Porter County
Auditor Vicki Urbanik said her office will continue efforts to recoup tax
revenues from homestead credit violators, as did as her predecessor Bob
Wichlinski, but the work will be carried out without the help of
consultants.
At Wednesday’s
County Board of Commissioners meeting Urbanik detailed changes she has made
in the department’s 2015 budget originally submitted by Wichlinski and
approved by the County Council during last fall’s County budget hearings.
She said she will
not be renewing two consultant contracts costing $90,000 each Wichlinski had
planned to pay for out of the auditor’s non-reverting fund.
One was for a
financial advisor and the other was for investigating homestead credit
fraud.
Urbanik pushed for
two new contracts out of the non-reverting fund that would cost far less
than the consultants.
One was for a legal
counsel at a not-to-exceed $75,000 amount with an hourly rate of $120 per
hour to provide assistance in homestead cases on an as-needed basis. The
attorney is Adam Mindel of Rhame and Elwood LLC in Portage, which is a
switch from Valparaiso attorney John Schmaltz, who Wichlinski had hired in
previous years.
The other contract
was with Umbaugh and Associates for a not-to-exceed amount of $10,000. The
firm, which is a certified public accountant, will work with auditor
employees on several matters including tax abatement work and resolving
other accounting issues that Urbanik discovered when she came into office in
January, such as complications with state highway funds.
The Board of
Commissioners split 2-1 in approving new contracts with Commissioners John
Evans, R-North, and Laura Shurr Blaney, D-South, in favor of the changes,
while Commissioner Jeff Good, R-Center was opposed.
Good asked why the
expenses were necessary and said questions have been raised before by the
County Council on spending out of the non-reverting fund.
Urbanik said the
Council had already approved the auditor’s budget at the higher figure and
her plan was to spend less money moving forward with the two new contracts
than what would have been paid to consultants.
She is also
reducing a contract that gave unlimited data to office iPads.
Urbanik later told
the Chesterton Tribune that she has designated one full time worker
to take the lead on checking for violators of homestead credit and other tax
deductions, along with some part-time help to assist the employee. She said
a consultant may be sought out again but it is possible that there might not
be much revenue left to recoup.
Porter County is
one of a few counties in Indiana that is taking time to investigate
homestead credit compliance, she added.
The office is also
trying to catch up on abatement work for properties such as Porter Regional
Hospital. Urbanik said one of the employee positions eliminated last year in
the office restructuring was one which specialized in abatement work.
“We’re trying get a
whole year of work done in two and a half months,” she said.
Also on Wednesday,
Urbanik told the Commissioners that space in her office has been opened up
for the new human resources department.
Booking fee tripled
Also on Wednesday,
the Commissioners voted 3-0 on first reading to approve an amendment to its
ordinance establishing a processing fee for inmates at Porter County Jail.
The fee would be
boosted to $75, which is three times the current fee.
Revenues are
allocated to Porter-Starke Services, which gives counseling to jail inmates
who struggle with substance abuse. According to Sheriff Dave Reynolds, more
than 75 percent of men and women at the jail struggle with those issues.
Reynolds said the
fee has had hard time keeping up since changes in state law said the fee can
only be charged if a person is convicted. The jail is currently unable to
pay for the current contract with Porter-Starke, at $110,000 per year. “I
don’t want to lose these programs. I think this is something we need to do,”
he said.
An additional issue
has been keeping track of the inmates who do not pay the fee. Reynolds said
he has spoken with the judges asking that they mention the fee in their
court orders.
No one made
comments during a public hearing for the amendment. A second reading will be
held at the Commissioners’ next meeting in March.