Defender's office asks for help (11/13/2008)

The county could be looking at hiring an additional public defender in the near future.

Deputy Jay County Public Defender Tom Diller spoke with the Jay County Council Wednesday night to present some alarming numbers that showed the current legal staff is taking on about 1.5 times as many cases as allowable by the state. By exceeding this limit, the county could be in danger of losing a 40 percent reimbursement from the state to help cover the cost of the public defender's office.

"We need another person," Diller said, estimating a cost of about $48,000 per year to cover an additional hire. "(Current Public Defender and Superior Court Judge-elect) Max (Ludy) is trying to keep us from losing our funding."

However, Diller added that hiring another defender could present challenges. Jay County is "out of" lawyers to draw on for the position and finding someone with the appropriate experience to take on the job could be difficult.

He suggested that his office may write the Indiana Public Defender Commission to inform them of the case overload and inform them the county is working on remedying it, "hopefully heading off us losing our reimbursement."

"If the reimbursement was cut, we would do some cutting," said councilman Gerald Kirby. Having worked in law enforcement, he said he understood the importance of the office.

The council suggested Diller take the information to the commissioners for review, since a new hire would need to be authorized by them. Diller said he would do that. "We need to take a serious look at it," he said. "We wanted to start making you aware."

In other business Wednesday, the county council:

•Approved several additional appropriations including one for $43,205 to Community Development services. That amount, which represents six months' budget for the organization under the umbrella of Jay County Development Corporation, was withheld pending a performance review of community developer Ami Huffman.

Other appropriations included: $1,000 to the coroner's budget for salaries for part-time deputies; two appropriations, $3,000 and $8,000 to the sheriff's budget to cover costs for fuel and vehicle maintenance; $20,000 to the jail budget to cover medical and hospital expenses; $500 to the deferral fund to pay for new camera equipment; $100,000 for county children's psychiatric treatments; and $3,240 to the public defender's budget to cover pauper council wages.

•Tabled an appropriation of $1,777 to cover overflow costs on the victim's advocate program until councilman Fred Bailey could research it.

•Approved several fund transfers, including: a total of $23,319.15 from various sheriff and jail funds to other compensation to buy back outstanding comp time from employees; $1,000 from mileage to the gas/oil/lube fund in the building and planning budget to cover fuel costs; a total of $43,100 within the JEMS budget to cover salaries; $1,000 from the county general to the ICE program for the auditor's office; $1,110 from office supplies to office equipment in the extension office budget to cover costs of new furniture and fax machine; a total of $6,575.52 within the assessor's budget to cover personal property deputy wages; $5,117.80 within the assessor's budget to cover reassessment costs; and $2,000 to purchase office supplies in the assessor's budget.

•Informed Jay County Assessor Terry LeMaster that the personnel consultants at Waggoner, Irwin and Scheele have suggested pay grade six for the new full-time hire within his office. The council accept the firm's recommendation to set the employee's pay at that level.

•Received an update from LeMaster on the status of work in his department. LeMaster told the council his office is about halfway done with new construction reassessment work and that his employees are making rapid progress on the work.

LeMaster also told the council he would like to hire another full-time employee so he could cross-train her to handle inheritance claims. He said he would present that to the commissioners in the near future.

•Received an update from commissioner Milo Miller about progress on the jail expansion. Miller told the council they have contracted a group to do surveying work, are working to establish a contract with SchenkelShultz Architecture, are looking into additional construction management help and are making preparations for destruction of the building standing on the expansion site.[[In-content Ad]]