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After the Kosciusko County Commissioners voted Sept. 22 to dissolve the contract with Flock and dissolve the Flock donation fund, county attorney Ed Ormsby shared the county was looking at other county donation funds that have no appropriation requirement for the donations by the County Council.
At the commissioners’ meeting Tuesday morning, Ormsby presented donation fund amendment ordinances for 11 funds.
“We have, in follow-up of our last meeting, identified the donation funds that we want to amend to make sure that they specify that there is an appropriation requirement to be approved by the county council,” he said. “(County Auditor) Alyssa (Schmucker) has done a really good job in identifying all of those funds.”
He then presented each of the 11 ordinances, with the commissioners approving each one as they were presented.
“What each ordinance is providing, in terms of amendment, is that appropriation is required for each fund,” Ormsby stated.
The ordinances were for the Camp HERO Donation Fund; Kosciusko County Sheriff DARE Donation Fund, including the establishment of the fund; HazMat Donation Fund, with a name change to the Emergency Management Fund; Kosciusko County Hoosier Enduring Legacy Program (HELP) Special Fund; JCAP (Jail Chemical Addiction Program) Donation Fund; the Kosciusko County Juvenile Probation Department Diversion Programs Donation Fund; Kosciusko County Community Recovery Program Donation Fund; Kosciusko County Department of Parks and Recreation Special Fund; Kosciusko County Reentry Court Donation Fund; the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Donation Fund; and the Kosciusko County Veterans Donation Fund, including the establishment of the fund.
In other business:
• Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Chris McKeand requested approval to enter into a schedule of services agreement and a master services agreement with Smart Communications.
“Smart Communications is a vendor that provides inmate telephone services, video visitation, tablet services and they would take the place of our current vendor,” he said. “This would include also the programming for our KCRP (Kosciusko County Recovery Program) to be integrated into the tablets. JCAP could use the tablets with this new vendor. There’s a wider range of availability to put that type of programming in their hardware that they’re actually going to put in the jail.”
He said the price would be “comparable” to what they have now.
KCSO staff did a site visit in Michigan and saw the vendor in action and they were impressed by the product, McKeand stated.
The commissioners approved the two agreements.
• McKeand also requested, and the commissioners approved, to apply for two Kosciusko Coalition On Drug Education (KCODE) grants. One grant application would request $7,000 for the DARE program and the other would request $5,000 for JCAP.
• Director of Technology Eric Sorensen reminded the commissioners two weeks ago he opened up bids for courtroom technology at their meeting, and those were taken under advisement.
After going over the bids with court staff, the prosecutor’s office, Title IV-D and attorneys, he said they determined their original request for proposal (RFP) was not extensive enough. He asked the commissioners to cancel the bids and they will rewrite the RFP and solicit new bids to have a more comprehensive courtroom solution.
Ormsby said the request was for the commissioners to reject all bids previously submitted pursuant to Indiana code for the reason that the scope of the bid was going to be expanded.
The commissioners approved rejecting the previous bids.
• Emergency Management Director Kip Shuter asked the commissioners to adopt the final Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan (CIRP). He said it’s been a collaborative effort going on for “quite some time now.” He said it’s gone through several revisions and reviews by several organizations and agencies.
“You will note, and you should all have copies of it, that the plan is not for public release. It is a confidential plan, marked for official use only so that we don’t have any bad actors with access to our information and restoration processes in case of a cybersecurity incident,” he said. “This is a fluid document and it’ll continually be updated and reviewed and we are asking for your permission to adopt this plan.”
The plan was approved.
• Shuter requested permission to apply for a 2027 Hazardous Materials Emergency Preparedness Grant for a hazardous materials commodity flow study. The reimbursable grant, which doesn’t require a match, is from the U.S. Department of Transportation through the Indiana Department of Homeland Security and would be for a maximum of $30,000.
The request was approved.
He also requested, and the commissioners approved, to apply for a $58,526 Emergency Management Performance Grant, which provides for 50% salary reimbursement for emergency management personnel. No match is required.
• County Treasurer Michelle Puckett presented an ordinance for “a cash change fund increase for our office.” She said it’ll help her office implement more efficiencies and security in their change of drawers throughout the day.
Commissioner Cary Groninger asked for a further explanation, and Puckett responded, “We deal with four different cash drawers each day. We start out with $125 each. While when we’re busy at tax time when we’re switching drawers and changing the date, it’s a very long and extensive process and it causes delays in taxpayer payment processing, actually. So what we’ve decided is to add different efficiencies in our process, change out all the drawers at once, change the dates so there will be no gap in us processing tax payments for our taxpayer. But to do that, we need a second set of drawers to switch out automatically, and this will allow us to do that.”
Commissioner Sue Ann Mitchell said it sounded like “a great idea” and she made a motion to approve the request, which was passed.
• Kosciusko County Chief Public Defender Jack Birch requested approval of contracts for two part-time public defenders to replace a full-time public defender, William Kirkwood, who decided to go back to private practice. The two part-time contracts are for Kirkwood and Derek Faulkner.
Birch said he was not able to find a full-time lawyer to come in and take the position, so he had to convert the full-time position into two part-time contracted positions.
The commissioners approved the request.
• Kosciusko County Superior Court I Judge Karin McGrath requested permission to apply for a KCODE grant for $12,000 for the Reentry Court, which was approved.
• Kosciusko Area Bus Service (KABS) General Manager Kristin Rude requested permission to spend $2,840.72 for some new radios through Rapid Radios. The cost includes 16 units, charging docks and protective cases.
• Schmucker presented the 2027 interlocal agreement with the Kosciusko County Solid Waste Management District for the county to serve as the district’s comptroller for $10,000, which was approved.
The 2027 interlocal agreement with the Kosciusko County Convention and Recreation Visitors Commission for the services the county provides to the KCCRVC also was approved at $2,000, an increase from $500.
The 2027 service agreement with the St. Joe River Basin for $4,033 was the final thing Schmucker presented that the commissioners approved.
• OrthoWorx President and CEO Ryan Christner provided an update to the commissioners on what OrthoWorx has been doing and accomplished.
