The Porter County
Council enters its last week of budget hearings starting on Monday with the
last round of second readings.
The Council will
meet at 5 p.m. in the Commissioners’ Chambers of the County Administration
Building, 155 Indiana Ave. in Valparaiso, to review the proposed budgets for
the highway department, County Council, Planning Commission, Animal Shelter,
Expo Center, Emergency Management Agency, Hazardous Waste, the Porter County
Regional Airport, the Recycling and Waste Reduction District, Voters
Registration and the County Election Board.
The latter concerns
the purchase of electronic poll books which Council President Dan Whitten,
D-at large, mentioned he had questions about at the start of budget hearings
last month.
The Election Board
purchased e-poll books from vendor Electronic Systems and Software and has
taken flak from Council members for executing the deal without first going
to them or the County Board of Commissioners for approval.
Subsequent efforts
by the board to transfer funding in its budget this year to pay for the poll
books have been rejected by the Council and the contract with ES&S remains
currently unpaid.
Whitten said the
issue would be discussed again at budget hearings.
Next Thursday at 5
p.m. Council intends to adopt all of the county budgets on final reading.
That will include
the Porter County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission budget.
Area residents called for budget reforms at the PCCRVC in the wake of the
tourism board’s decision to support the Pavilion Partners’s banquet center
in the Indiana Dunes State Park.