Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
No members of the public were in attendance for passage of the county's 2001 budget.
The Kosciusko County Council approved the budget on its second reading during a special meeting Monday at the courthouse. The total county general budget is $12,777,801.
Council members also viewed a presentation of the Geographic Imaging System as part of an update on its development. Only five to eight of Indiana's 92 counties have GIS up and running, officials said, and several nearby counties are just beginning the GIS process.
With GIS, officials can log data - including taxes, lot size and other pertinent property information - for easy access. Property can be looked up by owner name, address, key number or parcel number. Kosciusko County Auditor Sue Ann Mitchell said the information available on GIS is not used only by the assessor's and auditor's offices, but also "seems to be very valuable to the public." Some of the information is often used by real estate agents and abstracters, Mitchell said.
The properties can be viewed on a grid or an aerial photograph can be laid over the grid to show the actual land and structures on it. Members of the public can view their properties on the public access computers available in the auditor's office.
In conjunction with the computerized demonstration offered Monday, GIS coordinator Bill Holder offered ideas for aerial photography that the surveyor's office has done every four to six years. Holder said the target date for the next round of aerial photographs of the county is March 2002 and he submitted the information for consideration in the 2002 budget.
The work is a biddable job, but council vice president Jim Tranter pointed out that although the pictures are taken only every four to six years, the cost works out to about $60,000 a year. The county has regularly updated its aerial photographs since 1974.
Holder said he also would like to see a better contour map - with 1- to 2-foot contours rather than the current 10-foot contours - because some people request detailed elevation pictures.
"It's a big ticket item," Holder said. "It basically doubles the cost we would have to spend." He later added that the contour pictures weren't necessarily a "one-time item, but if we have to do it again, it would be in spots" rather than countywide. He estimated that 75 percent of the contour maps would not need updated once the more detailed ones are on file. This, he said, is because the more rural areas wouldn't change very often.
In other business, Ron Robinson, county administrator, distributed copies of the new personnel policy for review. The policy is expected to be voted on during the Oct. 5 meeting.
County council members are Brad Tandy, John Kinsey, Kathryn Teel, Jim Tranter, Tom Anglin, Harold Jones and Louis Bertsch.
