As any debate teacher will tell you, there are two sides to every story.

But only one side was heard during Tuesday night’s Porter County Council meeting.

After the council voted 5-0 in May denying an additional of $45,000 to go to four part-time workers who had to be subsequently laid off, the assessor’s office tried a second time to secure funding for part-time staff with the request this time being $26,775.

The request was made by the executive chief deputy of the auditor’s office Alizabeth Bailey in absence of Porter County Auditor James Kopp who was out of town Tuesday.

Not seconds after Bailey began to give reasons for the request, council member Sylvia Graham, D-at large, made the motion to deny.

“I feel somehow this office just can’t catch up,” said Graham. She said she believes the workers in the office are working hard and gave credit to members of the auditor staff who were sitting in the audience but felt there seemed to be no end to the requests for additional pay since joining the council last year.

As a gathering of about ten staff members stood up to defend the request, the council proceeded with the vote, denying the request across the board 7-0.

“There’s a reason why you guys can’t work within your budget,” Council President Dan Whitten, D-at large, told the employees.

Whitten shushed staffers and demanded that the council move on with the meeting, not yielding to the cries to further discuss the issue.

“Let (Bailey) talk,” said one employee.

“This is crazy!” shouted another.

The auditor’s office asked Whitten and the other council members if they had read a detailed list given to them of the duties part-time employees would perform in the auditor’s office for the year.

A copy of the list of duties included:

• Verifying information on the Pink Homestead Verification Forms, entering the information into the LOW system and the state website which must be researched if rejected, filing the forms, and making several phone calls to taxpayers regarding the forms per day.

• Reducing backlog of appeals. There are approximately 362 appeals left from 2007, 1,221 from 2008, and 1,542 so far for 2009 pay 2010. Each appeal has two 17-T refund forms to process, one corrected tax bill, two checks issued and paperwork to be filled out.

• Rolling assessed values for the 2010 pay 2011 in time for the Aug. 1 deadline. The Indiana Department of Local Government Finance says the values must be certified by August to keep the tax bills on track. The entire staff will need to be utilized in order to meet the deadline.

• Bookkeeping for the year which has always been handled by a part-time employee. Part-time funds have been expended due to the additional workload the office has seen.

A second list given to the council showed how part-time pay was expended so far in the first half of the year. That list includes:

• Answering all phone messages daily after new May 2010 installation. The new system has no limit on voice messages.

• Paying out refunds due to appeals. $1,221,186.72 has already been paid out this year.

• Correcting tax bills due to appeals. Around 1,800 tax bills have been corrected for the May 2010 tax installment.

• Opening, sorting and verifying around 60,000 Pink Homestead Credit Forms.

• Filing W-9 Forms for 30,000 vendors for Federal Government Audit as well as a mailing to each one that was filed in the financial system.

• Restructuring excise to more accurately disburse funds to units based on the address for each license plate and looking up on average 420,168 addresses per year to verify the associated taxing district.

• Training for work that was once handled by a payroll deputy who retired this year.

Whitten said he did in fact look at the lists in advance. Others like Graham said they were only handed the copies a few minutes before the meeting on Tuesday.

Following the events of the May meeting, Whitten said Kopp never asked to meet with him on what should be done to handle the part-time work, but that county assessor John Scott called a meeting to discuss ideas that could help get some of the work done.

Scott told the council he “does not want to step on anybody’s toes,” but said he could assist the auditor by hiring back one of the part-time people that was let go by using the money left over from the salary of his chief deputy who retired this past month.

“I felt that would be a good way to use (that money),” said Scott. “This could help the county get the things done.”

Scott said the worker would assist in alleviating the bottleneck from the backlog of standing appeals. He said he wants to speed the appeal process so the taxpayers can get their money back. “It’s their money. They should not have to wait around and wonder why it is not getting done.”

The council approved $25,264 with $11,053 going to the part-time worker and the rest going to another full-time position. The vote was 7-0.

Whitten thanked Scott for continually being there to help out without asking for any new money.

Scott lastly asked the council to consider giving the GIS system back to the assessors office saying it was critical to have those numbers that come from the state in order to keep from falling behind.

Auditor staff workers gathered outside after the meeting pondering how they are going to pull through without the extra help.

“You can’t lay people off and expect the work to get done,” said Christine Bertrand, executive deputy of real estate in the auditor’s office.

Bertrand said taxpayers who have filed appeals will now have to wait even longer for the refunds. “We’re going to be backlogged even further.”

She also questioned whether the office will be able to have the assessed values for the 2011 property tax certified before the Aug. 1 deadline set by the DLGF. She said they are still waiting for the assessor’s office to give them the data.

“We’ll have to run as fast as we can to get on time tax bills on top of all the other work we have to do,” she said.

Bailey gave the Chesterton Tribune a page from the State Board of Accounts 2008 Report for Porter County that said tax bill delays were due to “significant delays in the reassessment process” for that year.

Bertrand accused Whitten of being “biased” in that he allowed the assessor and Porter County Treasurer Mike Bucko to speak earlier in the meeting but silenced the auditor employees. She invites anyone to “take a tour” to see what work needs to be done and said Whitten never showed up to the auditor’s office prior to the meeting or even made the attempt.

Bailey said her office is asking “only a small portion” of what is available. The county is currently in a surplus of $6.3 million and has an additional $7 million in unused County Economic Development Income Tax funds, she said, along with a large sum from the Porter hospital sale that has been left untapped.

Whitten after the meeting told the Tribune he thinks the auditor’s office needs to better manage themselves within their budget.

“County government needs to run on efficiency, not excuses,” he said.

Whitten said his next move will be to hold a joint-meeting with both the auditor and the assessor to straighten some of the mess out.

Council member Rita Stevenson, D-2nd, said that Kopp has tried to “wear down the council members” by continually asking for additional money to pay employees. “What’s wrong with getting the job done?” she asked.

The $83,062 spent last year in overtime for the auditor’s office went largely to Bailey and Bertrand which Stevenson felt should have been more spread out among the other employees.

Council member Robert Poparad, D-1st, gave the Tribune similar comments saying as a businessman, if bosses make more than employees in overtime that means they are not properly delegating the workload.

“They all should be equal,” said Poparad, giving the scenario if there is ten hours of overtime work with five employees, each employee should work two hours. “It’s just bad management. Come on, we’re not talking brain surgery here, kids.”

Stevenson indicated more overtime was expended last year in the auditor’s office than in the county sheriff’s department. A record from the council’s administrative assistant shows that $78,360 in overtime pay was expended by the auditor in 2009 while the Sheriff expended $60,573.

Posted 6/30/2010