At their meeting Tuesday, the Kosciusko County Commissioners gave permission for the highway and sheriff’s departments to apply for various grants, and OK’d two county ARPA grants.
Highway Department Superintendent Steve Moriarty requested permission to apply for an 80/20 matching federal grant for bridge 287 on CR 450E, just north of U.S. 30, over Deeds Creek. The total of the grant is $3,161,000, which is the estimated cost to replace the bridge in 2029. The county’s match would be $649,000 (20%) of that total cost, which would come out of the cumulative bridge fund. The county council approved the grant request at their meeting Thursday.
Along with the grant application, the commissioners approved the financial commitment letter required for the grant application.
Next, Moriarty asked the commissioners to accept all the bids received at their last meeting for 2025 highway suppliers and contractors, which the commissioners did.
He then requested $128,456.11 in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds for repaving CR 200S “between the county maintenance of the city of Warsaw and the new bridge that we just put in,” Moriarty said. The repaving for this stretch of road was delayed until the bridge replacement was completed.
The county’s ARPA committee approved recommending the funding request at their last meeting.
Commissioner Cary Groninger, who sits on the ARPA committee with Council President Mike Long and Councilwoman and Commissioner-elect Sue Ann Mitchell, explained, “Just so you know, this ARPA funds, these are - we’ve overappropriated some of these, so this will take priority over, I think we had some money appropriated for the parking lot we were going to pave. So just so you know, this is the recommendation from the ARPA committee, too, to do what we’re doing.”
The commissioners approved the ARPA grant for CR 200S.
Sheriff Jim Smith asked the commissioners for their approval on the contract with Quality Correctional Care (QCC), which will be effective Jan. 1. QCC provides medical coverage to the inmates in the county jail.
“This would be in pursuant to the council approving the monies in our budget to move from 16-hours-a-day coverage to 24/7 coverage, starting again Jan. 1,” Smith said.
County attorney Ed Ormsby said he’d received a copy of that contract.
Groninger asked what the increase was from what the jail currently has.
Ormsby said the amount of compensation is $563,418.86 for 2025, with installments of $56,951.57 per month. Groninger said this month’s claim from QCC was approximately $41,000, so the increase was about $16,000 per month for going from 16 hours a day to 24 hours for medical coverage in the jail.
Smith said something to think about, too, was, “As we go to these conferences and jail seminars, the biggest liability that all of us have is going to be the medical side inside the jail. So ... rather than asking an 18-year-old jailer to make a medical decision, you’re going to have somebody on staff now from that contracted provider that’s going to help us make these decisions.”
Groninger asked if the cost was just a flat fee and not based on the number of inmates. Smith said that was correct.
The commissioners unanimously approved the contract with QCC.
Sheriff’s Department Det. Lt. Josh Spangle requested permission to apply for a $19,996 grant through the Kosciusko County Community Foundation for four drones.
“We’re looking to expand our drone program and put a drone in a patrol car on each shift, so it’ll be four additional drones,” Spangle said. “We’ve already selected and started to train pilots from each shift, and this grant for $19,996 is just to purchase the four drones.”
Along with thermal technology, having drones in a patrol vehicle for each shift will provide for quicker response time. “Currently, the three pilots we have trained have moved up to administration, and our response time in the evening and early morning is hindered because of that,” Spangle stated.
The commissioners approved that grant application, as the county council had at their meeting Thursday.
KCSO Chief Deputy Chris McKeand requested permission to apply for a 2025 JAG grant for $200,000 from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute. He said the grant will be for a program the sheriff’s department is looking to do within that grant structure.
“One of the things that you can apply for in that grant is a body scanner, which we currently have a body scanner in the jail, but that project was done in 2017-2018. The technology has changed for that greatly since that time. Some of the updates are the ease of use, the ability for the new scanners to link in with our jail data system that we use for our booking, for them to integrate to be able tell you and save the scans for later use if you needed it to go reevaluate or to use it for evidence or something like that. It also has increased capabilities as far as detection. The size of the items it can detect. The different substances it can detect, and stuff like that,” McKeand said.
It’s not a matching grant, and he said they would be applying for up to $200,000 for the project. They’re still reviewing the different products that are out there with the different technologies, and the grant would cover training and the maintenance agreements that go with the equipment.
The commissioners approved the grant application, as the council had Thursday.
The last grant request was from Mike Wyrick, Webster Lake Conservation Association Inc. The county ARPA committee recommended a $186,000 grant for a hydrologic study for the Webster dam for the association, and the commissioners approved.
In other business, the commissioners approved:
• For NIPSCO to do some work on a geowall (a precast concrete slab, cast in a decorative mould featuring a timber effect finish) off Riverwood Ranch Road, off U.S. 30, on some property the commissioners own by Pathway Church. The geowall is causing flooding on the church’s parking lot.
• Pierceton-Washington Township Public Library’s request to replace Katie Wonderly on the library board with Pamela Osborne. Wonderly resigned from the board effective Nov. 30. Osborne’s term would begin Dec. 21 and go to July 30, 2025.
• Two vacation petitions presented by Area Plan Director Matt Sandy. Both petitions were recommended by the Area Plan Commission and represented by attorney Steve Snyder. There were no remonstrators.
The first petition for the Grangers, along North Shore Drive, up in Turkey Creek Township, was to vacate a 10-foot-wide platted right-of-way to the water’s edge.
The second petition, for the Camdens, was for a vacation on Big Barbee Lake of a portion of EMS B27 Lane. “This petition is to vacate out everything from lot 8 all the way to the west to Barbee Drive on the south side of EMS B27 Lane,” Sandy said, which would reduce the right-of-way down to 25 feet wide.
The commissioners’ next meeting is at 9 a.m. Dec. 3.