County Council continues budget discussions ahead of October vote
The Washington County Council met this past Monday, September 14 to discuss many budgetary items as they continue to finalize the county’s budget for next year. This week, six of seven council members were present. Councilman Todd Armstrong was absent.
After the approval of meeting minutes, Sheriff Brent Miller was invited forward to speak on several items he had concerns over. His first concern was regarding staffing.
In 2021, the council added three deputy positions that were treated as probationary slots for new hires who had not yet been through the academy. Miller said the understanding at the time was to revisit those slots in three to five years.
The department has hired seven officers in the last year and a half. The last vacancy was filled by Deputy Chris Milligan, a 15-year officer, field training officer, and third-shift supervisor. Because the only opening available was a probationary line, Milligan makes $3,870 less than the three deputies he supervises.
“I’m not asking for it to be a sergeant or a lieutenant or anything of rank, just a deputy position,” Miller said. “With 15 years experience and him being our shift supervisor on third shift… I think that it needs to be corrected, and I think now’s the time to do that.”
He requested that Milligan’s line be moved from the current probationary rate of $57,994 to the regular deputy rate of $61,864. There have been previous discussions regarding raises. If those figures previously discussed hold, that number would eventually sit around $63,614. Although, that has not yet been finalized.
Miller said he still wants to keep some probationary slots. Most new hires have not been through the academy, and openings will come again. But he argued the importance of retention in a young department.
The council asked about the cost of sending someone through the academy instead. Miller said it can take up to a year to get a seat, then 18 weeks in the actual academy, plus uniforms and gear.
“You could potentially have closer to $100,000 in getting an officer through the academy… and road ready,” he said.
The council decided to move Milligan to regular deputy pay, effective now rather than waiting on the 2027 budget.
For Sheriff Miller’s next topic, he turned to the transport officer and jail lieutenant line in the detention-center budget. One to one and a half years ago, Miller recruited someone from another department and added several duties. Some of which included commissary sales and internal-control review of the jail matron/bookkeeper’s work. That includes cash books and bank reconciliations for the commissary, sheriff, Stellar, and investigations accounts.
He stated the State Board of Accounts had raised internal-control concerns. After working with the bookkeeper and the state, he says, “things are running very clean now.”
For the extra work, Miller agreed to $8,000 a year from the commissary fund. This would be divided into $2,000 each quarter, paid by check. The state later said the preferred method is to move that $8,000 into the general fund and pay it across 26 pay periods so taxes are withheld. Miller’s 2027 request would put the position at $52,042, with the extra $8,000 coming from the commissary each year.
Gilbert noted it is an election year and that Miller is retiring. He wanted a written agreement so the arrangement does not die with the next sheriff.
“That way everything’s transparent,” Gilbert said. “It’s all documented. Alyssa [Cochran] can take care of that.”
Council Attorney Alyssa Cochran was not present for this discussion, but it was assured she would be consulted.
Miller then moved on to food costs, jail repairs, and revenue from holding Harrison County inmates.
As of August 31, Washington County had billed Harrison County $196,976 for housing 40 of Harrison County’s inmates during a 90-day construction project at their jail, with four months still to go. Miller said that figure could nearly double before expenses. He added that Harrison County supplies uniforms and pays medical costs, and that food is essentially the only main local expense.
He expects to return again this year for an additional appropriation and stated that leaving the 2027 food line around $195,000 would put the next sheriff in a similar position. He added that the current cook and the previous cook are working meal-cost numbers from old records.
This housing agreement only runs through the year’s end, and it will be up to the next sheriff to decide whether to sign another contract or not.
“Even when the construction is done at Harrison County, I can tell you there are sheriff’s departments all over the state of Indiana that are having problems with bed space,” Miller said. “Beds can be rented out.”
Councilman Mark Abbott suggested running the housing revenue through the auditor’s office and sending it back to the jail for much needed mechanical repairs on the 40-year-old building. Councilwoman Karen Wischmeier and Councilman Andrew Davisson agreed, as they cited unfinished camera work, door problems, old air-conditioning issues, and locking mechanisms that had been previously discussed at approximately $300,000.
On the topic of the aging jail, the original jail dates to 1986. The newer addition is about 14 or 15 years old, and Miller said both sides are showing their age.
Miller was told last fall by the current security vendor that the company that made the jail intercom system had gone bankrupt. Replacement parts are obsolete, and the locking mechanisms are at the end of their life. If those fail, several doors could be lost at once, and jail staff would have to open them manually with keys.
“In the event of an emergency, that could be a bad thing,” Miller said.
The estimate to replace the system is more than $300,000. Miller has had Security Automation Systems on site for a survey and said that firm has retrofitted more than 60 former Securitas jails. He said Trisha Warner was scheduled to present the proposal to the commissioners the following night.
He also revisited a three-phase camera project the council approved around 2019. The first phase took so long to finish that the county moved on to the second and never did the third. Miller said he has not been satisfied with customer service under the current ownership and that the existing system is proprietary, so another company cannot take over maintenance without the passwords.
Councilman Preston Shell said putting the work off any longer could cause a potential lawsuit against the county if something bad were to happen.
The council’s consensus was to find a way to fund the security work, preferably with inmate-housing revenue as opposed to funding via taxes.
The discussion then pivoted to the Maintenance 2 position at the jail. This position previously matched a corrections officer’s pay and was treated inside the jail as a promotion due to the improved work schedule.
In the 2025 budget, other lines received larger raises. Maintenance 2 now pays $1,586 less than a corrections officer. The maintenance supervisor plans to retire at the end of the year, and Miller wants the Maintenance 2 employee to stay and step up.
“You’re not getting punished for taking another job within the department,” Miller said.
Following Sheriff Miller’s comments and concerns, Washington County EMA Director Deni Stempowski came forward to ask the council to adopt the finished Emergency Operations Plan she sent on July 28. The council voted to approve the plan.
Then, Michelle Fleenor presented an additional appropriation from riverboat funds for county IT work discussed during budget hearings. The request should have been $30,000. This month’s claim is $20,000, with $10,000 to follow next month.
Council President Brad Gilbert said department heads had raised concerns that employees did not have the computers and support they needed. Commissioner Tony Cardwell, when asked from the audience where commissioners stood, said they would take it up the next night at the commissioners meeting.
The $20,000 appropriation passed.
The council then opened and closed several 2027 budget public hearings, with no public comment, for:
Blue River Fire Protection District
Brown-Vernon Fire District
Delaney Creek Conservancy
Washington County Solid Waste Management
Gilbert then opened the public-hearing portion of the 2027 county budget. He stressed that nothing was being adopted that night. A special meeting is set for September 28, with final adoption still scheduled for October.
Several from the audience brought up concerns.
A health department employee who handles things like food permitting, licensing, inspections, and emergency preparedness for retail food and food trucks, said he is paid at the same level as clerical staff. He said he is in a one-person division, adding that other office divisions have two people.
“I’m a one-man band trying to do my job the best that I can,” he said. He estimated he serves the whole county, including home-based and homestead vendors. He has been in the job five years and said he is not asking to match the longest-tenured department salaries.
A health department office manager said the office of seven full-time staff brings in roughly $60,000 to $70,000 a year in birth and death certificates, septic permits, food permits, and related fees. That money goes back into the department’s own fund.
“The health department and Purdue are the two lowest paid departments in the county,” she said. “What we’re asking for in raises doesn’t even hit what we bring in our revenue for a year.”
Gilbert said several council members have been talking about the issue since budget week and are “looking very seriously at that,” without further elaboration.
In the budget-discussion period that followed, Wischmeier said that in her eight years on the council, the health department, Purdue Extension, and the clerk’s office are the last three departments that have not been compared county-to-county for wages.
She also said she felt uneasy about some of the budget cuts during the three-day period when the council initially discussed next year’s budget.
“Now you’re going to be coming back in and asking for an additional down the road,” she said.
Gilbert stressed that those three days produced tentative numbers, not a final budget. The full council will vote in October.
Wischmeier cited the commissioners’ building-repair money and a fairgrounds additional that had been cut. Gilbert, Abbott, and others said they understood Fair Board President Tom Day to ask that the extra fairgrounds money wait until more is known about the new building.
Wischmeier said Day had also talked about cracked concrete, a broken van board, and painting. Gilbert said the council would get clarification.
Regarding cumulative capital, fund 1138, Fleenor explained that maintenance and repair had been trimmed because the fund takes in about $425,000 to $450,000 a year and cannot support a $520,000 budget.
Then, Abbott reported on a vehicle for EMA Director Stempowski, adding that the Durango previously used by the coroner is obsolete. He has called dealerships, including John Jones, about police-pursuit vehicles that come in on trade. Nothing suitable is on the lot now.
Wischmeier said nearly every other Indiana county gives its EMA director a vehicle.
“Not even that long ago we had an F4 tornado going through our county,” she said. “We’re going to need you to be in something other than your personal car.”
In other news, Chief Dispatch pay was pushed to September 28. Michelle Fleenor is currently running numbers after what she described as a $1,700 assignment layered onto years of other budget work.
Wischmeier then asked the council to put the clerk’s election budget back where Clerk Stephanie Rockey requested it, treating every year like a general-election year so the books stay consistent.
“There is no off election year,” Rockey said.
Batteries, redesigned absentee envelopes, and other state mandates are expected of the election office whether or not it is a presidential cycle. She said she has not sought an additional appropriation on the election budget since she started with the county in March 2018, including the pandemic election. Washington County has more than 19,700 registered voters, and the first ballot drop of the current cycle is set for tomorrow, Friday September 18.
“If you slash my budget, I am coming back for additional appropriations,” she said. “You go slashing my budget, it’s like slashing my family, because I’m held to a high standard of integrity.”
She added that election-mechanic pay is tied to an ordinance on the executive side and is not a discretionary shopping line.
Fleenor outlined cuts made in the tentative worksheets:
Election board / precincts line 16300 taken down to $1,320
Election-board request of $8,800 cut to $7,000
Another line cut to $154
AV mechanics cut from $8,000 to $6,000
The council’s consensus was to restore those election lines to the clerk’s request.
Rockey also stated her deputies are paid below comparable counties. She said that she dissolved a position after taking office in July 2019 to free money for wages, and that the money was used elsewhere. The office still has no paralegals. Court reporters were mentioned as another group to review. Gilbert put election office wages on the September 28 agenda.
The council was also asked to review the pay for the county commissioners. Gilbert added that to the September 28 agenda as well. Following this, the meeting adjourned.
As far as the future of the budget is concerned, the council has a special meeting on September 28, and plans to officially vote later in October. Stay tuned to see what is in store for the 2027 Washington County budget.
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