The attention surrounding Tuesday’s vote for the first payout of 2010 Longevity pay for county employees by the Porter County Council left council president Dan Whitten, D-at large, scratching his head.

The council meeting opened to a nearly packed room filled with employees anxiously waiting to witness what action the council will take regarding an additional of $168,703.50 from the county’s casino fund which comes from the state, but Whitten right off the bat questioned what all the hoopla was about.

“Suddenly this has become an issue,” he told the audience and said the council has been supportive of longevity pay. He said the vote usually takes place in May but was somehow left off the agenda last month and there was no cause for alarm to be voting for it a month later.

The hype surrounding the vote may have been brewed by the fact the council last year decided not to give across the board raises for last year. Some council members were quoted in the local media that they would need time to research and think before deciding how they would vote for longevity.

According to the pay scale, longevity payments start after a full-time county employee has been with the county for three years of service getting $225 added to their salary. The next raise happens after the employee has reached five years with an addition of $375 and the scale continues to rise in five year increments -- $750 after 10 years, $1,125 for 15 years, $1,500 for 20 years, $1,875 for 25 years, and maxes out at thirty years with $2,250 tacked on.

During the meeting, council member Marylyn Johns, D-4th, who called herself the “new kid on the block” (joining the council in January after her predecessor Mike Bucko took his post as county treasurer), said there is an absence of guidelines on the policy and suggested to the council they should discuss the possibility of refurbishing the policy.

Whitten said the council could decide to make changes during budget time but felt that longevity pay should not be an issue. He said county employees can continue to expect their longevity pay and said all the commotion surrounding the vote was “nothing short of asinine.”

The council approved the first payout unanimously with a 7-0 vote.

Employees can expect a second payout in either November or December.

In other business on Wednesday:

• Porter County Plan Commission Executive Director Robert Thompson and Porter County Commissioner President Robert Harper, D-Center, requested the council approve $200,000 in County Economic Development Income Tax money to be given to the Dunes-Kankakee Trail. The money originally was to come from the town of Porter after the county commissioners agreed to give the town matching grant money for the project which would later be reimbursed by the Indiana Department of Transportation. Thompson said when he later met with representatives from the INDOT, they told him the county must be the one to put up the money in order to receive the full reimbursement. Twenty percent of the funds will also be reimbursed by the town of Porter, Thompson said. The council approved the request 7-0.

• $38,000 was awarded to the Memorial Opera House for additional part-time work to keep up with the increased events this year. Council member Karen Conover, R-3rd, complemented the Opera House on completing the new renovations that have “put the county back on the map.”

• Porter County Sheriff David Lain, after the council tabled his request for $30,000 for a maintenance agreement with software vendor Tiburon, offered remembrance of Cpl. Daane Deboer of Valparaiso who was killed serving in Afghanistan last Friday. “We need to recognize his heroism and offer our condolences to his family,” Lain said. Whitten agreed, “I couldn’t put it better myself. Our thoughts go out to his family.”

Posted 6/30/2010