20. The grant program is called Community Crossings.

Applications were due Feb. 1. Magner said he turned his in a few days ahead of the deadline and received comments back from INDOT, and changes were made to the application based on those comments, he said.

Bellsville Pike, Greasy Creek Road and a portion of Nineveh Road are on deck to be paved this year with money from Community Crossings — same as what the plan was last year, when the county was awarded no road grant funding.

The grant will have to be used by the end of this fiscal year. That means bids will have to go out to contractors for road projects to start early this summer, before the fiscal year ends in July.

Around $250,000 spent on stone, sand so far this year

Around $250,000 has been spent this year on stone and salt to treat roads after the winter’s snow, ice and rain.

At the Feb. 20 Brown County Commissioners meeting, county highway Superintendent Mike Magner said that from Feb. 4 to 20, at least one or more people were out at least part of the day working the roads.

“If anybody calls up and say we haven’t been doing anything, they need to look around a little bit,” Magner said.

Magner reported last month that their stone supplier, Wagler Brothers Excavating Inc., was hauling stone almost every day last month. “We’re putting it on the roads faster than they can haul it in. Part of the days, we’re actually using our trucks to help stockpile,” he said.

The highway department has spent more than $138,000 on stone and almost $114,000 on salt.

“It adds up quick. Any day there’s a salt day, we will go through between 500 and 600 tons of material, salt and sand, in a 12-hour shift. When salt is almost $90 a ton, that adds up quick,” Magner said.

Magner said the department uses a mixture of three parts sand and one part salt except for areas like Helmsburg, where it’s flatter and they use only salt.

“We don’t have to go back and sweep the sand up in the spring. That seems to work very well,” he said.

The department also uses a treated salt with additives in it that allow it to work even when temperatures are below zero, as long as there is some sunshine.

Sewer board business: Budget, new member OK’d

The Brown County Regional Sewer District Board has a new member and $200,000 to spend after the Brown County Council approved both at their meeting last month.

The council unanimously approved $227,569.22 in county funds going into the sewer board’s account. Last year, the council had given the sewer board $270,000 in startup money for the board and its proposed sewer project in Bean Blossom.

The $270,000 was planned to go toward engineering study and design, an environmental report, easement preparation, legal expenses, a financial adviser’s fee, soil analysis and administrative costs.

The board reported spending $70,000 of that money last year, but that $27,569.22 of those bills had yet to be paid, which accounted for the difference in amounts.

The reappropriation was approved after an hour-and-a-half-long discussion with residents about identifying data showing a need for the project and possible alternate locations for a sewer plant to serve Bean Blossom, which is the board’s first defined project area.

The council also voted to approve Benjamin Gold as a new board member, with Vice President Dave Crister abstaining.

Gold has been working in the IT field for about 25 years, including a few years spent working for the Columbus City Utilities where he was a part of their wastewater treatment project there.

Current member Clint Studebaker approached Gold about serving on the board. “I see from the preliminary report he gave me it seems like you’ve got a real need for a sewer fix in this county. I feel like with my skill set and my background, I could probably fill some gaps that you’re going to need,” Gold said.

Brown County resident Dave Rudd also applied to serve on the sewer board.

Studebaker “highly encouraged” the council to nominate Gold because of his experience.

Sheriff captain’s focus will be on mental health

The sheriff’s department now has a captain in its ranks.

At the January sheriff’s merit board meeting, the board voted to promote Lt. Mike Moore to the rank of captain. This means Moore will work Monday through Friday handling mental health commitments and other duties, which would free up deputies on the road to focus on other tasks, explained Sheriff Scott Southerland — “a lot to do with mental health issues, because they take up time.”

The promotion means Moore will receive $1,200 additional pay. But Southerland said Moore will actually lose money taking the job because he will no longer work holidays and receive holiday pay.

“He has agreed to do that because that’s where he thinks he needs to be,” Southerland said.

The council voted to approve a $1,268 appropriation from the county’s general fund to pay for Moore’s promotion.

During the February county council meeting, Southerland also reported that a little over $193,000 was received in back pay from the Indiana Department of Corrections for housing Level 6 felons in Brown County since January 2016. Currently, the department receives $35 a day for housing Level 6 felons for the DOC.

Last year, the council voted to add a new merit deputy and jailer at the sheriff’s department. Those positions were going to be partly funded by that DOC money.

Employee’s pay moved from clerk to commissioners

The Brown County Council unanimously approved a temporary salary ordinance amendment at their Feb. 25 meeting.

The amendment unfunded a line item in the county clerk’s budget which funded one employee, and temporarily added that employee into the commissioners’ budget in a new line item.

No explanation was provided during the meeting why this amendment was needed. Auditor Julie Reeves also would not comment on the amendment after the county meeting, only saying the line item that was unfunded was a pay schedule for one employee.

Before the council meeting Feb. 25, the council and commissioners met in executive session “with respect to any individual whom the governing body has jurisdiction to receive information concerning an individual’s alleged misconduct.”

County selling sliver of land to INDOT for culvert

The Brown County Commissioners unanimously voted Feb. 20 to give commissioner Diana Biddle permission to conduct business related to selling a sliver of land in Van Buren Township to the Indiana Department of Transportation.

INDOT will replace a culvert near Van Buren Elementary School later this fall, Biddle said. The county commissioners own land where the Southern Brown Volunteer Fire Department is, which is across the street from the elementary school. About 0.025 acres of county-owned land is in the area where the culvert is. INDOT wants to but it for $1,000.

“It has nothing to do with any real estate we are actually using,” Biddle said.