Commissioners Eye Emergency Mgmt. Duties
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Tim [email protected]
Kosciusko County Commissioners need more information before they are ready to sign off on two efforts to use homeland security grant money in northern Indiana. Kosciusko County is part of emergency management District II, which includes St. Joseph, Starke, Pulaski, Fulton, Marshall, Kosciusko and Elkhart counties.[[In-content Ad]]The commissioners decided Tuesday to wait until their next meeting to decide whether or not to move forward on a request for the county to hire an emergency management administrator for District II, and for the Kosciusko County auditor's office to administrate a fire training grant for the district.
Kosciusko County Emergency Management Director Ed Rock and officers of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security planning division discussed the district administrator position with the commissioners. Rock told the commissioners the position would be funded by DHS grant money, and the county has the option of hiring the administrator as a contract position.
Rock told the commissioners an administrator would set up the structure for the District II emergency planning council to make decisions as a district. He said the administrator would take district level duties off the hands of local emergency management directors.
"It would allow me to work on county issues rather than district issues," Rock said.
The commissioners said they weren't completely comfortable with the position the request put them in.
"I think there's a lot of opportunity here, and I don't want to short change District II, and I don't want to short change Kosciusko County," said Commissioner Ron Truex. "It looks to me like if anybody's on the short end right now, it might be the county, and that's something we have to address as commissioners."
The grant money available would only fund the district administrator position for 18 months. The commissioners expressed concern that it would end up costing the county if the administrator position was needed after the grant funding had expired.
Truex suggested the commissioners take more time before deciding whether or the county will hire the administrator.
"I think in the next couple of weeks we all should have conversations with Mr. Rock and be prepared to make a decision," Truex said.
The commissioners told state and district fire officials that arrangements need to be better organized before they will agree to administrate almost $173,000 in federal and state grant money aimed at providing training for fire fighters in District II.
"This is a mechanism for us to allow money to be used by firefighters at a local level to do basic training," said IDHS fire fighting training system chief John Buckman.
The grant money would cover the cost of basic prerequisite training courses for firefighters.
The commissioners received the request in written form before their Nov. 27 meeting. At that meeting, the commissioners took no action on the request.
"It was very poorly organized or structured from the beginning," said Truex.
Truex asked Buckman and other officials to meet with Auditor Sue Ann Mitchell and Auditor-elect Marsha McSherry and work out the details of how the grant would be administrated.
"If that has been cleared up and you can show Sue Ann and Marsha that we can make that work, then I think our opposition would probably go down," Truex said.
Following Tuesday's meeting, Mitchell met with the fire officials. She said she was satisfied with the arrangements they were able to agree to.
"They were very receptive to a lot of our suggestions and we were able to cover all of our issues," Mitchell said. "Hopefully, this will turn out to be a win-win for everybody because our local fire departments can take the basic training courses without having to pay for them."
In other news, the commissioners approved a $94,993 Kosciusko County sheriff's salary contract.
Kosciusko County Commissioners need more information before they are ready to sign off on two efforts to use homeland security grant money in northern Indiana. Kosciusko County is part of emergency management District II, which includes St. Joseph, Starke, Pulaski, Fulton, Marshall, Kosciusko and Elkhart counties.[[In-content Ad]]The commissioners decided Tuesday to wait until their next meeting to decide whether or not to move forward on a request for the county to hire an emergency management administrator for District II, and for the Kosciusko County auditor's office to administrate a fire training grant for the district.
Kosciusko County Emergency Management Director Ed Rock and officers of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security planning division discussed the district administrator position with the commissioners. Rock told the commissioners the position would be funded by DHS grant money, and the county has the option of hiring the administrator as a contract position.
Rock told the commissioners an administrator would set up the structure for the District II emergency planning council to make decisions as a district. He said the administrator would take district level duties off the hands of local emergency management directors.
"It would allow me to work on county issues rather than district issues," Rock said.
The commissioners said they weren't completely comfortable with the position the request put them in.
"I think there's a lot of opportunity here, and I don't want to short change District II, and I don't want to short change Kosciusko County," said Commissioner Ron Truex. "It looks to me like if anybody's on the short end right now, it might be the county, and that's something we have to address as commissioners."
The grant money available would only fund the district administrator position for 18 months. The commissioners expressed concern that it would end up costing the county if the administrator position was needed after the grant funding had expired.
Truex suggested the commissioners take more time before deciding whether or the county will hire the administrator.
"I think in the next couple of weeks we all should have conversations with Mr. Rock and be prepared to make a decision," Truex said.
The commissioners told state and district fire officials that arrangements need to be better organized before they will agree to administrate almost $173,000 in federal and state grant money aimed at providing training for fire fighters in District II.
"This is a mechanism for us to allow money to be used by firefighters at a local level to do basic training," said IDHS fire fighting training system chief John Buckman.
The grant money would cover the cost of basic prerequisite training courses for firefighters.
The commissioners received the request in written form before their Nov. 27 meeting. At that meeting, the commissioners took no action on the request.
"It was very poorly organized or structured from the beginning," said Truex.
Truex asked Buckman and other officials to meet with Auditor Sue Ann Mitchell and Auditor-elect Marsha McSherry and work out the details of how the grant would be administrated.
"If that has been cleared up and you can show Sue Ann and Marsha that we can make that work, then I think our opposition would probably go down," Truex said.
Following Tuesday's meeting, Mitchell met with the fire officials. She said she was satisfied with the arrangements they were able to agree to.
"They were very receptive to a lot of our suggestions and we were able to cover all of our issues," Mitchell said. "Hopefully, this will turn out to be a win-win for everybody because our local fire departments can take the basic training courses without having to pay for them."
In other news, the commissioners approved a $94,993 Kosciusko County sheriff's salary contract.
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